Jim & Happy : Road trip with wicked van

This morning (Thursday June 6) we bussed it up from Plymouth to Victoria bus station in London. We took a taxi from the bus station to Lambeth North to pick up the van. The thought of dragging our bags up the stairs of the tube not to mention dodging the crowds was too much to bear.

Jim drove really well considering he hasn’t driven for 6 months and then had to drive from London to Abinger Common, an hour away in Surrey.

We arrived at Karen’s for dinner after looking around Dorking. Karen is the owner of the house, for our August housesit. She is lovely and lives in a beautiful old English house with a beautiful English garden. Everything is beautiful. The dogs are big, old and friendly. I’ll introduce you to them when we are there in August. It will be a pleasure to look after her house, dogs and garden.

The next morning we drove from Abinger Common, Surrey to Ipswich, Suffolk. Thank goodness for Dave’s satnav – talking us (well Jim) through the villages and the confusing large roundabouts on the motorways. Jim opted to be the only driver – the control freak in him. I didn’t put up a fight, I don’t mind being driven around for a week.

We arrived at Bramford, the village 2kms out of Ipswich where are housesit starts next Thursday. Lilian, the home owner showed us round her old English home, another beautiful place to stay. Then we walked 10-mintues up the road to her garden allotment where she showed us what to do with the vegetables growing there.

Back at her house Lilian had made a yummy lunch for us of asparagus tart (made with her home grown asparagus) and salad followed by Victoria Sponge, an English fav filled with cream and raspberry jam (made with her home grown raspberries). After lunch we set off for our night’s accommodation at Osney Lodge Farm back in Surrey not far from where we were the night before.

This trip took 4.5 hours, was only meant to take 2.5 hours. We sat in standstill traffic for 1.5 hours on the motorway and because of this delay we got caught in London peak hour traffic. Overall, no real problems. When Jim started to lose it I just pretended to be asleep - best tactic to prevent any arguments.

Arrived at the campsite early evening and wandered down to the local pub for dinner – nothing special on offer so we shared a pizza. We didn’t have any food with us after the traffic debacle; we were just keen to get off the road.

Our first night in the van was comfortable but with no food we hit the road early to find some. After our breakfast stop we made our way to West Knoyle in Wiltshire for our home for the next two nights. Closer to our destination we saw Stonehenge ahead of us – what a shock when you aren’t expecting it so we decided to take a look. It was good fun walking round listening to the audio.

We finally found our campsite. As it turned out it was at the end of the street where Bertie, one of the Ski Him guests from Gulmarg lives. Jim remembered Bertie said he lived in Wiltshire near Stonehenge. We caught up with him and his wife Francie for a drink at their old English home. Their 17th century house is full of history with a beautiful English garden maintained by Francie. They grew up not far from Stonehenge and said as kids they use to climb over the rocks so they are dismayed at the attraction to it these days.

Our second day in West Knoyle we drove to Bath, one hour’s drive away. It is picturesque and awe inspiring as you drive into the town with its historic buildings, an easy town to walk around to see the sights.