July would turn out to be scorching hot down here in the south, more worryingly it continued to be very dry, the grass had turned yellow and leaves on trees and shrubs were starting to drop. It was a busy month for us.
Selling our Flat
We’d been indicated a date in early July for completion on our flat sale but it still seemed a long way off. We’d kept the first week of July free just in case but all that happened was the boiler service requested by the buyer. Then our solicitor announced she was off for four weeks of annual leave. The management company for the flats had already been contacted twice with the same queries and now a handover to a new solicitor meant we had another set of repeated queries coming to us and the management company. The promise from the estate agent that they would keep on top of their recommended solicitor meant very little. They tended to take the solicitors update at face value and we were often better informed.
Our home was now pretty much an empty shell, with only the bare essentials left to pack as soon as we got the nod. A good job too as we were going to be busy in July and wouldn’t have a lot of time to do the final move.
Mendip Challenge
We spent a hot weekend near Lambs Leer on the Mendips at another Land Rover event. It’s a lovely site amongst the limestone hills and we had a successful weekend as a club with Paul assisting his friend Mark to a trophy by sitting in the passenger seat as moral support and ‘nav’. We stayed on site until the Monday morning, enjoying a quiet night alone in the van.
Paul taking a tiny part of the glory
Liverpool
I left Paul behind for a few days in Liverpool helping to celebrate my nephew’s graduation. Staying in a hotel was an unusual luxury. We had some enjoyable family time as well as getting to meet William’s second family – he spends a lot of time with his girlfriend’s family ‘up north’.
William and ‘little’ brother James
Liverpool is a fun city to visit as a tourist and I even went for a run to find the motorhome parking at the marina. It’s a good location for a visit and one to think about next time we’re up that way.
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- Motorhome parking at Liverpool Marina
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- Obligatory Beatles photo
Dorset
We just had a day between my return from Liverpool and leaving for a few family days in Dorset. Paul accompanied me this time and we pitched up in the shade on the large driveway of a house that had been rented by my sister for a family weekend. There was actually a room spare for us to sleep in but we always sleep better in the van.
The house had a swimming pool which was very welcome in the heat, plus a wood fired hot tub which was a novelty even if it was rather unnecessary for the weather. We enjoyed day trips to local beaches at Lulworth Cove and Kimmeridge and plenty of family time splashing around in the pool.
Welland Steam Rally
We left the family to enjoy the rest of their week in Dorset and headed off for Welland Steam Rally. This is our second time visiting the rally which is a massive festival of steam, classic tractors, and working vehicles. It’s the largest in the UK now that the Dorset Steam Fair is no more and possibly the largest in Europe.
We had five nights of camping included and a whole weekend of access to the site. Vehicles are the focus here but there is also a craft market, food market, music (Chesney Hawkes performed a surprisingly fun set) and a steam powered fairground.
A large group of us attended, mostly from the Land Rover club, some of whom we haven’t seen for a while. It was hectic, hot and dusty and very enjoyable. Will we go for a third time? Quite possibly.
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- The steam powered fair was an amazing sight at night
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- Dust and smoke meant we had to do a deep clean when we returned
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- Fred Dibnah’s engine. We couldnt believe some of group had never heard of him!
We stopped for LPG on the way back from Welland. Our usual stop at Gordano services was out of gas so we diverted at Taunton to Thornfalcon garage which wasn’t quite so easy to get to but still roughly on the way home. It was a good job we’d stopped as our tank was almost empty, our fridge had been working overtime in the heat and obviously used a lot of gas. Our last fill up had been at the end of May so we’d had 20 days without electricity before needing to refill our 11kg bottle.
July Summary
12 nights in the motorhome. 3 nights off grid at a Land Rover event, 5 nights at Welland Steam Rally and 4 nights in Dorset.
Average cost per night £3.75
(the Welland Steam Rally combined ticket and camping price is £135, day entry to the site is £20 per person so it works out as very cheap camping)