The Road to Somewhere Part 3 – Give me a pea please…

Hello again.

By the time you get this we will have moved sites to be a bit closer to Addenbrookes where daily visits continue to see HRH aka Trev’s Mum or Hilda. They continue to look after her and are trying to treat her various ailments. She is no doubt a lot better than when she went in but a ‘release’ date has not yet been discussed. She does seem to have accepted that she wont be able to go home to her bungalow and that a nursing home is needed. The doctor in charge of her care is – according to her, gorgeous and very good looking – qualities she has mentioned more than once - which may go some way to explaining her acquiescence. I have not seem him yet so am unable to pass judgement but good on him for managing to eventually bring her around to the idea.

Away from the hospital we haven’t done any sightseeing – unless you count the inside of the pub I guess! We caught up with some more friends Thursday evening for grog and grub – and thank you Janet, the cake was delicious – and Alan, so were the beers!

I had the day off from visiting on Friday to catch up with some blog stuff – a couple more Site Arrival videos, the link for one of which is to the site in Littleport which you’ll find below.

Normal service resumed on Saturday and after visiting her ladyship we steered Rosie in the direction of the village of Witcham in general and the White Horse in particular. Yes, another pub. However our visit was not to imbibe but to catch up with a friend who was helping out. Yeah right.

The pub is a free house and serves an ever changing selection of three real ales. Two of them I had tried before but one of the two was one of my favourites – Timothy Taylor’s Landlord. It seemed only right to check if it had travelled well down the A1 from Yorkshire. I am happy to report that it did.

The pub had a patio area at the rear and a walk through to the ‘secret’ garden – a delightful little oasis that was full of colour and a cracking place to enjoy a pint. Or two. The pictures are with my new but cheap Galaxy J3 so do not really do it justice.

Right, so a pub with real ale and a nice garden. Big deal you might think, but there’s one other feature worth a mention that will (hopefully) bring me seamlessly to next item on the agenda. The pub has a pea board. Not a dart board, but a pea board – with a marked out oche in a shelter out back. You can buy said peas and a pea shooter from behind the bar:

Why? Well, Witcham was that very weekend holding the world, yes world, Pea Shooting Championships. I kid you not. I haven’t used a pea shooter since I was  a kid – and that didn’t change this weekend - but I love stuff like this – be it welly throwing or cheese rolling, or whatever It’s what makes us so quintessentially British – and long may it continue.

So, that’s it for our stay in Littleport but before I wind this up, just a bit about the site and some pics. It’s set in 4 acres with trees dotted around providing some shade. Static caravans surround some of the site which welcomes those who camp under canvas as well as motorhomes and caravans. Dogs are welcome but children are not as it’s adults only. The River Great Ouse is just across the road and you can buy fishing permits on site and store bait in a dedicated fridge too. There is the usual shower, toilet and wash up facilities which were all kept very clean and tidy. There were no laundry facilities however. We thought it was good value for seventeen quid a night but if you want to go off grid you can save another £2.50/night.

We used the onsite WiFi which was provided by Caravan Connect. Various packages were available from an hour to a year – we bought a week for fifteen quid but bear in mind this was for once device. Of course we had the Solwise WiFi aerial and router kit so that wasn’t an issue and had one laptop, two pads and two phones connected. Download and Upload speeds were consistently around the 5Mbps mark.

Mobile networks varied when popping a SIM card in the Huawei MiFi – 3 showed 1/5 on 4G. Vodafone gave 5/5 on 3G, EE 3/5, again on 3G. O2 showed zilch. Entirely unscientific but it gives you an idea of what to expect.

Right, that’s it for now. Until the next time, thanks as always for reading.

Cheers

Rich & Trev

Site Arrival Video

The Road to Somewhere Part 2 – Fish Finger anyone?

Yes, another nice cryptic title for you, although those who have kept abreast of our exploits on Facebook and Twitter recently will know what I’m on about. If you haven’t – stay tuned.

So, what have we been up to? Well, more 65 mile round trips to Addenbrookes Hospital to see HRH a.k.a Trev’s Mum, who seems to be improving although the list of things they are finding wrong with her is growing and growing. At 91 (nearly 92 you know) it’s hardly surprising, although If she were a car going through and MOT I’d be worried. No idea yet though when she’ll be out so we’ve booked a CL site south of the city and much closer to the hospital which we’ll be moving on to Sunday. It says on the website that the nearest pub is 300 yards away, although of course that is of absolutely no interest to us. At all. In any way. Whatsoever….

We’ve been visiting in the mornings – anyone local will tell you what a nightmare getting out of Cambridge is at rush hour. So we’ve been around when lunch arrives on the ward. Yesterday Hilda had ordered fish fingers, chips and mushy peas. Imagine her face then when it turns up with one, yes just one, fish finger. The expression on her face was priceless – although one I’ve seen many times before. Incredulousness mixed with severe disapproval. The poor assistant didn’t know where to look and hurriedly returned to the mobile servery to see to see if another could be located. It couldn’t, there were none left. The withering look eased only slightly when an extra portion of pudding was promised. It made my day – mean I know – but at the same time the situation gave two clear signs that she was feeling better – appetite and moaning….

Away from the hospital, there isn’t much else to report although we have been into Littleport again and found something of interest thanks to Steve Buckley who gave us the heads up on Facebook:

It’s a statue (nothing get’s past me does it!) of a motorbike erected in 2003 to commemorate 100 years of the Harley Davidson company. All very nice but what’s that got to do with Littleport? Well, William Sylvester Harley was the co-founder of the company in the USA in 1903 and his parents – William Harley Senior and Mary Smith  - came from Littleport and emigrated around 1859.

Littleport may seem a quiet sleep place now – occasional traffic aside - but it wasn’t always the case. In May 1816 riots broke out, triggered not least by high unemployment and spiralling grain costs. A number of  - and woman were brought before the court following the riots. Some were acquitted and for those convicted, imprisonment, execution or transport to Australia followed. For a more in depth look you may want to visit the relevant Wikipedia page HERE.

That’s really been it, sightseeing wise and to be honest I’m not that bothered. It’s been nice just to relax and enjoy what summer caravanning has to offer. Chilling with a book and cooking, eating – and yes drinking – outside. Whilst Trev almost invariably cooks when we’re at home – thanks not least to our working hours, I’m happy to pick up the reins – or should that be tongs – when there is some cremating to be done. And yes, that is me not wearing a long leather coat…

After two nights of cooking ‘at home’ though it’s back to the pub tonight as we have some friends joining us that we haven’t seen for far too long. The Swan on the River is as it’s name suggests and just 400 yards or so away and across a bridge. The beers – the regular Doom Bar and the guesting Workie Ticket, all the way from Tyne & Wear – have been in excellent nick. I was really pleased to find ‘Workie’ on draught after having tried the bottled version up in Northumberland over three years ago. The other two pubs in Littleport have offered nothing new in the way of ‘research’ – more well known ales from Cornwall and from the Suffolk coast.

Right that’s it for now. Just a little one I know (Not the first time I’ve had to utter that phrase sadly….) Hopefully next time I’ll have some pictures of this lovely site for you.

Until then, cheers!