May 2 Stratford upon Avon

A day without driving! We had a leisurely start to the day. Our camp is on the banks of the Avon River so we wandered down to the river and caught a water taxi into town. Funnily enough it was neither sunny nor 18 degrees as predicted. More like 9 degrees and very low cloud. We decided to do the Hop On Hop Off bus which was not busy - particularly upstairs up in the open air where we sat.

It was a good way to see the sights including Shakespeare's birthplace, his first school, his statue, his wife Anne Hathaway's house (wasn't she in the Princess Diaries?) and all other things Shakespeare.

By the time we finished the loop we were frozen so headed to the nearest pub to thaw out and consume a hearty lunch. I had a Steak n Ale pie with mash and mushy peas accompanied by a particularly fine Shiraz. Damn fine.

We then wandered the town a bit more but mindful of the predicted thunderstorms headed back to the camp on our wee water taxi.

Having dodged the bullet of the thunderstorms we stopped for a drink in the Muddy Oar bar at the camp which has an amazing restaurant/bar/conference facility. In talking to people we discovered that this weekend is a "Bank Holiday" and that every Pom and his 2 dogs with a motorhome or caravan is on the move celebrating the first long weekend of Spring. God bless them. So we headed back to the motorhome to get the computer out. We had planned on heading into North Wales for the next 3 nights and basing ourselves in one place. Well, when I opened up the websites for the Motorhome and Caravan Club and the for Caravan and Camping club it quickly became apparent that everywhere was booked out and the farm campsites were all phone bookings only and it was too late to ring them. On the upside it wasn't raining but a weather warning flashed up on my computer for extreme thunderstorms overnight. Would we bogged on our grass pitch in the morning? Would we have anywhere to go tomorrow in any event? Everything will look better after a Jamieson's. Time to open the bottle.Read more