Twinkle Twinkle Little Puck..............................

I had been hunting on Ebay for a 1 metre length of white led's for the Khyam Motordome having refused to pay nearly £50 for the approved version, when a thought occurred looking at some multi-coloured leds. They may look cool around the poptop just for a bit of fun. So for an extravagant sum of just over £10 I acquired the kit below

You basically get a 5 metre length of led's on a roll a little remote control and connector and a mains adaptor. I added a 12v cigarette lighter type plug from elsewhere for about another £2.50.
I have located the led's hidden under the lip of the pop top facing in and protected from the weather although they are supposedly water proof. They come with a self adhesive backing which isn't really man enough for the job as the inner surface is too rough so the addition of a smear of Evostick (other instant grab adhesives are available!) was called for.

As the leds are longer than actually needed you can cut then to length.
The ends and the controller were secured using some velcro sticky pads so they can be removed.

the lights were then plugged into a multi socket that I have located behind the wardrobe top taking a power feed from the kitchen light so it is all hidden

The cable just feeds through the pop top opening. The controller allows several different effects.
Example below!

So not a tricky job, possibly a bit tacky but who cares!

The Pudding Room

Our camping season has started late this year by virtue of the need to run in Mr Happy's new engine prior to letting him loose with the camper on the back. So with its (expensive) 1500 mile service out of the way we picked a site fairly local to where we live.
We chose the Pudding Room because it was close, it had loos & showers and decent reviews and was small & informal.
Its located just above Carsington water between Ashbourne & Wirksworth in Derbyshire. The first thing to say if you want a quiet rural site where  the only thing which disturbs you is birdsong then this is NOT the site for you. It is located on the junction of 2 busy roads so there is road noise, not that it bothered us.
The site nominally operates as a C & CC CS site but has 20 pitches in 3 adjacent fields. The main field has 10 spacious pitches around the edge and they work on the principle of your pitch is between here and here park as you wish, which is just how we like it!
Even when the site is full as it was this weekend then there is still plenty of space as the picture below shows.

This is how we chose to pitch as usual

The "facilities" are situated in the main building & just behind and consist of two toilet / shower wet rooms and two extra spacious toilets and wash basins in separate building

They were kept clean and serviced through the weekend and we never had to queue, although slightly bizarrely non of them were actually finished with missing tiles. grouting, extractors etc even though they had been built at different times and some time ago, just odd really!
The main building also housed aside from a washing up room the kitchen for the business of the same name in which Angie who is a welcoming host prepares the most amazing cakes & puddings too many of which were consumed over the weekend!
The only real drawback if you are that fussed is that there are no electric hook ups, but for a weekend that did not bother us. Also it was only £42 for the 3 nights.
Here's the link: http://www.thepuddingroomderbyshire.co.uk/
There are several good pubs in the area one right across the road, we ate in the Red Lion in Hognaston which was superb.
There is loads to do in the area, a cycle track leads down to the nearby Carsington Water where there are a range of walks cycle tracks and water activities.

There is lots of other stuff like the High Peak trail, assorted stately homes, preserved railways, things to suit most interests in fact.
So there you have it a quick trip away and we will certainly go back, if only for the cake!!

A Bit Of Upholstery

At some point in their history the cushions in Le Puck had had their springs replaced by foam and this had now seen better days, and we decided to redo them whilst retaining the original fabric.
The first job was to to unpick the seemingly hundreds of staples that had been used to attach not just the the outer fabric and the under calico cover.

This revealed just how long ago the springs were dumped - wonder why?

2nd August 1984 at 3pm in Reims to be precise!!
For replacement foam we went for a firm blue foam topped with 1" of memory foam. This was supplied cut to the correct size by Ace Foam in Telford whose service was good and delivery swift.

The next job was to clean off all the old foam debris. and of course discover in true Puck fashion that they were not square!

The foam was then stuck to the base with a small amount of evostick in each corner

Next job saw the calico undercover stapled back into place, making sure it was pulled tight.

Followed by the top cover as demonstrated by my glamorous assistant - Alison

So the final result complete with washed cover. They are so comfy! Will be tested in anger at Spring Bank Holiday weekend.