Ella’s 18th Birthday

Ella’s 18th Birthday

Amid brilliant warm sunshine, we set off down the M6 to Leicestershire, where we’d booked a couple of nights at Kendeline Fields Farm campsite on the outskirts of a small village called Claybrooke Parva. For once the drive was an easy one, despite being on Easter Monday. We left at 9am and were pitched up by Noon after a brief stop at the services on the M6 Toll to buy some lunch.

The owner of the site greeted us and got Alison to drive through the second barrier to make sure we’d be able to get out when it was down. It was a tight squeeze, but once I’d unscrewed the TV aerial it was fine. The site is fairly basic but the pitches were fine and there’s a toilet and shower, plus some fishing lakes which I may take advantage of next time we head this way.

Alison’s parents kindly picked us up at the site and took us to nearby Dunton Bassett, where our niece was having a party to celebrate her 18th Birthday. It was great to catch up with everyone and to chill in Richard and Mandy’s sunny garden with one or two glasses of Prosecco.

Alison’s sister and brother-in-law dropped us back at the site around 9.15pm after a lovely afternoon. I may have had more Prosecco than I thought because I fell asleep on the bed with my clothes on and still had them on when I awoke on Tuesday morning. Hey ho – no harm done.

After breakfast we set off on our bikes to visit Lutterworth, stopping at an Antiques Shop/Garden Centre on the way. Alison bought some new windmills for the pitch, having totally misplaced the others, after we got back from Eskdale a few weeks ago, or so we thought. In fact it turns out my daughter had inadvertently taken them to her house when she’d popped over to collect some of her things from our garage at home.

Once we got to Lutterworth and we’d found somewhere to lock the up the bikes, we had a late lunch and then headed to a hardware store to buy some screws to re-attach the van’s door handle! It came loose when we opened the sliding door on arrival and definitely needed fixing. The shop was perfect and reminded me of Arkwright’s place on Open All Hours. It had just what we needed and I sorted the handle when we got back.

There are some lovely villages in the area and some super houses. I quite fancy the faux mill one below (but not half as much as the real mill in the next village).

The weather threatened to turn on Wednesday, so we were packed and away by 10am and back home by 12.30, on a weekend when the M6 was at its most benign. Long may it continue.

A great few days to finish off the Easter Break – the season’s about to begin in earnest and there’ll be more in depth Blogs very shortly.