Lemons & Lemonade

Plans are a funny thing… We don’t tend to bother making them too much, and certainly not too detailed as we find things will change anyway. This summer our plans changed again. If you’ve been following us for a while, here and on our Facebook page, you may have noticed that we’ve been on the move again even though we were meant to be in Devizes for the season. So yes, things have changed again.

A number of factors conspired to us leaving Devizes behind, including several reminders in quick succession that life is short and we should make the most of the time we have while we’re healthy and able.

Luckily, we’re used to fluid plans and are well equipped to roll with the punches so we returned to Portsmouth to sort through our summer stuff and reduce what we carry with us again ready to do some more travelling, dreaming of a few weeks in Scotland where we had the most amazing trip two years ago.

Firstly however, the Club we work for during summer needed some cover staff for a week at Cannock Chase. We decided that was a good fit for us, as it was on the way north anyway. And that’s how we suddenly ended up in Cannock Chase, on a beautiful little campsite in the middle of the Chase with nothing but miles of trails through forests and hills around us. How lucky did we feel? The week simply flew by. We had some time to enjoy some lovely walks through the forest. It was the perfect place for Luna. The campsite was lovely to work on as well and we would highly recommend this lovely little spot as a place to stay in this area as it’s so peaceful and pretty!

We had only been at Cannock for a day or so before another call came from the Club needing some more staff, but at Sandringham this time. We know how hard the job can be when there isn’t enough staff, and Sandringham is a large site, so even though it was east rather than north, we still decided we would go.

We’re now about halfway through our time at Sandringham and we’re having a great time. It’s a very big campsite and very busy in the summer holidays. The area is nice too; more forest walks to be done, a coastal path nearby and Sandringham house just up the road.

We visited Sandringham house this week, which was an impressive experience. We walked through the rooms where the Royal family celebrate Christmas; the saloon where the entertaining is done and apparently TV is watched, two drawing rooms, one of which is turned into the Queen’s office in winter, a very impressive dining room and the ballroom. The grounds were beautiful too and we had a lovely day out!

We’re planning a hiking excursion for a couple of days on the north Norfolk coast next week, so we’ll have to wait and see how those plans pan out…

So what’s next? Will we get to Scotland this summer? Well, we’re not so sure now… We’re thinking about Wales, perhaps. Maybe the a visit to the Pennines? Bishop Auckland and the Kynren show is still high on my list of things to do…Who knows?! Let’s see what happens in the next week or so.

Most importantly, we’re just happy that people close to us who have been going through difficult times seem to be winning their good fights and doing well. We hope that this will continue. We’re happy for ourselves that we’ve turned lemons into lemonade and that our summer in the UK is allowing us to see more beautiful places that we haven’t visited before.