Cartref Campsite, Shrewsbury

Last weekend, despite the fact that it had rained pretty relentlessly all week, we decided to take the caravan to Cartref Campsite, which is just outside Shrewsbury, in Shropshire.

My parents have a caravan on a season pitch just a few miles away, and my brother and his new fiancée decided to come and join us at Cartref, in a tent.

The owners at Cartref were lovely. They called us as we were on our way up on Friday, to find out what time we would be arriving, so that they could be there to help us pitch, if we needed it. They had had a lot of rain over the last week, so the grassy areas of the site were wet and springy underfoot, with the odd muddy patch. Apparently it had been much worse. The owners had a tractor at the ready, to help anyone that was struggling, but our mover coped very well on its own.

The site is very well maintained, with well cut grass and hedges between each pitch, even the tent pitches. There was a field for dog walking, with a play area for children in the middle.

If you haven't got a dog to take away with you, why not take your cat? We would have done just that, if I hadn't just caught movement in the corner of my eye, as I did my last check of the van before heading off.

That's our idiot cat, Purdey, who's obviously decided that the caravan is a good place to go and hide, for a bit of peace and quiet!

But anyway, back to the site. It was basic in terms of amenities - the wash block was clean enough, but was of the 'just a curtain between the shower and your dry clothes, so everything ends up wet' variety. If you use your own loo and shower though, everything else was lovely. You do need to use your car to get anywhere and there was no shop on site, so it's certainly not a 'pitch up and don't leave the site until it's time to go home' kind of site, but it was ideal for what we wanted and we will certainly be back.

 

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Crabbing in Southwold

This weekend, we took a mini-trip with our caravan, for a spot of one of the 3-year old's favourite activities: crabbing.

We headed off first thing on Saturday morning (well, 9am, which was as 'first thing' as we could manage, considering mummy had been out on the wine the night before!) and arrived at Southwold Camping & Caravan Park, just after 11. It's a basic site, council run, nestled in between the beach and the harbour, with Southwold a 15 minute stroll away along the beach (or 20 minutes along the road, if like us, you've got a buggy to push.

We had a lovely stroll in to Southwold, despite the drizzle, and checked out lots of beautiful buildings and very tempting foodie shops, cafés and pubs. We couldn't bring ourselves to walk past the delicious smells coming from Mills & Sons Butchers, in Market Place, so treated ourselves to two hot carvery rolls, one beef, one pork, with all the trimmings, to go with the picnic we had bought with us from home. A picnic blanket, spread on a bench, overlooking the sea from the cliffs, provided the perfect picnic spot. The carvery rolls did not disappoint at all, and I would strongly urge you to try one, if you get the opportunity.

Hungry children silenced, we strolled back in to town, did a bit of charity shop bargain hunting, and then found a lovely little craft fair, in a church hall, where we had a pot of tea for two, in lovely vintage china, with a glass of squash for each child and a twix for them to share, and change from £1!

Less bargainous, but even more lovely, was the stop we made later, at the Adnams Brewery shop and cafe. That shop is an absolute foodie heaven, full of treats and unusual kitchen supplies. Tea gadgets, beautiful wooden serving boards and an enamel Adnams jug, that the hubby took a shine to.

The cafe is really lovely. There are circular booths, lined with copper, that look like you are sitting inside a great big beer vat. For nicer weather, there is plenty of seating in a lovely courtyard outside, too.

We had a latte for me, Adnams beer for the hubby, and a great big scone with jam and cream, for the girls (I include me here, obviously) to share. This one of the things I will miss most, in a months time, when I go gluten-free for life.

Another stroll around Southwold to work off some calories, and of course a stop at the Railway Shop, and then the rain started up again, so we headed back to the campsite. With a few stops for beachy fun, holiday home dreaming and beach hut admiration, along the way.

As for the campsite, Southwold Camping & Caravan Site is a council-run site and as such, is pretty basic. The toilet and washing facilities were clean enough, despite the wet and muddy weather, but couldn't be described as modern or stylish. I was impressed with the booking system on the website. Although the site itself again looks pretty basic, you can view the pitches, search by what you want (electric, close to beach etc) and choose your pitch online. We chose to forgo electricity and hard standing pitch, in favour of being closer to the beach footpath. In future though, I think we will go for one of the hard standing pitches, which are closer to the washrooms and only a few extra metres from the path.

The campsite was pretty quiet this weekend (not surprisingly, given the weather!) but looking at the markings for pitches, I imagine it must get pretty packed in the summer. The pitches seem fairly squashed in together, which will make it somewhere to pitch and sleep, but not really spend much more time. The opposite to the Mill Farm site we stayed at last week. The site is ideally situated for the beach, harbour, ferry to Walberswick and a short stroll from Southwold centre though, so we will definitely be back.

High on our agenda for the next visit, is lunch at the Sole Bay Fish Company - an amazing seafood restaurant, right in amongst the working fisherman's huts, at Southwold harbour

I had a nosey inside and the food looked and smelled incredible. It's all freshly caught seafood, right from Southwold, and you bring your own bread and wine!

For this trip, we settled on fish and chips from this lovely shop (listed in the Independent's 50 best fish & chip shops) just a few huts along the harbour

You can eat inside, in bad weather, but the rain had stopped for a bit and the weather had brightened a bit, so who can resist fish & chips outside by the sea? Especially when they are freshly caught and cooked and you've got a bottle of wine with you!

A little walk further along the harbour, past all kinds of unusual and very picturesque (but fully working) huts, lies a truly lovely harbour pub, aptly named The Harbour Inn. Great local ale, very friendly service, dogs and children welcome and delicious food. We shared a yummy knickerbocker glory, made with cherries in kirsch, because we were already full of fish & chips, but the food we saw others eating looked and smelled (and sounded, judging by their appreciative noises) delicious.

The next morning, after waiting for the rain to stop (which it didn't) we walked the five minutes from the site to the harbour and took the little row-boat ferry, over to Walberswick.

Walberswick is well known for its crabbing, and was home of the British Open Crabbing Championships.

It is also home to more chocolate-box perfect houses, quaint tea-rooms and The Black Dog Deli, which we can report serves delicious fresh coffee, hot chocolate and croissants.

The last treat of the weekend, after another trip on the ferry and packing up ready for home, was ice cream from Beaches and Cream on Queen Street, Southwold. Evie and I had been checking out the array of delicious flavours the day before, and we weren't leaving without a taste. Their ice cream is amazing. Between us, we tried; chocolate, vanilla, pecan and maple syrup, amaretto, and salted caramel. They were all delicious. And, even better, there's a file next to the counter, containing full ingredient and allergy information on each flavour. So, although I won't be able to have the amaretto flavour again, or the delicious waffle cones, I will still be happy with a scoop of that scrummy salted caramel! What better reason to head back to Southwold as soon as possible?

 

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Camping in Somerset

This bank holiday weekend was our first trip away in our caravan this year. There was the small issue of a burnt out electric cable, left over from the disastrous France Trip last year, to be dealt with, and we only got around to that a couple of weeks ago.

So last weekend, we headed off down to Somerset, with three families of old friends and their children, to Mill Farm Caravan Park. I hadn't paid that much attention to where we were going, when this trip was booked earlier in the year. One of the other mums arranged everything and all I did was call the number she gave me, with our credit card. It was only when we looked up the address for planning the journey, that I realized it would take us at least 3 hours to get to Bridgwater. That wasn't factoring for Bank Holiday traffic, or reduced speed due to towing. After four and a half hours of 'are we nearly there yet?' and 'have we got any snacks?' we did wonder whether we'd done the right thing. It wasn't long once we were there though, that we realised that Mill Farm was an excellent site for families, and our kids were going to have a great time.

We finally arrived at about 7.30 pm. I was massively grateful that a) we didn't have to pitch a tent like the others and b) I had bought along a huge chilli in our slow cooker, to be reheated and shared once everyone was 'set up'. The kids had a whale of a time from the moment they got out of the car. Each family has two kids and Lola was the only non-walker, so 7 of them immediately got on scooters and rode round and round the loop of our camping field. It felt like a really safe environment to let them loose and they could scoot around this loop whilst staying in our eyesight. For Evie, this was freedom like she hadn't experienced before, and she loved every minute.

Four families in a row. We were the only caravanners

If the France debacle had left us wondering whether we had made the right decision to join the caravanning world, this weekend restored our faith. The girls love being in the caravan and even better if we hook up with other families and have a joint holiday like this one. There was more rest time than usual for the adults too, because the kids entertained each other, while the adults took turns to supervise.

I have a feeling that the kids would have been quite happy if we'd stayed around the camping field all weekend, but there was much more to do. There was boating on a little lake, trampolining, swimming (both indoor and outdoor, with slides) pony rides, canoes to hire, ducks to feed (complete with an abundance of absolutely gorgeous ducklings) evening entertainment (our girls loved the disco) and general 'out in the countryside' high jinks. That was all without leaving the campsite, which we did not do until it was time to head home on Monday.

Plenty of gorgeous ducklings to coo over

'Ben' the 27 year old pony that both girls took a ride on.

The day before our trip, we had torrential rain. That didn't bode well for our weekend and although we were concerned about the prospect of bad weather, the campers in the group were even more so. We needn't have worried though. We had really lovely weather all weekend, and everyone left with varying levels of pinkness!

My only criticism of the site is that the shower and toilet blocks left a lot to be desired. They weren't kept clean enough and the shower temperature varied massively. I had a scalding hot shower one day and a freezing cold one the next. The saving grace though, was the genius of playing music in the washrooms! Who doesn't love a bit of Dolly Parton in the shower?

Despite the washrooms, I would thoroughly reccommend Mill Farm for families with young children. The kids in our group had an absolute blast, and we will definitely be back again. The bank holiday traffic wasn't even that bad!

Now I've got to get everything washed up and re packed, because this weekend, we're off to Southwold, to do some crabbing. Come back next week, to hear all about it.

 

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