Day Eight. Paul goes to Poole

Chaos. Packing up the caravan is chaos, and it reminds me why this is not my usual type of holiday. Self-catering is stressful. Self-catering is what we do at home. This is why I go on holiday - to get away from this. Cupboards full of stuff we clearly didn’t need. And Jean goes to town, of course.

I prefer travelling light. This is harder with a baby and dog in tow, but we still seem to manage to be the first ones packed and ready to go. The victory is short lived, however, as we are roped into helping the others as a reward for our preparedness.

Eventually the three cars are packed and ready to go. John went back to hand in the caravan keys and I went to book us a spot swimming. Today it was Amy, Will, John, Bella and I. We decided not to take Lily again as we wouldn’t be able to wash her for a long time and the showers in the pool are too hot even for me.

After a fun swim, we started to make a move for Poole. First mission was to get petrol as my tank was empty after the last week. This of course proved to be harder than usual as there is allegedly a fuel shortage. Still, after queuing and paying way more than I would usually, we finally got underway again and ended up in the town of Bridport for lunch.

We stopped at a little cafe called Moore Than Tea, where I had an awesome cheese and caramelised onion toastie and butterscotch milkshake. Becky had a BLT and a latte. Eventually Jean, John, Amy and Will caught up with us too, even though they said they’d stop at their own convenience.

We were first on the road again and headed off towards Poole. There was a lot of traffic.

Eventually we arrived at about 5. Poole reminded me of Portsmouth. I was sure I’d done a delivery here once before, but it looked totally different from what I thought it would.

Becky and I took Wispa and Lily for a walk down to the quay and back before having a massive dinner with the family. All in all, a hectic day on far too little sleep!Read more