Devon Happy Campers Blog
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Monday 29th March 2010 Well hello, I'm back at last! I've been rather busy over winter as we bought a cocker spaniel puppy last autumn and what a journey it's been getting him through his babyhood!
We co-ordinated getting him (Stanley to those who know him) during the campers' down time and thank goodness we did. I had no idea just how difficult and time consuming bringing up a puppy would be! We love him to bits though, he is absolutely gorgeous, happy, loving and as friendly as can be but as a working breed also stubborn, naughty, contrary and determined with the obligatory spaniel daftness which in Stanley's case involved eating non edible stuff like tissues, plastic, christmas decs, toy/bedding stuffing and fabric, which so far has resulted in 2 operations to remove socks from his bowel, scary times. Fortunately at 8 months now he seems to have grown out of this although he still needs a lot of time and energy as he has grown into a large lively cocker spaniel and very strong (hard to believe looking at the pics above!) who really does not want to walk on his lead or anyone else's for that matter! As we are surrounded by fantastic places where we can walk off the lead e.g. a half hour bimble around Hembury fort, a romp on Sidmouth beach (September to May) or as long or short a walk on the beautiful East Hill Strip above Ottery St Mary where you can walk through woodland, moorland and look across Sidmouth and out to sea all in one beautiful 40 minute walk which is absolutely fabulous, we have been spoilt and haven't persisted enough walking him on the lead. So we are now in training with Sally and Leanne at Dogs R Dogs who deal with all sorts of dogs and all manner of behaviour/training needs but who also have specialist gun dog experience which Stanley and I need (him being a gun dog, of course!) and will also soon be having a go at agility which looks like great fun! I'll try to keep the blog posted on our progress... Now, Easter is nearly upon us and Lola and Matilda have had their pre-season service and are ready to go so if you're canny campers, waiting for the weather report before plumping for a last minute camper holiday do get in touch and we'll get you organised as soon as possible. If I'm out walking Stanley, leave a message or drop me an online booking form and I'll get back in touch later on that day. Just a reminder too that our online availability calendars are always up to date so if your dates are available on the relevant calender just send me through your booking form and I'll process your booking as soon as I receive it. As always, we look forward to meeting all our 2010 camper customers and are looking forward to a sunny South West summer! Happy Easter, Tracy (& Stanley) xx Friday October 2nd 2009 Despite a very busy summer we managed to get away in Lola & Matilda ourselves a couple of times. First a midweek break in August to Incledon Farm with Paul’s sister & family – Lisa, Matt & Moll, a bit of a test run for our September jaunt as we would be bringing 10 teenagers next time and wanted everything to run smoothly!. We had our first surfing lessons with Nigel of Barefoot Surf School down on the fabulous Putsborough Sands beach, it was incredible fun but hard work, you certainly sleep well after an afternoon in the water! We went to The Rock Inn in the village (Georgeham) for dinner where I had the sardines. I have never tasted so delicious a meal, possibly enhanced by my post surfing hunger but I would recommend them to anyone and everyone! I can also recommend the Addlestones cider, also delicious. We rounded the final evening off with a game of rounders back on the camping field and would have been very sad that our little holiday had come to an end but with our gorgeous camper vans the holiday doesn’t end until you climb out of the camper van for the last time and we had a two hour convoy home to enjoy!   Our next jaunt was the big one, to celebrate our daughter Beth’s 16th birthday we took 10 teenagers up to Incledon Farm, Georgham with Lola, Matilda and their awnings plus a couple of tents for our friends and the teenage overflow! We arrived and set up camp while the kids mooched into the village to buy pasties for lunch, the small shop being remarkably well stocked for a September weekend and all tastes were catered for. Once camped it was time to get them all down to the beach for their surf lesson, again with Nigel of Barefoot Surf, an amazing teacher with a gentle demeanour and the patience of a saint. All the kids loved him and he managed to get every one of them surfing before the day was out, they had a ball. The weather was perfect so our chilli supper on return to camp was enjoyed outdoors then a surprisingly early night was had by all – as I said, learning to surf is hard work! We all had the most amazing weekend as Livy has testified in her entry in Matilda’s journal. A fabulous way to make the most of the last days of summer.       Wednesday 16th September 2009 What a busy summer we had! Our first full season and both Lola & Matilda had back to back bookings all summer, they have been fantastic and so have all our customers. VW campers do seem to attract the loveliest people and this is proven by the wonderful entries in our camper’s journals, so good in fact that I have uploaded each journal, Lola & Matilda, onto the website for the pleasure of past and future happy campers. The camper journals were inspired by a story I read about a guy buying an old VW camper van and finding what initially looked like loads of rubbish in the van but when sorting through it found he could piece together the travels of the previous owner creating a fantastic history for his camper van. So the idea was that each van has her own historical document of her travels and who with. We could never have predicted how fabulous the entries would be but now our future campers can have a taste of VW camper holidays our past happy campers can be reminded of their VW camper holiday and we can show off the fabulous artwork drawn by some of our very creative customers, I hope you enjoy them as much as we do. Tracy x Tuesday 4th August 2009 What is going on with our Devon weather? Warm wet westerlies are one thing but this persistant grey drizzle is more reminiscent of our Yorkshire summers! Matilda is currently down in Cornwall so I can only hope the weather is better there while Lola is camping out at the Sidmouth Folk Festival which is on all this week. It appears the end is nigh though and drier, brighter weather will be with us by tomorrow according to the met office with full sun and summer temperatures predicted from Thursday onwards according to the BBC weather report There is also so much planned and organised locally that relies on the support of good weather, the Sidmouth Folk Festival this week is huge and involves mammoth effort from lots of people so although many venues are under cover or indoors it will be great if the sun shines for the rest of the week down there. The Honiton Show is this Thursday (8th August) and preparations are already under way as again this is a massive event with loads to see and do just for the one day so if you can take the day off, do come down and support our local show! August 21st to 24th is our local music festival Beautiful Days held at Escot Park and organised by the Levellers who will be headlining on the Sunday night with Hawkwind and The Pogues headlining Friday & Saturday along with loads of other bands acts and stalls so we'd like a sunny weekend for that too please! At the end of this month is the 1st ever Devon Game Fair which will be held on the Honiton Show ground, this promises to be a fantastic fun day out where you will be able to try your hand at many of the country sports on show e.g. fly fishing, clay pigeon shooting, archery etc so put 30th -31st August in your diary and hopefully we'll see you there. Whatever events or days out you are organising or attending this summer have a great time and I hope the sun shines for you! Tracy.
 Wednesday 22nd July 2009 Hello! Despite now being in the full throes of the summer (if you can call it that considering some of the weather we've had lately!) season I wanted to call in here to blog a few bits and pieces just to keep anyone reading up to date! On the subject of weather our hardiest of campers returned last weekend after a week of the heaviest rain possible down in Cornwall, a fabulous young couple with their youngsters, a baby and toddler, took Lola & her awning and although there was nothing they could do but bring her awning back absolutely dripping wet Anna was an absolute star. Despite the children, the rain and no doubt fields of mud they brought Lola back spotless. I don't know how you did it Anna but thank you again and I hope you don't mind me mentioning you here! School has broken up now and for me that means becoming a full time taxi driver for our 2 teenage daughters. I can't complain, it is the only drawback of living in such a rural village which I wouldn't change for anything so a taxi-ing I must go! Our 15 year old, Beth had a fantastic time at T4 on The Beach at Weston-Super-Mare last weekend and our 14 year old, Ellie seems to be having one continuous sleepover going around all her friends - well our house, Megan's and Lydia's anyway. So if I'm not available to answer the phone I apologise but do leave a message or try email as I will pick them up however busy I get and thank you for your patience! I haven't had time to update much on our website lately but I have got quite a bit to add including some lovely testimonials and pictures of our beautiful customers with our happy camper vans so do keep calling back. I've had a few link requests too so I'll add them over the next week or so. One of them is a great addition to 'Beach Life' in Devon, Triocean Surf shop near Bantham Beach in South Devon that sells all you could need for surfing but more importantly for newcomers to the sport they hire all you could need too including soft racks to transport your board the five minute journey to Bantham so you've no excuse for not having a go at the South West's favourite sport! Have a fabulous surfing summer, Tracy. Friday 26th June 2009 Hi there, Just a quick blog this morning, having watched River Cottage on Wednesday evening I felt the need to comment because the programme was all set around us and didn't it look beautiful? We've lived here for 5 years now and walking down the river Otter where Hugh F-W and his chef Tim were fishing is still a treat and probably always will be. The same applies to Sidmouth and it's beach where Hugh was trawling for shrimps, I still love it so much down there that I sloped off to Jacob's Ladder for a sunbathe yesterday when I should have been answering emails. My apologies to anyone who was waiting for me to get back to them, I will reply this morning! Being surrounded by areas of outstanding natural beauty makes it very difficult to stay in at this time of year when the sun is high in the sky with only the occasional fluffy cloud floating by - have I said enough to convince you that I really had no choice but to take the afternoon off? :-) The other notable thing about the River Cottage programme was their inability to catch a fish. They actually had all the professional fishermen from Devon Corporate Events fishing for them for 2 whole days in order to get a wild trout to do their farmed versus wild trout taste test. The bad luck they had was unbelievable; at one point we thought they were going to ask one of the guys to get into a wet suit in the river and stick a farmed trout on the end of Hugh's rod but Hugh's an honorable man and insisted they catch a wild trout for a real taste test! We know there are plenty of trout in the river because only a couple of months ago a lady called Ella Price, a complete novice booked her first ever afternoon's fishing lesson and surprised everyone by catching the largest trout to come from the river Otter in 30 years. Check out Ella's fish below, makes Hugh's catch look like a tiddler doesn't it? I must do some work now as the sun is due to come out later and as you know I really must get back to Lyme Regis and Sidmouth for photo's for you here; it's a tough job but someone has to do it! Television coverage of Glastonbury starts on BBC3 at 7.00pm tonight with Lily Allen and Lady Gaga for all of us that couldn't get tickets this year. Happy Glasto watching, Tracy x  Monday 22nd June 2009 The change of months does keep taking me by surprise and here we are already mid June and preparing Lola and Matilda for Glastonbury later this week. Matilda has a young family taking her so we have fitted our brand new cabin hammock for the little one which can also be used in Lola if needed. Locally we have just celebrated the summer solstice with a traditional event in Ottery St Mary known as pixie day where the children dress as pixies and the church bells are rung through the afternoon to scare the pixies out of town. Lots of entertainment is put on around the little town and everyone enjoys the celebrations, finishing with a fabulous firework display at midnight. On Sunday we were down at Sidmouth for a stroll on the front, when we got there we wished we'd taken our beach things, the sun was shining and it was hot. All the people playing, sunbathing and swimming made a beautiful summer picture as we strolled along in the sunshine, I really must remember to carry my camera everywhere we go so I can share these things with you here. Unfortunately all I have for you is pictures of the hammock, sorry! You'd think I'd learn since it was only last week when my mum was down from Yorkshire that I regretted not having my camera as we browsed the little shops and wandered along the prom at Lyme Regis. All the renovations to the beach there are now complete and it is just beautiful, whichever way you look the view is wonderful. I do intend to get back to Lyme for those pictures soon but in the meantime the Lyme Regis Tourist Board have launched their webcam that you can view anytime from here http://www.lymeregistourism.co.uk/webcam Back to cleaning my campers now. For all you lucky enough to be going to Glastonbury have a fabulous time, look out for Lola and Matilda and if you see them, give them a wave! Tracy x  Thursday 7th May 2009 It's May already! I hope everyone had a wonderful May Day bank holiday weekend. We saw Lola off on the Friday for the week and on the Saturday afternoon celebrated a friend's birthday by getting together for a walk down the River Otter from Ottery St Mary to Tipton St John. This isn't too long a walk as we had lots of children with us. We did nearly make it to Tipton but the children and dogs that arrived at Tumbling Weir first were in the water having a ball before anyone could stop them so not wanting to spoil their fun we stayed at the weir for our picnic. A few walkers coming the other way had intended to call at The Golden Lion pub at Tipton but it turns out that it closes at 2.30pm even at weekends so they couldn't call for a pint and one of their fabulous lunches, I can highly recommend The Golden Lion Inn but do check their opening hours before making plans! As it was we had a lovely afternoon that everyone enjoyed, eating cakes and watching the children play in the river. Happy Birthday Fergus! On bank holiday Monday we went to see friends in Newton Poppleford for a barbeque and as their village newsletter is the best in East Devon, probably, we always have a read to find out what's going on locally. This month along with all the usual information and local news there was an article about a new campaign started by paramedics who often find mobile phones on patients at accident scenes but don't know who to call from the contacts stored. The campaign is trying to get the message out to everyone to store their significant other(s) under ICE meaning In Case of Emergency. For multiple emergency contacts store as ICE 1, ICE 2 etc. As an ex-nurse I have experience of trying to find and inform relatives, sometimes having to use valuable police time, so I think this is a fantastic idea and hope I can help to spread the message from here. More a public information blog than happy campers today but worth publishing I think. I'm now going to give ICE Paul a hand preparing Matilda for her campers at the weekend and will be back in a week or so with more tales of Devon and our smashing little VW camper vans! TTFN. Tracy. x
Thursday 23th April 2009 What a fabulous April we're having.! The Easter holidays started out a bit dodgy weather wise but picked up and allowed our happy campers to experience the South West in all it's glory, bathed in sunshine. We cleaned and hand polished both campers ready to be taken out over Easter and how they sparkled in the sunshine, I love seeing them all shiny and polished waiting for their holiday makers to arrive. Matilda went to Wales with a lovely family with young children who were reluctant to give her back! And Lola had the pleasures of Cornwall with a great young couple who'd travelled all the way from Spain to holiday down here so we were especially pleased for them when the weather picked up! We had a great Easter ourselves even though we didn't have a camper to get out and about in, East Devon has so many gems you don't need to go far. The walk from Sidmouth to Ladram Bay has the most beautiful views from the cliffs down to Jacob's Ladder beach and from Ladram through the rock formations looking back to Sidmouth are simply breathtaking. Well worth the effort of the walk and handsomely rewarded at Ladram with a cold drink at the new bar overlooking the beach, absolutely ideal. Ladram Bay has a well equipped site for touring campers so if you don't fancy the walk but do fancy the cold drink at the bar overlooking the beach then you can stay here and have only a short stroll back to your VW camper van. I'm hoping to find the time to continue work on our holiday guide links pages soon but in the meantime check out this fabulous new website keeping us all up to date on what's on where in Devon: www.livemapuk.co.uk/devon/home.html Updated every month so you should always be able to find some event, show, festival, farmers market etc to visit during your holiday down here. Gavin and Faye of SW Splitz are back in the country now after their 3 month long visit to Australia and have sourced more 'dry climate' VW's, i.e. unrusted, campers and cars. The first consignment is due here soon so I'm looking forward to a trip to Kennford to see what he's bought and maybe, if finances allow, commission Gav to refurbish another camper van for us. Keep your fingers crossed for me re finances as I can't wait to get my hands on another camper van, be warned out there; these dear old VW's are addictive! Enjoy the sunshine and I'll be back with photos next time. Tracy. x Done it! Here they are...
Tuesday 17th March 2009 Hello there! It's another sunny, spirit lifting, spring day here in Devon and I've been out and about in my lovely yellow beetle flaunting the fact that I can have the top down in the sunshine ;-) and having lunch at The Anchor Inn, Seatown for the purposes of research on your behalf, honestly! I just wish I could show you. As I am a VW camper van nut and not a web wizard I do not yet have the skills to post photographs on our blog, I do have this in hand though and will soon be able to brighten our news blog with relevant pictures for you. Back to the Anchor Inn though, any regular visitors out there may by now have noticed that I am trying to put together holiday guides for each of the counties in the West Country to help our camper van customers plan a fantastic holiday; starting here in Devon, although I have already found a few places in Dorset, Cornwall and Somerset too. We have many fine pubs and restaurants down here and a wealth of activities to suit all ages and abilities. For example, check out surfing lessons with one of the many surf schools in the region of your destination, all ages and abilities are catered for or how about horse riding, cycling, canoeing, speed boating, fishing, climbing; the opportunities down here are endless so I'm filtering through everything available and bringing to you only the best places and ideas to help you make the most of your stay in the West Country.
If anyone has any other recommendations I would love to hear from you, drop me an email to tracy@devonhappycampers.co.uk and I will be happy to add your favourite pub, restaurant, activity or place of interest. Cheers, Tracy. x Monday 2nd March 2009 Well, a whole month has gone by since I last blogged. Winter is officially over as is our February earlybird offer. We had quite a few take up the offer and we look forward to meeting you all over the coming months. We've also had a lot of enquiries and queries so I will be addressing these on our FAQs page, thanks to all who have called for your input. Spring is now upon us and the sunshine will soon be tempting me outside to clean and polish our beautiful camper vans, a compulsion that is causing me to neglect the garden that still needs putting back in order after the river Wolf crossed the field and washed our rockery and garden furniture away down the river Otter. The guys from Devon Corporate Events who care for the river are still finding bits of our table, chairs and benches washed up by the riverside! Talking of Devon Corporate Events our link to them doesn't really explain what they do, for anyone who's ever fancied fishing, clay shooting, target shooting, archery and/or 4x4 Land Rover off road driving drop Dave an email at Devon Corporate Events. It's a fantastic way to spend a weekend and a great idea for hen & stag do's. Dave will get you the best price if you want to stay at our local hotel The Deerpark or you can go for the whole outdoor life with one of our VW camper vans. Another great idea for a weekend of R & R from Devon Happy Campers! Tracy. x Saturday 31st January 2009 In order to help us organise our summer bookings and therefore our own summer holidays we'd like to encourage our customers to book their VW camper van early and have therefore launched our earlybird booking special offer today. We are offering a 10% discount on the total cost of hire including any extras and hope this will encourage some early bookings for summer 2009. The offer ends Saturday 28th February so book your classic VW camper van now to receive your discount. I've found yet another local festival, this time a beer festival first that has evolved into a strange mix of music from 1940 to present day, war re-enactments and real ale from around the British Isles, held in Plymouth. It looks fascinating, check it out here http://www.beerfestivalevents.co.uk/ it looks like there are still tickets available and camping even in camper vans is free, buy a gold ticket and your beer is free on Saturday night; that could well be worth the investment! Although there can never be any guarantees with the British weather I thought I'd pass on our aged sage of a milkman's knowledge about these things in order to offer a glimmer of hope as another spell of Arctic weather is on it's way. Old milky told us years ago that a mild winter is always followed by a wet summer but a cold winter is always followed by a hot summer so bring on the snow and biting winds for now and we shall be surfing and sunning ourselves on a Devon or Cornish beach all summer long! Bring on the snow! Tracy. x Monday 12th January 2009 At last the temperatures have risen above freezing! We have a balmy 11 degrees here in East Devon today but unfortunately we also have wind, rain and cloud so I'm going to leave our vw camper vans covered for the day as the wind does make handling the covers difficult. Hopefully I'll get Lola out for a run down to Sidmouth this week. Although both vw camper vans are 1976 campers they have tolerated the regular freezing temperatures well and I've had no trouble starting them during the cold spell. Lucky Lola! Tracy. x Monday 5th January 2009 We've had a fabulous time ski-ing in Mayrhofen, Austria over the New Year holiday and can't recommend the resort highly enough. The weather was perfect and the huge range of slopes meant everyone was happy ski-ing all day long in the sunshine. Happy summer planning! Tracy. x
25th November 2009 Hello, I'm hoping to get a bit of blog going on here when the weather warms up and Matilda and Lola start getting out and about again. As the temperatures are now finally dropping to winter temperatures we have cleaned our campers inside and out, removed their accessories and put their winter coats on to protect them from the harsher elements to come. This doesn't mean to say they'll be ignored through the winter though as I can't go a week without taking one or the other out somewhere. As much as I love my yellow Beetle, she is a new Beetle and cannot compare with the pleasure I get from driving the camper vans! On saying that, both campers have gas cookers that heat them up very quickly and we've equipped them with fan heaters for when electric hook up is available so some hardy walkers or country sports enthusiasts may well want to experience our beautiful part of the country at it's most peaceful time. This is the time of year when we take long walks in the countryside or coast paths or just along one our local beaches then head back to the pub - The Otter Inn is just next door, for a good dinner, a warm by the fire and maybe a cider or two to finish the day, lovely! Tracy. x |
