A Summer of Friends & Dubs
One of the very best things of spending the summer in the UK is organising time to spend with family and friends! It also means we’re reunited with Ted the T5 for Dub adventures! We made plans for numerous weekends with friends, either on trips away or at Devizes, as well as a VW festival in Bristol; Bristol Volksfest! After a winter away, when one of the hardest things is missing people back home, it’s great to have opportunity to meet up and spend quality time with people!
A trip to Taunton is first on the list, where we’ve found a little cider farm with a campsite attached. It’s called Tanpits cider farm (be warned, the cider is STRONG!) and it’s situated outside the town, near the canal for a nice canal-side walk in the centre. Our main reason for picking this site, apart from the fact that it’s almost equal distance from us and our friends in North Devon, is that fire pits are allowed. We set up our little camp with two dubs, a tent, a fire pit and a BBQ and we’re all set for a great weekend! We visit the town and walk along the canal. Luckily, the weather is kind to us and we can sit outside comfortably all evening! It really is a weekend of quality time with good friends!
Next up is a weekend to one of our favourite places in the UK, and one of the first places we went in our old Seabert, the T4. Good memories for us! This trip will be just as amazing, even if the weather is a bit stormy to start with… Our camp is set up much like it was at Taunton, but this time we’re at Petruth Paddocks in Cheddar. We manage to squeeze into one of the awnings for a stormy Friday night and on Saturday we wake to some scenes of collapsed tents on the field. Luckily, our little camp has survived and the sun has come out.
Cheddar may be a bit touristy, but it’s also quaint and charming! The landscape here, the gorge and the hills are just beautiful and great for walking, climbing, cycling etc. Of course if you like cheese or cider, this is also a great place to visit! For us, it’s another weekend of campfires, BBQs, good times and on this occasion, cream teas in town as well!
While we’ve been back in the UK, most of our ‘on the road’ friends have continued to travel Europe. Several of them are returning to the UK now and we’re really pleased that our friends from ‘Rewind the Gap’ have popped into Devizes to see us for an evening of travel tales! It’s really great to see Karen and Colin again after narrowly missing catching up with them in Southern Spain.
Next up, it’s time to reconnect with our Dub family at Bristol Volksfest. The weather has not been kind and the festival ground has turned into a huge field of mud. We’re lucky to arrive late on Friday as we’re allowed to park in a less muddy field which has been opened as an emergency solution. This means we’re parked on fairly solid ground and we are be able to leave normally rather than having to be towed out…
Some of our old dub friends from South Coast Dubs are at the festival as well and it’s great to see them! The festival itself is not to be defeated by the weather and the mud and the atmosphere is great! The entertainment is fab with a Madness tribute band as well as other fab bands! Well done to the organisers for battling the elements and putting on a great show!
Finally, we enjoy some excellent weekends at Devizes with friends coming to stay with us. A 9-year old birthday weekend turns out successful including some canoeing action on the canal, seeing the Caen Hill locks in action and some excellent camping games as well as a BBQ of course!
It’s been just wonderful to spend quality time with people who we don’t often get to see. Our last visit is from our colleagues at Canterbury last summer. A night on the town beckons and we enjoy a curry and some drinks together.
A big thank you to all of you for all the good times!
