Thornthorpe Caravan & Camping Site

This is a Caravan & Camping Club CS site located at the Thornthorpe Equestrian Centre just outside Malton in North Yorkshire.
We first visited last year as we have assorted family in the area but never got round to writing a review then, owing to illness.
It was so good we returned for the late may bank Holiday.
The site is located in the Orchard behind the Farm House and from a level section ideal for caravans it slopes down to a brook at the bottom.

As a CS they can accommodate 5 vans and 10 tents although the space is so large you would never feel cramped.
The site is absolutely immaculate and has hook ups and a small purpose built toilet block with two washroom / toilets and a wet room style shower room. with a washing up area behind

The grass is kept pretty short and they have just opened a second adjacent paddock for when they are busy
Andrew and Tracey could not be more helpful checking up to be sure you are OK, especially as it is a busy farm and equestrian centre, and their son Ryan is the demon grass cutter!
Other nice features include a wood burner / BBQ hire service should you need it.
We met as a family group with 3 caravans and a tent.

A great time was had by all, it actually managed to stay dry for the whole weekend but by the Monday night when we were the only ones left it was bitterly cold and windy and we therefore had a lousy night with our neurotic dog.
There is lots to do in the area being on the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors and our visit coincided with the Malton Food Festival where many local goodies are available to try, buy and then eat or drink.
we can especially recommend Rhucello (www.rhucello.co.uk) which was AMAZING as a rhubarb liqueur, as they claimed great with Lemonade, Ginger beer  or (hic) Prosecco! we had to go back the next day and buy some more.
Monday was the Retro Festival at the Driffield showground with amongst other things a good classic car show with some excellent "ordinary" classics, Mark 3 escort anybody? Including a couple of VW Campers which attracted a lot of attention, but no classic caravans (hint!)

So a really great break and we have all booked again for August Bank Holiday!

Retro '70's stuff!

The danger of joining the Retro caravan club is the temptation to buy assorted 70's tat, sorry memorabilia.
Needless to say been busy on eBay. Firstly some fantastic Orange Gaydon Melmex

This was swiftly followed by a Sona hob top coffee percolator

We were then looking for some chairs but prices were silly especially as we could find none at the local car boot. Then found this pair for £12

Even yellow to match the camper!

Then lastly felt we needed some 70's music, of course played on a cassette player so....

So I think that's enough....... For now!

Kitchen Worktop Trim Replacement

Whilst we were away the other weekend I wasn't too careful with the positioning of the Beauclaire oven on the hob resulting in melting the white rubber trim that surrounds the kitchen worktops

This not surprisingly was a bit of a b*gg*r!
Searching around on tinterweb revealed that this stuff was not available from the usual sources and I could only find it elsewhere in odd colours.
The solution was remarkably close to home, the camper in fact! Westfalia trimmed their units in a very similar material and surprise surprise it was available by the metre from various VW specialists I sourced mine from NLAVW via Fleabay. Wesfalia use a thick and thin rubber t section depending on the location the one you need is the thin. So ordered it duly arrived

The old trim simply pulls of once you gently start it with a crew driver. Be careful the trim can be more firmly attached to the laminate than the work top, so bits of this can break off.

To attach the new trim simply feed it into the slot and tap in place using a rubber mallet.

 Two top tips here. Firstly cover the face of the mallet in duck tape or similar this keeps the trim clean.
Secondly if you can take the worktop off it makes getting a smooth finish easier than trying to hit with a mallet at various strange angles.
The end result is shown below. A pretty straightforward operation and a better fit than the original!

Retro Caravan Club

We have never really been ones for going on organised camps. The exception being a couple of visits to Camperjam and Vanfest / Busfest. These are of course big shows with weekend camping.
We Joined the Retro Caravan club first on Facebook and then as a club a couple of months ago and thought we would break the habit of a lifetime and attend a rally.
 The venue was Firtree Farm near Banbury. This is a pretty good site on 3 levels with a toilet block between the two lower levels, It is set around two fishing lakes. The facilities were located in a portacabin cleverly fitted into an old barn which was then re roofed. They consisted of 4 self contained unisex washrooms each with a loo, shower and washbasin, which always seemed to be well serviced and clean.
Whilst the weather was bitterly cold and windy the welcome could not have been warmer, with 13 or 14 vans in attendance most pulled by something equally retro.
Chris, Cameron and co. need a great job of organising with just the right level of events to ensure a good weekend was passed, The bacon butties were especially welcome. Some pictures below

Colin and Julies Royale with the social "tent"

Whilst we were there I paid a quick visit to the British Motor Museum. I had been before but wanted to see how it had changed with opening of the new exhibition hall. Well what a disappointment! The layout of the main building has been altered to give  a new entrance which resulted for example in the time walk of cars finishing in the eighties. The new building essentially resembles a two story car park with cars packed tightly in rows. The downstairs Jaguar exhibition, consisted largely of a series of first or last models from the sixties upwards models obviously deemed not important enough to be in their main museum in Coventry. Upstairs was a range of cars either evicted from or chosen to not be important enough from the main exhibition and again a series of first and last late model Land Rovers.
So generally not impressed. The best exhibits to me remain the concepts that didn't quite make and of course the Monte Carlo mini Coopers. A few pics below

A30 sports tourer, every panel pretty much hand made

A potential Triumph Toledo / Dolomite replacement

A great display

And Finally the Monte Minis

In all I have to say it was a really enjoyable weekend with some good company and we are looking forward to our next meet up in Derbyshire in June

A Quick Update

Well it has been a long time since I posted! 2015 was essentially a repeat of 2014, Camperjam, Brittany, The Pudding Room so not much new to report,
The season was curtailed early due to a health scare, now resolved so its all been a bit quiet. One of the corner steadies sheared when winding them up so much drilling by my son and the use of nut and bolt remedied the problem. It was a really good reason to make sure all the joints are well oiled!
The only addition was this canopy sourced on ebay as a sun shield

It is designed for the rear of a 4 x 4 but for £50 I thought it was worth a shot. Its really easy to put up and packs down into a very small and light bag

We will give it a try at the Retro Caravan Club meeting near Banbury at May Day and report back!

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!!