Stonehaven

 I think it's fair to say that I've fallen more than a little bit in love with Stonehaven.

Perhaps it's because it's the first destination we've visited with the Road Snail for quite some time, but actually I think it's also that this self-styled "happening little place" really is something a little bit special. Indeed, I can't remember when I've taken to a place more quickly.

We arrived up the A90 after what I can only describe as a freakishly easy journey north. I mean, we drove up past Glasgow on the last Saturday of the 2014 Commonwealth Games and there was still no traffic to speak of. Seriously, we were beginning to wonder if everyone else knew something we didn't...

The Caravan Club site is situated in Queen Elizabeth Park (about which more later) at the northern end of the town, about five yards from the beach. Not even exaggerating, it's literally on the other side of the road. Indeed, as we staggered out of the car (it had been an easy drive, but it had still taken the better part of nine hours and our legs were not all that keen to straighten - one of the hazards of getting to your forties, I'm afraid) one of the first things we noticed was the wonderfully evocative smell of salt and seaweed. And the sound of gulls - but more about them later too.

The Caravan Club site is pretty much brand spanking new. I understand from some of the reviews that there has been a caravan site there for some years, but that the Club has only recently taken it on and refurbished the place. Certainly the toilet/shower block, utilities points and warden's hut are all brand new - and they're all excellent, as indeed are the wardens, who could not have been more welcoming.

From the gates of the site to the beach is a walk of about eight feet - to your left a mix of sand and rocky outcrops dotted with rockpools at low tide. To the right a swathe of sand and shingle stretching all the way to the harbour at the southern end of the town, about a mile and a bit away.

Should you choose to venture to the right, the walk immediately takes you past a 1930's salt water Lido, a magnificent ice cream emporium, an award winning chippy (or "chipper", as they seem to be known up in those parts) and a nice little restaraunt. More about all of those in a later post - and you haven't even walked two hundred yards yet...

The walk south along the front takes you along a pleasant board walk, past a couple of cafes and B&Bs, as well as a range of residential property. At some point, not too long ago  a great deal of effort must have been invested in this footpath.

There are a number of wire framed sculptures, like this dolphin, and swathes of wild flowers were planted.

The sculptures are brilliant, but I think it's fair to say that the wildflowers have suffered somewhat from the ravages of time, tide and winter storms. We were there in the middle of August, and some of the displays of poppies were truly spectacular, but there were also some expanses of gravelly scrub where wildflowers might once have been.

This in no way detracted from the overall impression though, because you're still walking within a few feet of the sea, along a magnificent bay, towards a beautiful harbour.

The first part of the harbour you come across by this route is not only blessed with ice cream shops and the very highly regarded Ship Inn (which I regret I cannot provide a review for because we didn't get a chance to visit, but it was recommended by everyone we spoke to and has four and a half stars on Trip Advisor, so it must be doing soemthing right) but also a beautiful little stretch of golden sandy beach. Further on the harbour is basically mud, but I don't think I went down to the harbour once when there weren't at least a few families with young children buidling sandcastles. It felt like the seaside used to be - not a burger van or amusement arcade in sight, just a lot of people having a really great time.

The "Mudflat" half of the harbour has its own attractions. The water is very clear, and at low tide very shallow. This means that you might get lucky and see a fish or two swimming around. I must've spent nearly an hour watching the flatfish in the photo to the right wandering about on the floor of the harbour. I have no idea what type of fish it was (if you do, please let me know in the comments...) but it was truly fascinating. It didn't swim so much as walk around on its fins.

The harbour is also the home of the Tolbooth Museum, a volunteer run repository of the town's history. There are some fascinating displays of local ephemera and the display cases are (almost) literally full to bursting, which is perhaps slightly to the detriment of the establishment, in that it has clearly made it difficult for the curators (who are volunteers remember, so also time limited) to organise the eclectic collection coherently, which means that it does give the slight impression of being a big bunch of interesting stuff, rather than a carefully assembled assortment of artefacts presented to explain how things used to be. This is, however, not much of a criticism. The staff are incredibly friendly and more than happy to engage the interested visitor in conversation about times past. It's only open in the afternoons,and it's well worth a hour of your time. Even better, entry is free.

Occupying the first floor of the Tolbooth - which incidentally is regarded as the oldest building in Stonehaven, having been originally constructed to house stores for nearby Dunnottar Castle (about which, more in a future post) - is the Tolbooth Restaurant. This is somewhere else we kept meaning to try - but it was always busy and given that I don't like seafood all that much and Mrs Snail is allergic to most of it we never did try all that hard. Again, the reviews would seem to suggest that this is our loss...

If you continue your walk south from Stonehaven Harbour, the path takes you up a steep hill to the Stonehaven War Memorial which stands like a crown on the hill above the town.

Beyond there, the path takes you further along the rather impressive cliffs towards the equally Dunottar Castle. For now, we'll pause on our journey and look at the view. Next time though, we'll go and take a look at the castle which dominates the cliffs to the south.

Grummore to Kylesku.Enjoy the ride!

If you read the last posting here you'll already know that we spent most of our most recent sojourn to the wonderful Strathnaver area paddling on the Loch, bird watching and ducking whenever the RAF flew over (or occasionally under) us. But you simply cannot go to such an outstanding area of natural beauty and not want to get out into the landscape, so we did venture off on the occasional tour of the countryside.

When you decide to do this you realise two things. The first is that you have to drive rather a long way to actually get to anywhere. The second is that because of this, you might as well go anywhere. Grummore is almost exactly bang slap in the middle of the north of Scotland. The West Coast is an hour and a half or so away. So is the East Coast. The North Coast is a little closer, but on this particular day we decided to head west, with the ultimate aim of hitting the wonderful Kylesku Hotel for lunch.

So, off we set. A sharp left turn out of the campsite and then away we went. It's about eighty miles from Grummore to Kylesku, depending on the route you take, although there are no shortcuts in this part of the world. Whichever way you go though, if you keep your eyes open there's a lot to see. If only there was a way to condense the trip into five minutes or so.

Oh, hang on:

Hang on a little longer...

OK, yes, I have a new app on my phone that does time lapse videos, but for some reason Blogger won't upload it. You can view it on YouTube here though.You might see a few more of these if I can get Blogger to behave, it was rather fun. i should just confirm that no speed limits were broken in the production of the video...

Gimmicks aside though, it's nice to be able to show you some of the splendour of the landscape I keep banging on about. There are several unlabelled pauses on the video which were basically caused by either myself or Mrs Snail spotting something interesting. Usually it was either a buzzard or a group of red deer - it's not clear on the video but at the point where we stop to look at Red Deer a whole flock of them had run across the road in front of us. A truly magnificent sight - most of them were young stags, so it was a bit like watching a bewintered forest running up the hill.

We also stopped at the southern end of Loch More to watch some newly arrived Whooper Swans (and yes, I got the spelling wrong on the video) gliding along in a most stately fashion. I'm rather fond of swans, and these massive migrants - the largest swans in the northern hemisphere - were an unexpected delight. They're not a terribly common breed in this part of the world, but they really are magnificent.

Beyond Loch More you come out onto the  A894 and turn south. The immediate thing you notice is that suddenly you're driving on a road that has two lanes! After so many miles on single track it genuinely tales a minute or two to get used the the idea that you don't need to slow down and work out where the next passing place is when you see somebody coming the other way...

The road takes you south, through the little village of Scourie - which boasts a very fine General Store, a useful thing to know in this land without supermarkets - and then on to the viewpoint above Kylestrome and then the viewing point for the beautiful Kylesku Bridge. I banged on at some length about this sleek masterpiece of concrete engineering and the ferry service it replaced in a previous post so for now I'll just show you what it looks like:

Nice, innit?

We didn't pause here just to look at the bridge though. The car park also accommodates a memorial to the brave men of the Royal Navy who used the cold waters of the Lochs to train in the operation of

midget submarines and manned torpedoes during the Second World War.

The midget subs were crewed by four men and carried was used to place two ton charges beneath enemy ships. Claustrophobe that I am, I can't imagine anything worse.

The "Manned Torpedo" was even more insane, although at least clautrophobia wouldn't have been an issue. Basically two blokes in diving gear sat astride a great big torpedo and rode it up to the target before detaching the warhead.

The memorial carries the names of the submariners involved, and a brief description of the vessels

they used. As was the case with the Commando training around Spaen Bridge the locals kept the aquatic goings on here secret even after the war. This memorial was not erected until 1993, and that was mostly because the activities of the XII Submarine Flotilla was classified for many years after hostilities ceased.

Beyond the bridge, it is a matter of a few hundred yards to the car park by the Kylesku Hotel where we had a fine meal and some unexpected conversation - about which, more next time.

Meanwhile, back in Strathnaver...

I've told you about the Caravan Club's excellent site at Grummore/Altnaharra before. I've even taken you for a bit of a stroll around the place in a posting when we took the the Road Snail up there early last summer. Last week's post was mostly written while I sat by the bonnie banks of Loch Naver enjoying the endless changes of light and looking for the Eagle which everyone else claimed to see "almost daily". Regrettably as I write this I'm back at home, the Snail is on the drive and what I have to consider "real life" has resumed.

I hate it when it does that.

Still, our eight night stay was a spectacularly good one - the theme of the week would appear to have been "rainbows", as the heady mix of sunshine and showers meant we saw several of them. Indeed, as we travelled north from Bunree along the Great Glen a rainbow actually chased us the full ten mile length of Loch Lochy.

It's a four hour drive from Bunree to Grummore, but an early start meant we got there before lunch and were sitting lochside with a glass of wine by early afternoon. In the rain. And high winds. Seriously, Loch Naver was so rough there were actually breaking waves - you could have surfed it! But do you know what? We really didn't care. We were greeted by the perennially cheerful warden and another rainbow before settling down to enjoy the view.

This was a different raimbow later in the week. This is the view though...

That really was the pattern of the week. We went on the odd excursion - more of which in a later post - but the majority of our time was spent on and around the site watching birds, ogling the view and pottering about on our little inflatable kayak. 

Enoch (so named because it perpetually leans to the right) is a new addition to our equipment list, bought with the express intention of spending some time afloat on Loch Naver. In truth we'd have vastly preferred a more solid boat but the inflatable was sturdy enough and was much, much easier to fit into the car! 

If I'm honest my cunning plan was to use the kayak to paddle over to the broch located on a small island on the other side of Loch Naver. By all accounts it's in a much better state of preservation than the example to be found on the site itself, which if we're honest is essentially a pile of rubble. This turned out to be a little ambitious however. A quarter of a century ago as a younger, fitter Venture Scout I did a lot of kayaking and got to be reasonably good at it. While I soon found that the skills hadn't left me, after twenty five years of relative inactivity it seems that my upper body strength really had. The broch was clearly a little over-ambitious so we restricted ourselves to the aforementioned pottering about. 

It was still wonderful - as proof I submit this waterbourne video of absolutely nothing happening.

 

Lolling about on the water was terribly relaxing though, and we'll get to the broch next time...

Life on the site is the epitome of relaxation really - although if you have an interest in birds of 'planes, a relaxation which is punctuated by moments of intense excitement. Strath Naver is often used by the Royal Airforce, and indeed airforces of other nations, for training purposes and the sight of fast jets skimming down the loch is not unusual. They are often eye-wateringly low, which from my perspective as a 'plane nut is all to the good.

Obviously the R.A.F. operates a minimum altitude policy, and even here, which must surely qualify as one of the least built up areas in the country fixed wing aircraft are forbidden to fly below 100 feet and I would hate to suggest that any pilots would ever breach that. All I'm saying is that after a little saunter up the hill in the middle of the week we were there I had the immense privilage of watching an R.A.F. C-130 Hercules transport 'plane pass below me as it made its way along the strath.

This was actually the third C-130 we'd seen over the week, two more having come over at roughly the same height a day or two earlier. We were also lucky enough to see several Tornado GR-4s doing their thing, also flying deliciously low.

Again, I would never suggest that pilots of Her Majesty's forces would ever fly below the limit. I do however have two things on good authority. The first is that once they drop into the Strath 'planes are off radar and so their bosses can't be sure how high they are. The second is that several reliable witnesses claim to have seen an R.A.F. Typhoon fly down the loch so low that it left a wake. 

We're going to pause for a moment to reflect on how magnificent that is*.

The 'planes aren't the only attraction though. Me and Mrs Snail also love to watch the birds, and Loch Naver is a magnificent place to spot our avian friends. I've mentioned the birdfeeder we carry around with us before, and as ever at this site it was perpetually swarming with Chaffinch, Siskin and Blue Tits. We also had slightly less regular visits from Wheatears, Pied Wagtails and, erm, Sheep:

They like birdseed. Who knew?

I already mentioned the eagle that everybody else saw "almost daily". We're pretty sure we caught a couple of glimpses of a Golden Eagle, but never saw it clearly enough to be absolutely sure. A White Tailed Sea Eagle has also been sighted on the loch, but so far we've never had so much as a glimpse of it.

We have, however, on many occasions seen pairs the rare Red Throated Diver, and the even rarer Black Throated variety - both of which we were privillaged to see again on this trip. The real ornathological highlight of the week however came not at Grummore but on a trip to the East Coast - so I'll save that story for a later post.

The real star of the show though, is always that view. I could happily spend a week sitting looking at it with a glass of wine in one hand and a pair of binoculars in the other...

...I mean seriously - look at that!

One windless frosty morning we even woke up to see "sundogs":

See them? Either side of the sun...

The most astonishing spectacle provided by the view came on our last day, however. We had been scheduled to leave on the saturday, but we were enjoying ourselves so much that we extended for an extra night which meant we left on Easter Sunday 2014.

I have to say, we were initially disappointed. We raised the blinds that morning to be greeted by thick fog - not only could we not see across the loch, we couldn't see the loch itself! 

Feeling more than a little chagrined that we were to be deprived of one last look at the beauty of Loch Naver and Ben Klibreck we began the "packing up routine". As we did so, however, the fog began to burn off. As it thinned glimpses of the opposite shore began to appear, and then, this:

I have no idea what to call it. It's not a rainbow - a "fogbow" I guess? Here's how it fitted into the general view:

Pretty, itsn't it? The phenomenon only lasted a few minutes before the sun climbed a little higher nad the fog thinned a little more.

By the time we were hitched up and ready to go we were once again bathed in brilliant sunshine beneath a gin clear sky. Strathnaver is a hard place to leave when it's like that, but I suppose if you don't leave you can never go back, and going back is something we're already looking forward to.

*And yes, before anybody says it, of course such things totally upset the peace and tranqulity of the area. But they only do it for a few seconds at a time, and a jet at twenty feet isn't noticeably louder than a jet at one hundred feet. They have to train, and frankly  - given that most of the time flying low makes our pilots less likely to attract hostile fire, I'm happy for them to fly as fast and as low as they like.

Getting away again - Eating in Onich.

We would normally have been out and about with our little house on wheels a couple of times at least by this time of year. This year however circumstances have dictated a later start to the Road Snail's season, which is why posts have been so thin on the ground around here lately.

We really can't put off our first foray into the highlands any longer though, so as I write we're pitched up at the Altnaharra (nee Grummore) Caravan Club site on the banks of Loch Naver in the central Highlands. 

As ever, we didn't come here in one bounce, following the long high road to Bunree just south of Fort William for a two night stop over on the way.

Now, I've talked at length about Bunree before, so I won't waste your time repeating myself. The site is still a real gem of a place, nestling against the shores of Loch Linnhe just to the west of the Corran Narrows.  

Once again we were lucky enough to secure a lochside pitch, and were quite content to spend our one full day in Lochaber looking at the view watching the boats sail past. 

We did need to eat though, and we find it impossible to stay so close to the magnificent spectacle of Glencoe without driving through it a couple of times, so after a lazy start we set out into a grey overcast morning to see what we could see.

Glencoe never disappoints - whatever the weather, whatever the season, whatever the time of day there is always something to catch the eye. On this occasion it was the sheer volume of water cascading down the slopes of the Glen. Great white torrents roared and gurgled from the melting snow on the peaks down every stream and channel, swollen still further by the not inconsequential rainfall "enjoyed" by this part of Scotland in recent months.

From there we ventured a little way down the picturesque Glen Etive and spent an entertaining half hour watching a group of canoeists shooting an impressive set of rapids. Well, I say shooting the rapids - they were clearly new to the sport and what they were mostly doing was falling in with a flurry of paddle and a slightly shocked expression. They did it with enthusiasm though...

The time was ticking inexorably on towards lunch o'clock - which regular readers may remember is pretty much the most important time of day aboard the Road Snail, so we left the canoe novice s to their literal baptism into their chosen sport and headed back into the great gouge of Glencoe in search of food.

Regular readers may remember the meal we had at the duck egg blue "Glencoe Gathering", which we enjoyed in spite of the fact that one of the lumps of chicken in her kebab was raw in the middle. That's the kind of kitchen faux pas that would without question normally ensure that we'd never even consider returning, so the fact that we did consider giving the place another go should tell you something about how much we liked it.

On this occasion however we decided to try somewhere new. The site at Bunree sits a fraction north of the little settlement of Onich, which means that over the years we've driven past the Onich Hotel many, many times and every time we've done so we've said "we should try lunch there sometime" but for some reason never had.

This trip we decided to rectify that. We'd heard good reports of the place, and as we pulled into their little lochside carpark our expectations were high. 

The hotel sits demurely on the shoreline of Loch Linnhe, it's neatly kept gardens leading down to a small crescent of beach set in a sheltered bay. We made our way through the main doors into a dimly lit lobby and were directed into the restaurant. "We normally serve lunches in the lounge bar, but we've a wedding in toady" explained the smiling waitress who showed us to our seats.

The restaurant was a long narrow room with one wall taken up almost entirely with windows offering views of the loch which on a fine day must be stunning. Since we were there on a gloomy day of slate grey water, steel grey skies and drizzle filled air our attention was focused more on the interior and our corridor like surroundings.

They were, to be frank, little more inspiring than the weather beyond the window. Everything was clean, but the decor could most generously be described as "tired". The dark floral print curtains were a little faded and nothing quite matched anything else.  

Things started to look up when the menus arrived however. Even before we read them they were impressive documents. Each was a large rectangle of card printed on one side with the bill fayre on one side and a beautifully composed photograph of the small standing stone which occupies a nearby field on the other. Clearly whoever designed the menu has not yet been let loose on the interiors. If they ever are I confidently predict that the results will be spectacular.

Far more important than what a menu looks like of course is what it actually says. We've seen many a flash looking menu in places where the the food has been dull - you always have to beware of places where style is given priority over quality. I wasn't worried though - if this were an establishment which placed style over substance they would have redecorated a decade ago. No, this this is a menu that got even better when you read it. Whoever put that collection of dishes together really cared about food, which of course makes them our kind of people.

Perhaps it was because this was the first real day of our first excursion of the year, but I was feeling extravagant enough to plump for a rib-eye steak. Because she is more sophisticated than me Mrs Snail opted for a Bourgenoin style shin of beef. Because she isn't much more sophisticated than me she did, however, ask if she could have it with chips rather than the fondant potatoes the chef prescribed.

When the food arrived it surpassed every expectation. I'd ordered my steak medium, which seems to be something chefs of all calibres seem to struggle with. Rare and extra rare seem to be the default position, and if you order well done they just assume you have no idea and cook it 'till it's like boot leather.

Medium though, that they all seem to struggle with. Over the years I've been served "medium" steak that has been rare enough for a good vet to get back on its feet, and so overcooked and dried up that it would have served as body armour. 

This though, this was perfectly judged. Just the faintest hint of pink in the middle,  juicy and succulent and bursting with flavour. It was accompanied by crisp golden chips, roasted tomatoes and a pile of garlic mushrooms that were almost as meaty as the steak itself. 

Mrs Snail's shin of beef was even more impressive. Shin is not the easiest cut to cook well, but this was spot on. Slow cooked and literally falling apart at the merest touch of the fork, served on a pool of thick and unctuous sauce. 

Both meals were unbelievably good. We're a demanding audience where food is concerned and we were totally blown away. About the only criticism I can level at the place is the fact that I couldn't wash it all down with my customary glass of Coke.

The hotel has a passable wine list - as she doesn't drive Mrs Snail was able to enjoy a juicy Shiraz with lunch. As I'm always driving wine is never on my lunch menu. I don't really mind this because I have a passion for Coca-Cola which borders on the unhealthy. Sadly the Onich Hotel offers only Pepsi, which I'm afraid just won't do at all, or worse something on draft referred to as "Cola", which generally speaking is an abomination.

As a result I was forced to go for the tea totallers default beverage and have a glass of lemonade. It's a long time since I had lemonade. I can't imagine it's an experience I'll repeat any time soon...

That's a pretty churlish criticism though. The bottom line is that the Onich Hotel was spectacular and we'll definitely be returning.

Then it was off to what I still think of as the real Highlands. More on that next time - hope to see you all then.

Stuff and nonsense!

Hello! Once again, the days are lengthening, the nights are shortening, there are rumours that water might, at some point in the future, stop falling from the sky. It is time for the Road Snail to emerge blinking from winter hibernation into the dazzling light of the dawning new season.

Sorry. I'm feeling poetic, what can I say?

Anyway. Traditionally we'd be taking the 'van away for a few days at the end of February, but somehow we've ended up with too many things to get done at home, so our lovely 2007 Lunar Quasar 462 remains parked up on the drive of Snail Towers and I've been turning my attention to the equipment we drag around the country with us. Surely some of it is surplus to requirements? Let's start with the front locker and go from there.

OK. We open up the front and what do we have?

Two BP Gaslight bottles. I've always wondered whether we really need two of these. I mean, a full one has been known to last us a full season, so we could save some space and some weight by not carrying them both around. It'd be 5kg off the nose weight for a start! I just wouldn't quite dare though. We go to places where the nearest refil is a couple of hours away, and we have had the "damn, the oven's gone out" experience in the middle of cooking a roast - not being able to nip outside and conntect the other bottle in those circumstances would be a real disaster - they're our hot water, our heating and in the event of battery power they're our fridge too...

And yes, I know we could avoid such a situation by being organised and knowing how much gas is in the bottle. People who know me know that's never going to happen, so two bottles it is, let's move on - what else is in there?

My beloved "briefcase" barbecue. Folds totally flat, more than enough grill space for the two of us, lasted us three years now, stored in a custom case I made out of a section of old windbreak and some gaffer tape. Speaking of which, the current windbreak is also in here, largely because it won't fit anywhere else. We don't use it often, but it comes in handy when we're parked up alongside windswept Scottish lochs.

Also in the front locker, the bottle jack, kept for the nightmare scenario of having to change a wheel at the roadside, the toilet chemicals, the hook-up cable and the TV ariel cable you occasionally need to use at sites with poor reception. We could ditch the TV cable - we use it maybe twice a year - but I know that if I took it out I'd forget to put it back in again. All that's left is the little bag (also made of a piece of old windbreak) that houses all the essential bits and bobs like the wheel nut wrench and the spirit level. So, not all exactly indespensible, but nothing I'd want to do without.

The only other externally accessible storage is the "wet locker". When we're travelling this is where our walking boots live. It's handily situated to be inside the awning, if we had an awning, which we don't. It also houses an external electric socket and a gas point for a gas powered barbecue. Now, if we're talking about non essential items, the gas barbecue hook-up has to be right at the top of the list. It might just be me, but I've never seen the point of a gas barbecue. So far as I'm concerned a barbecue is a thing that burns either wood or carcoal. A gas barbecue is a glorified camping stove, and I really just don't see the point.

Anyway, the wet locker is also where I keep the bird feeder and birdfood.

Don't look at me like that.

Well, OK, I know what you mean. I too used to look at the people who erected bird feeders outside their caravans and think "why?". And then I realised how much time we spent in the 'van watching the local avian life and enjoying comparing the species in different places. So we started putting out a few scraps of this or that to attract them closer to the windows. Turns out the caravan makes an excellent bird hide.

So, one very wet day at the Bunree Caravan Club Site we decided to take the plunge and set out to get a proper bird feeder. Turns out that these are harder to obtain in Fort William (the nearest town) than you'd think, but we eventually found something suitable in the local Argos store and its been with us ever since. As you can see, we've had many little feathered friends take advantage of it, in all sorts of places...

 Siskins at Ravenglass

A Bullfinch at Grummore

A Great Tit at Grummore on a glorious sunny day

A very stately Hooded Crow strolling around Dunnet Bay

Blue Tits and a Bullfinch

So yeah, we like the bird feeder. While acknowledging that it makes us look more than a little bit old, but we don't care.

So, that's the outside storage sorted out - what do we keep on the inside?

Obviously there is all the usual crockery, cutlery, food and bedding jiggery-pokery. The radio (permanently tuned to Radio 4) is built in and much used. It has a CD player too, but that's a little tempremental so as a rule we leave that alone. There's usually a selection of books in there, and there's always a copy of the complete works of Jane Austen, a collection of Arthur C. Clarke short stories and a Collins Dictionary to settle any disputes arising from the travel scrabble that also resides in there.

I don't want us to sound too intellectual. We do, these days, also carry a TV. 

Now. 

When we bought the caravan in 2007 we swore we wouldn't. And we didn't, for quite a while. It was the Olympics that made us do it. We set off for our summer holidays in 2012 the day after the opening ceremony of the London Olympics and intended to watch the games through a laptop using a TV stick. However, the software for the stick crashed almost immediately and we were faced with either buying a TV or not watching the games.

Well, not watching the games wasn't an option - the Olympics has been something of an obsession for me for most of my life (the first games I have any memory of were the Monteal Games in '76 - I was 4, which makes them amongst my very earliest memories) so we decided on taking some drastic action and I headed out to buy a telly.

It turns out to be surprisingly difficult to buy a telly in Stratford-upon-Avon (which is where we were pitched) at half past five on a Saturnday, but I eventually found an ASDA store and bought a little Polaroid flat screen. It's been with us everwhere since, although the lack of signal in alot of the places we visit means it isn't always useful and to be honest if we didn't have it we wouldn't miss it.

The laptop I referred to earlier, however...

Well, for a start, how do you think I write this blog when we're on the road? I can do it on my 'phone, adn have done, but a full size screen is also good to have. Assuming the TV stick works it's also a handy TV backup/replacement, plays DVDs and CDs, and gives us access to things like i-Player and (far more importantly) weather forecasts. Again, we can do these things on the 'phone - which we also always have - but the laptop is just too useful to be without.

So that's us.

What can't you live without on the road?