Caravan October 2022

Earlier this month I was in Bristol visiting Bailey and getting a sneak preview of the new addition to its growing stable – the Alicanto Grande Evora (see page 58). It’s always inspiring to see the work that goes into the caravans that you buy and that’s the reason I spend so much time away from my desk meeting the manufacturers. Next up, I'm in Durham at the Erwin Hymer Group and at Coachman in Hull. And, of course, in October, I hope to see many of you at the NEC. We will be there judging our Caravan of the Year awards and there’s still time for you to vote for Dealer of the Year. We're looking to hear about the dealer who has helped you out and made buying…

At Southampton’s cruise ship dock, elegant passengers emerge from a limousine as we pull up for Red Funnel’s Isle of Wight ferry. Seán insists that cruise would add a few noughts to our deal for the ferry and three nights' camping. He’s so delighted with his bargain-hunting skills it’s as if he’s stalked a prize stag, returning to our cave with it slung around his shoulders. But I would not swap the freedom of our home on wheels for anything. Our first stop is Newtown Nature Reserve. The crooked town hall beside the National Trust car park functioned for a handful of people and the odd cow when Newtown was a rotten borough. We follow the nature trail through a medieval strip field, across saltmarsh and inlets, by snowy egrets…

To be honest, I can’t remember how the conversation went, but, somehow, I was persuaded to spend our honeymoon camping in a tent on the Isle of Skye along with 14 other people! We were married in the mid-1980s, have never worried about being conventional and, beyond a cake and rings, there was little traditional about our intimate DIY wedding. All our pennies had been swallowed up with house buying and, on the big day, I was awake at dawn making quiche for lunch. There were no blushing bridesmaids and a good friend drove me to the registry office in his newly washed Vauxhall. A MOVING EVENT Due to delays in the mysterious conveyance process, the purchase of our house was completed on the eve of our wedding and so…

When I was a child, it seemed that a trip to York was like visiting a magical theme park. It had a castle on a hill and a museum where we could walk down a Victorian street complete with shops, horse-drawn cabs and lifelike figures. Close to the gigantic minster, the narrow Shambles with its overhanging timber-framed buildings was like Diagon Alley, although, of course, it was long before JK Rowling had dreamt up Harry Potter and Hogwarts. Most excitingly, we used to find our way around the city by following the walkway along the top of the city walls. Sometimes the walls would come to an abrupt halt and we would have to search for the next set of steps to take us back above the streets and rooftops.…

As we rattled along the A4260 through Oxfordshire, I spotted two large birds of prey flying low, just above the trees and hedgerows lining the side of the road. Then I saw another two, and another. With their deeply forked tails, long angled wings and distinctive colouring, they were unmistakeable – red kites. This first, exciting glimpse of the birds came just outside the medieval market town of Deddington, close to Oxfordshire’s northern border with Northamptonshire. Marlstone, an iron-rich limestone, lends the buildings here a golden-brown appearance that seemed almost to glow as we arrived on a sunny summer’s morning. Market Place is particularly striking, with the seventeenth century church tower rising behind two and three-storey buildings that date from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. One of these contains Foodies,…

The Scottish village we live in feels like the centre of the universe, so we can’t understand why our friends, Hazel and Dymtro, wanted to move away to a little town in North Yorkshire. How could it be a substitute for the dramatic scenery and close community we enjoy? Well, the only way to find out is to visit them. Naturally, we are eager to spend a sociable weekend catching up with each other, but the fact that Masham has two breweries obviously hasn’t escaped our notice. Our check-in at the Old Station Holiday Park, just outside the town, is smooth and efficient. As we’ve booked last minute, only grass pitches are left and I’m a bit concerned about getting bogged in because it’s been a wet autumn. Fortunately, the…