We'd never been to
visit my younger brother, Sam, since he'd got his job in Oxford, so
we decided to make our first trip down there and suss the van out. We
hadn't realised just how long it takes to prepare the caravan for the
trip. We'd spent a full working day the previous week cleaning the
caravan. It was clear it hadn't been used for some time too. We had
enjoyed, however, shopping for all the new things – the plastic
plates and cutlery, shower curtain and bin (yes we even got excited
about the little lime green bin we bought) and everything we bought
was lime green – a happy colour!
We had our new caravan,
our new cocker pup Duke and our old pal Al. We were very happy
indeed.
We packed the cockers
into the crate in the boot and filled the back seats with stuff (for
one night!). Duke loves his crate but we never crate trained Alice so
she did protest at first, not surprisingly as she likes to take the
role of captain in the front seat and see where she is going. She
dislikes me driving if Nick is with us in the car because he makes
her sit in the footwell. Although, now Alice knows that if the crate
goes into the boot she's going somewhere exciting, and when we go to
Nanny and Pappy's to get the van, she does the cocker-cry the whole
time we're hitching up.
Nick was nervous about
towing all the way to Oxford, only his second ever time, so he picked
a site that was straight off a dual carriageway on our journey. The
site was called Godwins Ice Cream Farm and is a really lovely site.
The pitches are literally “pick anywhere you like in the field”
and you just trail your power cable to the nearest hook up point.
There were about four other caravans and a couple of campers. We were
the only ones with dogs and we worried that they would annoy the
others but we've come to learn that everyone on camp sites are
friendly and happy. Alice was really rude and ensured she had a sniff
of every caravan on site but everyone greeted her and said hello.
Duke is too true to the breed and won't go further than 12 feet from
me, and is always happy when he has a ball.
There were some
chickens and a couple of horses on site who we said hello to, too.
The best part about
this site though, really is the ice cream. I had my all time
favourite, mint choc chip, but had to try one of their crazy flavours
too, so I went for Peanut Butter! Sounds gross but it was heavenly!
We spent the day
walking to Oxford town centre with Sam and it turned out to be a
beautifully sunny day. We found we'd taken on a bit too far of a walk
for Duke so Sam offered to carry him. Duke loves to be cradled like a
baby and Sam was only too happy to oblige, to find himself being THE
centre attention of the town. Sam has found the locals to be true to
the stereotype of the unfriendly Southerner who becomes suspicious of
the Northern stranger who says Hello as he passes by. Well, this was
not apparent that day. Sam pulled more women that day than I think he
ever has his entire life. Honestly, you'd think there were no puppies
in Oxford!
We were sad to leave
the next day but the trip had been a great success. We'd had a lovely
day with Sam, found that everything worked just fine in the caravan
and we learned that we loved caravanning!
Happy Caravanning!
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