roemin around

We were away for 19 days in all visiting Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and the Forest of Dean seeking out food festivals. We moved 12 times stopping on 4 Britstops, CC and CCC main sites, a CL and several commercial sites. We covered about 800 miles and the longest stay was 3 nights at the small site at East Crinnis. We fished at several sites in between foody events. The Cornish Food festival at Truro was poor, the Newquay Fish festival had a nice location on the quay with some good sea food to eat. The Forest of Dean festival was the best and we only found that accidentally while looking for a newspaper shop. The same was true of the Country and Western festival which we found while looking for a site near to Western Super Mare. The 3lb rainbow trout I caught at Redbrook, in the Wye Valley, on the way home was delicious by the way.

We left The Lion Inn at Trelleck by 10am on a fine sunny morning. The drive north offers fine views over the Usk valley before dropping down in to Monthmouth, then on to Ross-on-Wye and bypassing Gloucester to first Cotswolds stop at Burford. We parked up in the free car park and walked back into the pretty village to browse the shops and find a sunny spot for a coffee break. Then on to Lower Slaughter to have some lunch. Unfortunately I tried to drive (unsuccessfully) under a 2.35m canopy at the riverside manor restaurant and had to make a careful retreat. Impossible to park on the road for double yellow lines so we carried on to Stow on The Wolds and had nice ploughman platters at the Porch House which claims to be oldest inn in England (and we thought that honour went to the Trip to Jerusalem in Nottingham) established in 947AD. There is a good cook shop in Stow where I found a replacement sink drainer and Rosemary invested in some new mugs. We had parked in the Tesco car park...

 We left the farm site to go fishing but managed to fit in a craft centre and a nother food festival en route. It was the Forest (of Dean) Festival, that combined local food with forest crafts and some good music from the Paris Jazz Cafe Swing band. It was a very enjoyable afternoon and we topped up with deli foods before finding the Bigwell fly fishery at Rockwood in the Wye Valley. We have been in and out of England and Wales several times today! At 6:30 it was getting dark, I was the only fisherman left and was just about to give up when I finally caught a very nice 3lb rainbow trout. A very frustrating 2 hours finally paid off. We stopped the night at a Britstop pub at Trelleck a few miles south of Monmouth. There was another van there from Leicestershire. We  had a good chat with him and the bar lady in the otherwise empty bar. They did not serve food on Sunday evenings.

We were off our pitch by 10:30 but stopped at the site cafe for a nice breakfast bap before we left Brean. I decided to go to the Wye Valley to try and catch some trout on the way home. We went via Weston-super-Mare and Clevedon in a mix of heavy showers and sunny intervals. We went over the old Severn toll bridge  to Chepstow in Wales where there happened to be a M&S food hall to shop for dinner, then have a stroll down the main street. We checked out the Woolaston trout lakes I had spotted on the Web and then we went to the nearby CS at Plusterwine Farm for the night. Very friendly lady farmer has a well set up mini campsite with panoramic views of the river Severn and good facilities but not cheap. The wandering hens provided some entertainment. The farm is actually back in England but on the edge of the Forest of Dean so we only spent about 2 hours in Wales shopping at Chepstow with a cup of tea and a sticky bun.

It sure is an interesting site. There are a large number of vans are here for the annual 10 day C&W festival and many of the occupants are wandering about with stetsons, spurs, Indian feathers and anything else vaguely country. The entertainment at all the bars is country music at night. It's still windy with a few showers so I put up the windbreak allowing me to cook outside for a change. I spent the afternoon fishing in the lake and caught a few small fish. Rosemary went to Burnham on Sea, on the bus. She bought some red mullet and halibut, amongst other things, for dinner that I cooked on the Jamie. We walked back to the main festival venue in the evening and browsed around all the western clothes in the pop-up marquees. We passed a couple of sheriffs on mobility scooters! Some very expensive genuine cowboy hats for sale and some only £5 'made in China' copies. We went to the beach on the way back to the van and actually saw the sea. It's been low tide ...

We left the Porlock site at 11:00am, wearing shorts for a change, heading towards Burnham on Sea. Stopped off at Minehead for a snack at the Somerset Steam Railway and again at the historic harbour at Watchett. Had a conversation with a Nuventure owner who also owned a farm in Wales with a CL and we looked at the small art exhibition on the harbour We decided on a site called Northam Farm at Brean, between Burnham on Sea and Western Super Mare, for a couple of nights. Surprised to find that it has a free fishing lake and a country and western festival about to kick off. In fact nothing like a farm at all, but that's the entertainment sorted. Yee haa. It's still windy with the odd shower but not cold. We are getting closer to home, but not giving up yet.

We spent most of the day exploring Appledore. It's a fascinating maze of narrow alleys on either side of the Quay. Every cottage seems be different style or colour with many obviously holiday lets. Even so it had a very friendly village atmosphere but parking must be a nightmare in season. Rosemary tried to buy a book based on the recent events in Leicester (Lcfc and Richard iii) at the pop-up Waterstones at the book festival but they were sold out. However the author Michael Morporgo, who was at the event, left some signed plates to stick in his books. We left after lunch just as the clouds descended and the light rain set in. We went to Instow on the other side of the estuary to get another (murky) view of Appledore before heading East towards Minehead. It was another drive in mist and rain through Barnstable and Lynmouth before we stopped at Porlock for the night. That's the place with the notorious 1 in 4 hill that burnt out clutches in the old days.