A Cornish Concoction pt 1 - The journey west

Good afternoon, from a sunny, yes sunny Cornwall. After a couple of dodgy days, the skies are clearing and even the prohets of doom at the met office are predicting great weather to come. ‘Schools’ out’ and we have nine weeks off – yes nine – one of the benefits of working for a private school, and intend to make as full a use of Patsy as is possible.

So, what’s been happening? Well, just to get you up to date, we are still in the process of selling the bungalow although we have no date yet and we are still buying the flat, the occupant of which is not in any apparent hurry to move out of. But that doesn’t really matter because until our buyers’ solicitor extracts his head from his backside and gets on with things we ain’t going anywhere. Frustrating.

In amongst moving stuff to storage and hassling our solicitor and estate agent – if you want an idea of how useful they are, think chocolate teapot – we made some improvements to Patsy. I’ve fitted new friction pads in her hitch – the old ones were making so much noise when cornering they made your teeth itch and were overdue for replacement.

Jessie, our nine year old Jag and tugger of Patsy has not been left out either. We’d considered for a while having her rear firmed up as she always rode a bit low when towing and I booked her into a garage a while back who told me nothing could be done, although what they actually meant was, they couldn’t be arsed. Perturbed, but not discouraged I done some research on the net and ordered a pair of spring assistors through the nations’ favourite tax dodgers. For the interested but un-knowledged, they are large hunks of rubber that are wedged between the coil springs. Fitting them was straight forward although we wouldn’t find out how effective they would be until Patsy considerable weight was on the back. Rubber hunks. Hmm…sorry, where were we?

We also decided to have Jessie’s ECU remapped – extra torque and horses were promised and more googling revealed that our model  benefitted  particularly from the process. The increase in BHP was immediately apparent – some 38 extra horses boosting her to nearly 170 BHP, but while that’s of interest to boy racers and the team on ‘Top Gear’ what us caravanners want is extra torque to haul our tin tents about. Again we would have to wait to see any improvement.

We'd worked hard to lighten Patsy’s load too – lightweight saucepans and plastic ‘glasses’ and loading only the bare essentials food wise – went a little way to offset the extra weight of the full size awning – not used since last summer. Even my trusty (and heavy) leather trench coat didn’t survive the cull, although in truth that’s more to do with the fact that it IS summer – albeit a British one.

We decided to travel through the night and it certainly made the journey easier. The improvements we made to both Jessie and Patsy were apparent before we got to the end of the road – the hitch was silent, Jessie’s rear didn’t sag and she pulled way much better than before. We swapped every two hours or so, but what has started as a dry mild night back in Saltdean had turned into a damp morning as dawn broke. Here we go again we thought.

We arrived well early in the lay-by just before the site we had booked but we phoned ahead anyway and they very kindly let us on our pitch early – something we were extremely grateful for. We got set up, in the rain, had a cuppa, then a couple of hours kip.

So, about the site. Well, it’s called Lower Treave and sits roughly half way between Penzance and Land’s End. Accomodating caravans, motorhomes and tents and separated into pretty stepped terraces it offers all the usual facilities including free Wi-Fi – always handy for silly old bloggers like myself – and offers some wonderful views of the countryside – something that was not apparent when we first arrived because of the mist and drizzle. The facilities are clean and tidy – push button showers are not my favourite but the water is hot and plentiful with adequate space in the cubicles – and decent loo roll too. They don’t expect you to wipe where the sun doesn’t shine with something akin to sand paper. The Caravan Club – take note. Also on site are five static vans – great for friends that don’t do caravanning – we have those and two of them will be joining us next weekend.

We promised ourselves a few days to relax before the sightseeing starts in earnest. We did manage some ‘research’ though last night at The First and Last pub further down the road at Sennen – and very rewarding it was too……

Go to www.aloadofnonsense.net for a version of this blog complete with photos.