There are a handful of Mediaeval buildings along the high streets of Tewkesbury that house taverns and pubs, and the town itself feels homely. I often find myself wondering, while I’m drinking at The Black Bear, whether the people who frequented the taverns during the Middle Ages were that different to us, and whether they talked politics in the same way we do today. Did the ale taste roughly the same then?
Since the weather became too wet for coastal exploration, we spent a lot more time in Truro. I think ‘prosaic’ would be a descriptive word for the place, but it’s one of my favourite cities because it’s spaced out, uncongested and overall pretty chilled.
Truro would be a small town (basically just a shopping precinct and a high street), if it didn’t have a cathedral, which is very notably an impressive display of craftsmanship both inside and out.
I really do like the town of Warwick, because it has pretty much everything within a short walk of where Robby and myself occasionally stay. There are two nice pubs, perhaps the best Indian restaurant outside Birmingham, and a market in the town square on Saturdays. The weather was dry and bright most the time, so we got lucky with that.
The Castle Inn can get quite busy, with some event there every other night, and it always has a friendly atmosphere.
After a six hour drive from Cardiff to York (with exceptionally good traffic conditions all the way), we set up the caravan on the York Rowntree CMC site, which is just across the bridge from the city itself. The stretch along the river reminded me a lot of Spike Island, in Bristol, but it’s much prettier when the sun is out. Several canal boats were parked up, along the path between the CMC site and the bridge.
It’s been a few months since I last had time to post anything here, as things had been so busy of late.
In March we spent a few days exploring the West Midlands - we didn’t want to travel too far, with Bertha having been in storage since October. Some of the places outside Birmingham are historically interesting.
Warwick CMC site is quite unusual, being quite small, and within the perimeter of a race course.
Robby and I made the five hour journey to the CMC site in south Blackpool. The weather was surprisingly bright and mild for late-October, even as the storm finally crossed the Atlantic and reached Britain, bringing 70Mph winds with it. Autumn had obviously arrived earlier up north, because most the leaves had gone from the trees.
Blackpool’s promenade is several miles longer than the one in Brighton, and it has a North Shore and a South Shore, and three piers.
Tewkesbury is a pretty village that retained much of its character from the beginning of the Tudor age, and has many pubs in the original buildings. The Black Bear, which was built in 1307, is one of them. There is a CMC site next to the Abbey, and that’s where Robby and I decided to spend the week.
As I’d learned much later, we’d pitched Bertha on the very spot where the Battle of Tewkesbury was fought, in 1471.
A belated post, as I’ve been quite busy the last couple of weeks.
It was an eight hour drive from Cardiff to the Seacroft CMC site, on the coast of Norfolk, between Runton and Cromer. What probably made our stay at Seacroft more enjoyable was having a grass pitch, on a large section of green at the centre of the site. It was like being on a giant lawn during an exceptionally warm and sunny week, though Saturday was a washout.
Robby and I returned to Brighton for several days, and we managed to get the perfect choice of pitch at the CMC site, in a quiet area.
We found more places to go drinking, besides the cluster of bars between the pier and Kemp Town. Between the CMC site and Legends, there are at least half a dozen independent pubs and bars a couple of streets uphill of the promenade.
We were exceptionally lucky to have nice weather again during this year’s stay at Carnon Downs. It remains our favourite site, and I think I’ve mentioned before that it could be likened to an immaculately-kept garden of an estate. There’s an absence of places to go drinking in the evenings, though, with the on-site bar closing at 21:00, and the Beefeater, just across the roundabout, not realy having the atmosphere of somewhere people go to socialise.
