Trying to get to Anglesey September 2021
After a very short 5 weeks at work, Mel and I are off to Anglesey and North Wales for a whole two weeks and we are pretty excited! Mel really needs a break as she is having a tough time at work and helping to care for her mum who has dementia is draining to say the least. Obviously, this is balanced positively by having the pleasure of caring for me!
My work is going well but I am never going to say no to another break, and I am looking forward to the trip away with Mel. Rest and relaxation are always good and I for one sleep better in Ethel than at home in my bed. I know Mel is not on top form as the kitchen at home is not looking like we are moving house and I feel very unprepared for leaving in the morning.
Saturday arrives and its as if it is Christmas morning and we are about 7 years old as we are both awake at 5am. We decide to get up and leave as early as we can as it is over 4 hours to drive to our stopover at Chester caravan club site.
Very quickly, I start to get stressed. I don’t know why this happens but it always does and I don’t realise until I am already in the midst of grumpiness. Why is it taking so long to load up, why are we taking the kitchen sink, why is Mel insisting on cleaning the house from top to bottom when it is going to be empty for 2 weeks?
It doesn’t help that yesterday, when I stepped out of Ethel, some numpty who was cycling down the path (illegally I might add), cycled straight into me and then didn’t even stop. I went flying and then panicked that someone might have seen me fall looking like a tumbling weeble rather than a fainting ballerina. The aftermath of this inelegant experience was that I was feeling pretty sore. Electric bikes are heavy, tins of baked beans are heavy and in the end, I decided that everything we take away with us is heavy. My mood was not improving.
But, at 8.30am, a whole 30 minutes before my planned launch time, we were ready to go. I turned the key excitedly only to find that the reversing camera was dead. I had knocked the mirror yesterday but didn’t switch it on and so hadn’t realised I had broken it. Black mood deepens whilst Mel finds rubber bands to attach it to the sun visor out of the way so I can use the ancient ‘normal’ rear view mirror instead.
Next, after fighting our way through the traffic on the roundabout (any of you who are local will know my pain) and whilst travelling at speed (Ethel’s speed) down the A331, one of the rear indicators blows. We only fixed it yesterday and there was no way we could drive for the next two weeks without a left rear indicator working properly. Mel gently suggests we need to go to Halfords and I, through gritted teeth agree. Turning around at the Aldershot roundabout sends sat nav lady into a panic. She thinks we are not following the prescribed route and we need to turn around NOW. As mentioned in a previous blog, Mel is a technophobe and I realise that there is little point asking her to find the off switch. Therefore, I dangerously lean across the dashboard fumbling for the button whilst staying in my lane and not killing us both.
In the end, the best part of the whole day was meeting the lovely guy at Halfords who, sensing how close I am to a breakdown. quickly found out what the problem was and fixed it without any charge. I smiled even though he was probably feeling sorry for the poor old dears.
I have written 587 words and we haven’t even left Surrey.
Sat nav lady is permitted to talk again although I am not sure why I gave her the job as clearly I knew better. For some unknown reason, I completely ignored her instruction to join the M3 towards London and instead decided to head towards Reading. Big mistake. I thought that she would pick up the new journey and ask me to join the M4 at Reading. On this route, I at least would see Ariadne who is my second love. She is the enormous EDF wind turbine and rather like seeing a buzzard, she makes my heart soar. As a punishment for not obeying her, sat nav lady decides that I am not worthy of seeing Ariadne and takes us the longest, most complicated route she possibly could and we end up going across the country before being permitted to join a motorway – but it was the M6!
Mel falls asleep leaving me to listen to Greatest Hits radio sounding particularly tinny as it is playing on my phone as Ethel’s radio has packed up. As she is noisy and the music is so feeble, it is pointless. We get to Birmingham quite easily but then we grind to a halt. Traffic, traffic, and more traffic. Like most people, I am not a fan of queuing and so I start a game of working out which lane is moving fastest. If it is not the one I’m in, then we need to move. But as soon as I move, the old lane starts moving faster. Do I change again? Should I, shouldn’t I? I am faced with the biggest dilemma known to man/women. Mel wakes up and I question whether there should be a scientific study into the likelihood of lane 1,2,3,4,5 or 6 moving the fastest. Mel doesn’t really understand what I am going on about and goes back to sleep.
I spot a lorry who seems to have the answer to my questions, and I tuck in behind him (oops – stereotypically I have assumed the driver is male). When he moves lanes, I do and for a while, it seems to work, and we pick up speed and beat all the BMW drivers. I gloat inside! The game must stop though as our junction is coming up and I silently wave at the rear end of my friendly lorry.
We stop at the services and another of the meaning of life questions pops into my head; why is the motorhome parking the furthest from the services? This is particularly true when I am desperate for a wee! We fall out of the cab seized up in one shape and walk like cowboys to the toilets.
Back on the road and when we come off the motorway somewhere ‘up north’ we start playing the game known as ‘which way are we going at the next roundabout?’ It seems that no matter where we go in the country, the normal exit off a roundabout is the 2nd one. We found this in our last trip out when we went to Lincolnshire and the same is today. After a while we start to get a bit bored and go back to the ‘yellow car’ game again. You can tell we are getting tired.
After yet another stint on a random motorway, we turn into our home for the night, and I instantly remember why I prefer to stay on a small basic site than a formal Caravan Club one. The caravan club sites are so sterile and so full of rules including:
- You must park with the rear corner of your ‘outfit’ in line with the peg.
- You must not walk across the grass near another van.
- You must use a weird scraping thing on the floor after using the shower.
- You must not breathe.
Ok, the last one isn’t strictly true.
Now, Mel and I aren’t spring chickens but compared to the lot on this site, we feel very young. I am sure they are sitting in their chairs giving me a score out of ten for my reversing skills. They probably get their ruler out to measure the distance I am from the peg. We also think they are looking at us and whispering ‘have you seen them? They are two women!’ The caravan club is not very diverse, and it appears that most members are white, British and most definitely heterosexual. At least we gave them something to talk about!
There is one advantage though for staying on a CC club for a stopover and that is the showers. They are always clean and always hot. Some of the little sites have showers which are nothing more than a dribble.
But, after 6 hours of driving, I am too tired to care and after a quick walk to Sainsburys to buy Mel some cake (shock, horror – Mel forgot to bring cake!), we head for bed looking forward to the next day when we are heading for Anglesey.
2LadiesTravelling 