We arrived at 1 pm. Check-in was in the skyline pavilion which is a big top tent. Immediately it felt like I had walked into Circus-Circus one of the older casinos in Vegas. It really had that vibe about it. But rather that slot machines, there were arcade games. You know, the multilayered coin games where it looks like it’s going to drop any minute but it never does? That’s the level of gambling going on here.

Check-in was super easy and we got our big envelope containing our welcome pack. But we couldn’t go to our room until 5pm. So we went back to our van to look inside our pack, excited there might be goodies inside.

But when we opened it, it was a little disappointing. That big envelope contained only two wrist bands and two key cards.

At 5pm, we were finally able to see our room. And holy crap it stunk. Real bad, like someone had pissed on the floor bad. In hindsight we should have complained straight away, but by this time it was 5.30pm, we were due at Ems and Nicks place for dinner and we had a show to see that night.

Included in the Butlins ticket is accommodation, shows and rides. We paid 300 pounds for 4 nights, which seems pretty good value considering all that is included. The accommodation we chose is basic, just a room, with a bathroom and a jug and mugs. And if it didn’t smell it would have been fine.

Ems and Nick have much nicer accommodation. Theirs is a 3 bedroom apartment with a kitchen. But it was still pretty dirty. Ems spent most of the afternoon cleaning it. I don’t think Butlins put much effort into cleaning here which is pretty shocking.

The evening entertainment was a show called Theatre of Rock which I really enjoyed. Then came the part I was dreading. Going back to our room.

I don’t think I got any sleep at all as I was constantly gagging on the smell. And I kept on thinking how it would be infusing into all our clothes and bags and stuff. We’d brought our cereal into the room with us, but there was no way in hell I would be eating in there.

By the time 4am rolled around and the seagulls started making a racket, I’d had enough.

‘I’m going to go sleep in Bertie,’ I said to Mike who was also restless.

So we picked up ALL our stuff and started trudging back to Bertie at 4.30am. It was still dark and as I came around the corner a guy dressed all in black gave me a fright. I thought he might have been a security guard, although I hadn’t seen one so far.

‘Checking out out early?’ he asked, noticing us loaded up with our backpacks.

‘Nah, just out for an early morning hike,’ I replied, knowing we probably shouldn’t be sleeping on our van.

But he wasn’t a security guard. He was just looking for somewhere to buy a fizzy drink.

We’d parked Bertie at the far end of the carpark in the dark. We crawled inside and didn’t even bother making the bed up. Luckily Berties day set-up has two single beds, so we collapsed and passed out. We were home again.

It rained! Really, it did! Overnight. I woke up and it was all damp outside.

As a result, my nose was streaming. Mike’s had hay fever for a couple of days, and now I have it.

Just some observations from the campground here. People clearly aren’t touring, they come and set up for a week or more I am guessing.

They all have an awning or some sort, which I understand, but the thing that gets me is the clothesline. Not simply a piece of rope like we have that stashes away neatly and has multiple uses. But a proper full on rotator clothesline like you would have in your back yard at home. And absolutely EVERYBODY has one! (They must have been on special at the motorhome show.)

We were both really tired today so we had a quiet day, resting up ready for this weeks adventure at Butlins! I’m not sure whether I am looking forward to it or not.

It has finally cooled down enough to not be a sweaty mess 24 hours a day. We even had our jumpers on this morning and evening.

It’s nice getting up in the morning and being able to boil up our kettle outdoors. There are a load of pigeons here and they are noisy. If you watched our video a few weeks ago, Mike heard the birds saying “can you hear me?”

I hear the pigeons talking too. They are saying “I can’t do poo poo” over and over again. Then they proceed to crap all over the van.

It was supposed to rain today so I spent the day getting a video edited. We probably should have gone out and done something as it didn’t rain at all.

We tried for a healthy day today, starting with a banana, mango and salad smoothie, but the day got progressively worse from there. We had bacon and eggs for lunch, followed by chippies and then some chocolate. And a third coffee.

Not much else happened.

It’s my birthday!

We had a plan for today. Most of it failed.

We started by taking a walk to a nearby town called Winsford. We had a list of elaborate instructions written on paper and a map with lots of useless squiggly lines.

It started off ok, alongside the river, then through a few houses, but then we ended up on farmland. Now, farmland is my least of all favourite places to walk. But, we persisted, in the heat, no shade, opening and closing gates.

But when I got bitten by a horse fly, I decided that was enough. I’ve been bitten by these guys before and they have caused great big welts and were the most painful bite I have ever had. Plus the walk was boring as hell. So after only 30 minutes, we backtracked. It turned out to be a great decision.

I hadn’t wanted to drive anywhere on my birthday, but we decided to head to a little town called Withypool for a cream tea. (Not Devonshire as we are in Sommerset). As it turned out, we’d be driving through the town we’d planned on walking to, so we could see what it was like. As we drove towards the town we saw a couple from camp, ploughing along the road towards it. Suckers.

The town itself was nothing special. Some thatched cottages, a pub and that was about it. So we drove on through, eager to find our cream tea.

We arrived at Withypool and this was a charming little town with a river running through it, and the tea rooms.

We both ordered a cream tea each, whereas one to share would have been more sensible. A giant scone came out with a large tub of clotted cream which looked more like clotted arteries. And two types of jam, strawberry and a blue one. Oh, and a big pot of tea. I was a bit disappointed they had tea bags in it and not tea leaves, but it was still delicious.

And the cream tea was amazing! In England there is this thing. Do you put the jam on first or the cream. We both know that of course it’s the jam. But I have come up with a new one. I call it the slurry. You put the jam on, then the cream, and mix it into a slurry. That is now the best way to do it.

We both really enjoyed our cream tea. Mike, who is probably more of an expert than me, thought the scone was a bit dry, but I actually liked it like that. It was melt in your mouth delicious!

After that we drove along the moors to Tarr steps. These are 800 year old stone steps going across the river. It was mind blowing thinking that these steps have actually lasted 800 years without any mortar or cement. Just sitting there, strategically placed with occasional maintenance.

We walked across and they were so solid, not a rock wobble in sight.

On the way back to camp, we saw the couple who had decided to walk all the way, sitting on the side of the road looking very hot and bothered.

We finished the day with dinner at the local pub near the camp. The Badgers Holt is a really quaint little pub. It felt more like sitting in someone’s living room. There is just the one chef and the one guy serving drinks. It’s interesting as they only take bookings of one seating per half hour so the chef can keep up with meals. So we had the 6pm booking.

We had a Guinness while we waited and a man came in being pulled along by his dog. ‘This dog can smell a pub a mile off,’ he said. ‘I don’t even like pubs but the dog pulls me here.’

I thought it was funny.

We both ordered the aged fillet steak and it was absolutely delicious. Served with chips, onion rings, mushrooms, salad and peas, it was the best steak I have had in a long time (probably since Eve).

After dinner, Mike asked me what the photo of the bird on the wall was. It was a kiwi! A kiwi cricket team had visited in 1986 and gifted a photo of a kiwi. Well, thought it was cool.

Today we packed up from our campsite at Dartmoor, and headed for Exmoor national park. We’ve booked another adults-only campsite for 4 nights.

Now, I know I’ve said I’m not going to take the back roads in England again, but somehow we ended up there again. Old habits die hard.

I figured to get from Dartmoor to Exmoor it might be nice to drive along the moors. But… the moors had other ideas.

It started ok, with only 2 or 3 “I am NOT going down that road” moments. I really wanted to keep Berties sides in tact and I wanted to make it to my birthday.

So we drove along a nice two-laned road which was fine until it suddenly ran out. Well, there was a sign saying the road was closed ahead. So we took a diversion. It was a narrow one-lane road but do-able.

Then, at the end, it narrowed even more into a goat track. Mike would have gone for it, but I refused. I was thinking about Bertie.

So I made an executive decision as I did not want to be sitting in the car all day. We would take the Devon expressway (that undercover motorway from the other day) and just get to our destination.

So we backtracked and hit the highway. For the 10 minutes we would be on it, it seemed a good compromise.

I’ve realised you have to take on a different mind-set when travelling in the UK. It’s no longer about the road tripping and the slow journey on the back roads wondering where you will end up.

It’s now about getting to your destination that you have booked up well in advance, driving via the most efficient method possible, and staying put for more than a day. So that was our new plan.

Mike had booked the Exemoor campsite earlier in the week, in the national park for 4 nights. We’re hoping to do some hiking and visit some local pubs, maybe find a cream tea (we missed the Devonshire tea, dammit), or a ploughman’s lunch.

We arrived at the campground mid-afternoon and it was already busy. Thankfully we were early enough to grab a decent spot as people were streaming in after us. We were in reception when a man came racing in with his caravan and we heard a loud bang. He’d scraped his caravan on the metal pole at the entrance and ripped some of his caravan off. Oops.

By 5pm, the campground was full! I thought that choosing adults-only we would have avoided the mad holiday crowds, but nope! Just a lot of people and their dogs.

But it’s a nice enough spot, right on a river Exe, which is more of a creek.

After dinner we went for a walk into the quaint little village. Just a few houses and a pub – the Badgers Holt – where Mike is taking me to for my birthday. And a phone box on the edge of town. Yes, these still exist!

Yesterday, when we drove through Lyme Regis, I thought it sounded quite delicious, so today we decided to make one in the van.

It involved layering secret ingredients into a clear plastic disposable cup to make it look fancy. Well… as fancy as a clear plastic disposable cup can look.

Apart from the yoghurt glooping down the side of the cup, it did look quite fancy. Mike tried to wipe it off but only succeeded in smearing it everywhere. If you’re making your own Lyme Regis at home, I suggest you don’t do that.

It was surprisingly tasty, although I think there’s still room for improvement.

Just to be clear, I’m fairly certain a Lyme Regis dessert didn’t exist before today, so I’ve taken complete creative licence.

Let me know if you’d like the recipe to our famous Lyme Regis.

We finally got off our butts and left Bournemouth to go on a mini-road trip. The plan was to drive to Dartmoor national park, which was only 2.5 hours away. We left at 10.30am and somehow didn’t arrive until 3.30pm!

First up, we had to stop at Lidl to stock up on supplies. We met a lady in there who was trying to find her husband. He’d completely disappeared on her. She was worried he got lost as he was wearing new glasses.

As we did our shop, we kept seeing her, looking flustered. ‘Have you found him yet?’ we’d ask.

Then we found ourselves at the same checkout. She’d finally found him.

I commented that his new glasses looked nice, and he looked at me like I was a weirdo. Only in England will you have random conversations in the supermarket with strangers.

Anyway, loaded up with “stuff” we headed on our way. By now the traffic had gotten bad. Did I mention we are going away in the school holidays? You may think ‘big deal’, but in the UK, with such a huge population, usually all the campgrounds are booked out well in advance.

And they don’t have freedom camping like we do at home. But we had a plan, which I’ll tell you about shortly.

We had no choice but to stick to the main roads, as it would take two days via the back roads. As it turned out, it took us most of the day anyway. There weren’t many places to stop along the road and any lay-bys had lots of trucks and cars parked on them.

So I diverted off the main road into Puddletown forest. This was more our kind of road. Narrow and rutted. Thankfully we didn’t have to drive too far to find a little lunch spot tucked in the forest.

After that, we headed back on the main road for a short way before heading off through Lyme Regis, which sounds like a tasty dessert. But all we could find were lots of people, so we got out of there quick. Still, it was nice to be off the main road for a bit.

Then came the interesting part. Google tried to send us on a motorway. It was disguised on Google maps as the Devon Expressway, but it looked suspiciously like a motorway to us. So Mike swerved, narrowly avoiding it, and took the back roads.

I swore I wouldn’t do this again, but they had trimmed the hedgerows at an angle, so Berties side mirror was safe. But… Google Maps kept trying to send us back onto that Devon Expressway. So I had to do some navigation work, zooming into find alternative roads.

Then I saw the Old Exeter Road. That will do! But when we got there, Mike looked at it and said, ‘It’s too narrow.’

I said, ‘It’s this way or a expressway.’

So we took the Old Exetor Road. And actually, despite it only being 1 lane all the way through, it wasn’t too bad. Not a hedgerow to be seen. Lots of walking trails and bridleways too.

But we powered on through to the campground we had booked. Now, I hear you ask, how did we manage to book a campground at last minute during school holidays?

Well, it’s an adults only campground. I know, it sounds dodgy, but it’s actually a thing. Not a dodgy thing, just a thing. A place you can camp that’s not packed with noisy kids running around. (At least I hope that’s what is is. People here do seem incredibly friendly.) I’m just thankful I managed to steer Mike away from the campgrounds he likes.

Anyway, it’s quite nice here for a camping ground. The toilets and showers are clean, , there is toilet paper AND seats. (this is how I now judge a campground.) And there aren’y too many people.

There’s a man camping next to us who has been living here in his van (same size as ours) for 3 months while he waits for a house purchase to settle. I do wonder why he has been staying put in one spot instead of travelling. Maybe I’ll ask him.

After bacon and eggs for dinner, we went for a ten minute walk through the forest next to the camp and came back an hour later. It was just so nice out we wanted to keep walking. That was it.

It was world cup semi-final day and we’d planned to watch the England-Argentina game at 8pm.

But then the worst possible thing happened. The power went out at 7pm. I have a feeling this was on purpose as my team never wins important games when I am watching. I’m a jinx like that. But I did feel sorry for the people being called out to fix the power and missing out on watching it.

So instead, we sat outside and played a game with the kids where it was cooler. That’s one way to get them off their devices!

By 9pm, there was still no power, so we went to the van. I had a message from brother Paul saying: “Go ENGLAND!”

‘Oh, they’ve scored a goal,’ I said to Mike. ‘Let’s go watch the rest of the game at the pub.’

Mike screwed his nose up. We’d been up the road earlier before the game started and the pub had been heaving with people and loud music playing and it looked like a real party vibe.

‘Come on, it’ll be fun,’ I said. Reluctantly he agreed.

But as soon as we arrived, Argentina scored a goal. 1-1. I felt really bad, and realised it was probably all my fault. But, instead of walking away like I should have done, we stayed to watch, standing on the street with a hundred other people. Except we were the only sober ones. And possibly the security guards.

Then Argentina scored again. I knew at this point I REALLY should have walked away, but I really wanted to see England come back. They didn’t. And I take full responsibility. Sorry.

When we got back to the van, I checked to see if there was an update on the power coming back on. The website said they would attempt to get the power back on by… Friday? I looked at my watch. It was only Wednesday. There was a major underground outage. Oops. Oh well, guess the people working on it were probably happy they missed the game.

Today I had an email from my rental agent with the fire report attached and just a single line in the email from her. Cause is on the last page.

So. obviously I skipped to the last page and scanned it, expecting an elaborate write-up or even a paragraph of the cause. But hidden deep in the page I found what I was looking for. And it was only 5 words.

I couldn’t believe what I saw. I had to read, re-read, gave it to Mike to read, asked chatGPT to interpret, then read again.

This is what was written:

People playing with heat sources

At 3am! WTF! I scanned a bit more and a butane cylinder had exploded. This made me very angry as it was their own stupidity that burned my house down.

Then I saw another email from my insurance company that pissed me off. 

Can you please give me the details we requested from you in previous emails.

What??? There were no previous emails. And why send me an email asking for details without actually forwarding the other emails so I know what details you want? They are not inspiring me with confidence.

Grrrr. I’d have to wait for the evening to call them. 

The other dramas of the day. Ems has a very sore elbow, so bad that she couldn’t straighten it, and a bony bit seemed to be popping out. So she went to the hospital for x-rays. 

Meanwhile we were in charge of picking Jessie up from school. But first we had to make a stop at a game store because Eddie wanted to sell his Nintendo gamecube. He was hoping to get 75 pounds. They offered him 30. So then we continued on to pick up Jessie.

We felt very important, waiting outside the school with all the other parents, grandparents, uncles and aunties. But we didn’t know which door to wait outside. So Mike stood outside one, and I stood outside the other. I chose correctly! And they let her go off with the woman with the strange accent!

Back at the house we heard back from Ems and her x-ray. Thankfully it’s not broken and she has been diagnosed with Tennis elbow. Even though she doesn’t play tennis. But we did play table tennis the other day, so maybe that did it!

Anyway. ouch. So she’ll need to keep it rested until it heals.

Other than that, it is still hot, but it’s a nice heat without that cloying African dust in it.

We’ve decided to head back to Bournemouth and try to deal with this fire claim and neither of us really felt like going away now.

Before leaving camp this morning we went for a walk in the New Forest. It’s a really nice area and all flat too (unless you are cycling). Then we headed off and took the scenic detour on the way home.

Our first stop was Buckler’s Hard, which has some interesting history. It was originally planned as a port for importing sugar from the West Indies, but for some reason that idea never happened. So instead it became one of Britain’s most important shipbuilding villages.

They cut down oak trees from the New Forest to build the ships, and it could take thousands of mature oaks to build a single one!

Don’t ask me why it’s called Buckler’s Hard because I’ll probably come up with something rude.

After that, we headed to Milford on Sea, where we managed to find free parking overlooking the water. It’s virtually impossible to find any free parking in the New Forest, so we were pretty happy.

There’s a spit that leads out to Hurst Castle and a lighthouse, so we went for a walk. It was incredibly windy, so we had to hang onto our hats. And the thick gravel was really hard to walk on. But we made it almost all the way to the castle before we’d had enough and turned around.

It was a really neat area, with the Solent and the Isle of Wight on one side, and the marshes full of windsurfers on the other. The Isle of Wight was so close it felt like we could kayak to it. Except we don’t have a kayak.

After that we headed back to Bournemouth. Not sure what’s happening over the next few days.