We were to meet a friend of
Carols mid June near Guildford so ended out tour of the south with a
day in Bath and another in Avebury. In Bath Carol got to go and see
the Russian Ballet Company from St Petersburg perform Swan Lake. When
she was in St Petersburg she missed seeing them perform there because
the day she went to the theatre was the one day they were having
off... Other than that we went on a walking tour of the town, saw
some buskers perform and went to the Workers Museum. In the town we
got to buy a New Zealand apple in the market. That night we drove to
Avebury and arrived in the night, for those of you unacquainted with
Avebury it is a site similar to Stonehenge but bigger and from a
slightly earlier period. It consists of an avenue of standing stones
as well as circles of them, barrows and a chalk hill. We found a
layby to park in in the dark and woke in the morning to find
ourselves parked right next to the last standing stone of the avenue!
Amazing, we had a whole day of exploring the area in beautiful
sunshine. We are never bothered by anyone when sleeping in the car,
in fact one night the police came by and shone their light into the
back where we were recumbent and asked – 'is everything alright?'
'Yes' – 'Do you usually sleep in the car?' 'Yes' – 'Where are
you from?' 'New Zealand' 'Oh, right oh, goodnight then' big smiles
and they were off on their way.
We picked Jennie up in Camberley and
headed north, not far though as she had organised for us to stay a
couple of nights with her longtime friend Verity living in a small
town near Wallingford. A great pit-stop for us as we whacked all our
washing through Verity's washer and piled into the shower and
scrubbed from top to toe. Then off to the pub for a beer and back
home for a great meal and catchups all round.
Drove Jennie to where she works in
Norfolk near Bungay and started our journey around the middle of
England. June 20th was Fathers Day over here so on that
weekend we headed off to two English Heritage sites that had events
on. Audley End, a stately home near Saffron Waldon had a random
selection of classic cars the best of which was an 1968 E-Type Jag,
and Kenilworth Castle south of Coventry had 40 or so Armstrong Sidley
classic and vintage cars which were fabulous. From there we headed
north to Bolsover Castle near Chesterfield (the town with the twisted
leaning church spire) then into the Peak District where we stumbled
upon a local car show. Held in a paddock next to a pub it was
attended by hundreds of people and hundreds of vehicles including
motorbikes and a tank! One memorable motorbike was a WW2 BMW complete
with sidecar and machinegun!!!
We decided we should head for Ireland
now before the kids are out for their school holidays which puts the
price up for everything, we will head for Scotland while the holidays
are on. We found the cheapest fares we could to take us and the car
across and ended up with a ticket from Liverpool to Dublin for the
23rd June then returning from Rosslare to Wales on the
12th July. The reason for returning on that date is to
give us a few days to explore Wales before attending a Festival of
History in the middle of England on the 17th & 18th
July.
Our £650
VW is going really well, after Kent sorting a few minor problems,
tightening the handbrake, repairing the rear door speakers and
another problem we had was a miss in the motor once it was warm and
Kent has just discovered a brake servo vacuum hose with a small split
in it which we superglued and its now running right until we can
replace the hose. As you can see from the pics its in great
condition, the engine oil is still clean even after 3,000 miles and
are getting about 35 mpg or 8 km/ltr.
