So August was pretty busy 😂 - there is another weekend I haven't included in this, it was just getting far too long !! That will be for the next one.
11th - 15th of August - Family Holiday, Withernsea
I had booked a caravan on the east coast for a holiday away with the wife and kids. We usually do a week away at least once a year.
It was nice to spend some quality time with the kids, we managed some day trips out to a few places
- Burton Agnes Hall - Had a pride flag flying above it !
- Bugtopia Hornsea Zoo - Nice turtles
- The Deep Aquarium - Not been for ages, really enjoyed !
We did spend some time in Withernsea as well, it's not a huge place but OK for a short break. Weather was OK , not too hot thankfully - it was a heatwave in many parts of the UK that week.
Didn't manage to go to Spurn, partly as nobody else was bothered - which was a shame, but I had done earlier in the year at least.
Everyone seemed to have a fun time, the park and caravan were a bit more tired than we were used to, but it was still a nice break.
16th of August - Nostell park run
Wanting to continue with my exercise regime I decided to go to one of my local park runs. I am sort of in the middle of three of them, but this venue meant more to me - it was the first place i went out en-femme all those moons ago !
I never would have imagined I would be back here with hundreds of people dressed, and running !
It didn't feel as friendly as my 1st, but I didn't have someone with me who knew people there, so I guess was to be expected. I didn't end up as fast as the previous either, this one is a bit more hilly and I was running slower as a result.
I hope to attend again this weekend, weather permitting.
21st August Peterborough Beer Festival
The Womens Drivers Club had a 3 day event near Great Yarmouth, which overlapped slightly with the Peterborough beer festival, I do like that beer festival, and it is attended by a number of my friends. So thought it was a good idea to have a day at that, to break up the journey to Norfolk.
I was going with Charlotte in the Morris, she came to mine first then we drove down to Peterborough on the Thursday morning. The drive was pretty uneventful and we arrived by 11:30. I had pre-booked parking for her, but spaces are at a premium so an early arrival was prudent. I managed to bag a space next to a lamppost, so I could chain her up - Josephine not Charlotte 😀
We were both hungry, which did end up causing us to not spend a lot of time looking for somewhere nice to eat. The place we ended up at wasn't the best, but we did at least manage to find a gluten free pizza for me. Sally spotted us while walking past to meet the others somewhere and popped in to say hi, which was nice.
After this we had a quick look inside the Cathedral, and then popped into a micropub for the first drink of the day. We couldn't check-in till 3pm, so was no point rushing back.
We got into our room, and had a cup of tea before heading to the beer festival a short walk over the road.
The others were already in there, and we managed to locate them. The day progressed as usual, lots of gluten free drinks for me, mainly proper still ciders. We grabbed some food - i think i had a curry and rice. I got some nice turtle earrings from a stall in the entertainment tent. More drinking, I went a bit mad and started trying gin, mead and some others. Charlotte got a kebab a bit later on.
I think we left about 10pm, but I persuaded Charlotte we should visit a pub inside a barge near the hotel for a nightcap. Our friends ended up following us there, which was awkward as we had said were off to bed 😁
We were back in the hotel for 11 ish, and I did try and drink a lot of water.
22nd - 25th of August Women's Drivers Social Club - Camping near Great Yarmouth
It should be no surprise to anyone that I wasn't feeling my best in the morning - but didn't feel tipsy at least. So we packed back up and headed east ! It was a warm drive, but the traffic was not bad, I had hoped to stop off at an air museum on the way for lunch, but it turned out they only did cold food. So Charlotte found us a nice little place to stop in and grab lunch called Swaffham. I just about managed to eat the middle of a jacket potato - tummy still delicate, but it did help.
We went in a friendly florist/greengrocers to grab some bananas for Charlottes breakfast the next day, and some emergency apples, then set back off. We made good time, and even managed to detour to a holiday let that Charlotte had been in earlier in the month to retrieve a cushion she had left ! - we also bought some lovely eggs from there too.
I believe we arrived at the campsite about 4pm. The group pitching was already in progress when we arrived and we got allocated a spot next to Katie and her white VW Sirocco.
After setting the tent up it was nearly tea time, and Charlotte was getting a bit hangry so I put the camping stove on and made us some pasta pesto and sausage which was very quick to do. I always bring emergency Mattessons smoked sausage as it's vacumn packed and doesn't need to be refrigerated till open.
We got our chairs out and sat around with the rest of the girls later on, but didn't stay up late as we were both fairly tired.
23rd - We were meant to be going to a transport museum but while googling how to get their the previous night I had discovered it was closed, and I had suggested we all go to the City of Norwich Air Museum instead, which everyone seemed to think was a good idea.
We all gathered after breakfast and drove to the museum in convoy which was fun. The museum was really good, lots of exhibits and plenty of aircraft outside to look at - you could pay to go in them, but you had to book slots etc so didn't bother.
Had lunch there, and then we stopped off at a farm shop / shopping outlet on the way back. Was a nice place, all sorts there from jewellery to clothes, fairly mature tree's and food. There was a cafe as well. We spotted a horse in a field so went to go look at that too.
After we got back to the campsite, I cooked another meal - might have been rice this time, i forget. Then we took a walk into Hembsy to try and find the girls who had gone earlier. We saw some of them coming back, but continued on. There were plenty of arcades, the usual tat shops and chippy / ice cream shops.
I do like two player driving games, so I had a go with Charlotte on a Daytona one - we were not too badly matched ! Made our way back along the dunes to the campsite after a while, and then sat out with the girls again. Was a very pleasant evening.
24th
The group had organized for us to show our vehicles at an American themed dinner on the Great Yarmouth sea front, it was going to be really busy as there was a very large truck display and convoy coming through in the early evening. We needed to get in position before the roads were closed off for the day, and would be there until after the convoy went through town in the early evening.
It was only a short drive to the location, and we were in the right place fairly quickly, but needed to do a bit of maneuvering to get us all in a nice display formation.
Charlotte had unfortunately got an issue with her face, a bug bite or ingrown hair or something. This had made one side of her cheek swell up. So our first port of call after parking was a pharmacy to get advice. They were helpful but not able to suggest anything other than pain relief and antihistamines. We did replenish stocks , and thankfully the swelling did subside slowly over the day.
We ended up back at the dinner where some of the girls were having brunch, and joined them for a drink. They seemed to specialise in doing snails on the coffees in chocolate powder, so Charlotte got one - looked more like a rabbit to me 🤣
After this we went for a wander, looked at a few other cars from a different group and walked along the seafront. We found a cafe in the leisure centre that did more healthy food so ate there and used the loos.
Went to the southern most pier, played pool, did some bowling and played some of the arcade machines.
We ended up doing some retro old money arcade games somewhere else, and found a partially functional Sega rally 2 , but was too bad to have a fair game.
We stumbled across a few of the other girls wandering around too. Later on after a tea at the Hippodrome, we eventually found a working Sega rally version one !!!!
The truck convey was at 6, so we decided to have some fish and chips before that came through, it was very busy everywhere so we got as takeaway and ate back at the car.
Convoy was really good, must have been over 100 trucks, everyone of them polished very well, and the drivers were all in shirts and ties. Lady truckers got cheers from the assembled Womens Drivers Club - I didn't get any photo's though, I was taking video and haven't got around to uploading it yet.
After the convoy, we did the North most pier - the highlight for me was the shooting game which I did really well at !
We were in lower level room with 2p machines , trying to get a soft toy, and water stared pouring on the machines from above. We did manage to get the soft toy before ours started to get wet !
Drove back to the campsite about 7ish, stopping for fuel on the way, coincidentally pulled up to one of the other girls who had the same idea 😊 - Sat out with the rest of the group for a bit when they all returned, it was quite a long day as had been on our feet for a lot of it.
25th
This was the last day of the adventure, the plan was to go to a big car museum in the morning, then everyone could head home later on.
It was only a short drive to the Caister Castle Car Collection , we formed up in the car park for a group shot.
The car collection was very large, it had a bit of everything really, from early steam cars all the way to 80's and 90's stuff. The was obviously a Morris Minor, and I did find a Standard but it was a lot newer than mine. Charlotte liked some of the Mazda's.
We spent a good while looking around, I got lots of photo's of course.
It was nearing lunch time, so we headed to the cafe on site and met back up with everyone as they all had the same idea. We had brought some emergency tuna meals to have, which was good as there wasn't much there we liked.
After eating, we decided to say our goodbyes, as it would be a long trip back home, then Charlotte would need to drive back to Hull from mine when I got us back to Barnsley.
The drive back was pretty uneventful, it was a warm day so had the windows down, traffic wasn't too bad and we made good time. We stopped once for fuel and a loo break.
Was pretty tired by time we got back to mine.
All in all a very nice weekend - I do really look forward to these events, and it didn't disappoint at all ! - fab to share it with Charlotte too, much more fun with company.
