Friday 26th April - Upper Ludstone ro Wolverley.
Happy days - the screen on my oPad Mini has crazed over, probably to end up in pieces. For the moment I can still use it.
Intermittent half hearted Rain all day but best walking so far with no navigation problems. Old bridleways through attractive countryside and varied old woodland. I have been following the Staffordshire Way most of the day.
I am camping again tonight in the Camping and Caravan Cliub site in Wolverley. The Cand CC advertise themselves as The Friendly Club, having a go at the rival Caravan and Motorhome Club who are renowned for snootiness. All that was proven today. As I was putting up the tent a lady from a motorhome thirty or forty yards away came and offered me a cup of tea which was very welcome after my twelve mile walk. I'm sure Mick and Gayle will think I'm making that up but I swear it is true.
I'm now in The Lock pub next to the site people watching. Tonight tone of voice is the feature.The husband wife sat next to me came to ordering - she said "I'll have the ham egg and chips" but the tone strongly indicated she had chosen the best of a bad job from the menus - resigned.
I'm not surprised about the offer of tea. On my Chepstow to Berwick walk last year, I happened upon a CCC temporary site at Stanhope in Weardale and the same thing happened to me. I was also invited to join the gathering in a room that evening but politely declined. A good club.
ReplyDeleteIlighthiker _ I think these things are more likely when you are on your own ?
ReplyDeleteAmazing that the C&MC has found an entity it can be snooty about given that the rest of the world - if polled - would be snooty about C&MC members. Can it be true, or is it simply my eternal prejudice, that towed caravans are getting bigger? That there are fewer of those egg-box structures where - in going to bed - the owner posts himself horizontally, like a letter through a letterbox. One thing that has changed, caravan manufacturers - possibly from reading Tone Deaf - no longer christen their products with laughably inappropriate names, Sprite being typical.
ReplyDeleteMy caravan antipathy must, it seems, be genetic and has passed to my grandson Ian. On the Belmont estate the owner of a motorhome has decorated the rear of his vehicle with a winding set of footprints and an utterance that is hard to deconstruct: Those who wander are not necessarily lost. Ian pointed this out jeeringly and he doesn't even drive.
In pubs which offer a minimum of culinary skills I always order ham, egg and chips. The theory is that it's a combination that is hard to ruin but it's a theory more honoured in the breach. The ham may be cured in a way that causes it to leak white fluid, the top of the under-fried egg may be gelid, and the chips - kept warm with the blessings of infra-red lamps - may be cardboardy. In Hereford, at least, these disadvantages are blown away if the the pub sells ale from the South Wye Brewery. And most do.
Hope your ipad or opad as you put it is ok and you havn't broken the screen. I have now bought a Samsung T4 7 " tablet to give blogger a go on Android. Will let you know if its any improvement. Onwards and downwards in your case.
ReplyDeleteWe believe you!
ReplyDeleteOf the two clubs, we've only been members of the C&MC for years now, but hope it goes without saying that if a backpacker pitched up by us they would be offered a cup of tea. Of course, it's quite unlikely, because so few C&MC sites take tents.
RR -you can hardly buy a new caravan for less than £20k and they are mostly pulled by new, expensive 4 X 4s. The outlay could be running towards £100k, and as for motor homes the minimum starting price is around £50k so it is no longer a budget way of having a holiday. It seems that motor homes are taking over from caravans.
ReplyDeleteMy hopefully fail safe from the menu is fish and chips, but that failed me tonight - see my Day 5 post.
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Alan R - I look forward to hearing more.
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Gayle - I have no doubt you would be making that offer. In my case the people were perhaps a hundred yards away from me and not in direct sight line, nowhere near "alongside."