We’d planned to leave Matt and Sonia’s at 9am. We were on the road by 11am. Close enough.

As we headed north I wondered when the accents would change. I love a northern accent, and was looking forward to the moment we crossed the invisible line where everyone suddenly started talking funny.

We’re trying to fast-track it to Scotland, but still avoiding motorways. The roads were much better behaved today, and not as narrow and winding.

We stopped at Warrington to get our tyres checked as they are wearing funny. And the man took a look at them, opened his mouth and guess what?

He had the accent! Yay! On the negative side, he said it might be our suspension causing it and to get that checked, but he didn’t seem to think there was a problem for the moment. At least, I think that’s what he said. I couldn’t really understand him.

Then somewhere along the way my jandal popped its clog, and has been impossible to walk in them. So we spent the next hour or so, looking for jandals. I thought Decathlon would have had them. But nope. Only those stupid scuff style ones, and crocs for 40 pounds!

We tried the Lidl. Nope. Homebase. Nope. Now you might be thinking I was going around asking if they had jandals. But no, I’m not that stupid. I was definitely asking for flip-flops. Although I had to get Mike to translate a couple of times as people up here don’t understand my accent.

Finally I found a pair in Aldi. But they only had the one size, and they were a size 10! But, they would have to do. I can’t survive without jandals. They’re easy to slip on and off, and essential for the showers in preventing foot fungus!

So I am now wandering around in a ridiculously oversized pair of jandals. I wonder if that’s why people have been giving us a wide berth.

After that we were exhausted and started looking for somewhere to sleep. I’d seen a pub that allowed campervans to park overnight, roughly between Manchester and Liverpool but a little further north, so we headed there. It was a lovely spot, right on the canal with already a couple of vans parked up.

But what a noise. There were a load of rowdy cyclists there, all drinking and jumping in the canal, naking a terrible racket. I actually said, ‘lets get outta here.’ But Mike seemed to think they wouldn’t stay long.

It turns out it was a charity bike ride and they were raising money for their rugby club and to play in Ireland. And Mike was right. Within a couple of hours they were all gone.

We had a couple of beers in the pub, but I didn’t fancy anything on the menu. Then I saw the specials board. Sausage, mash and gravy for 8.90. I’d be having that! And it was so yummy. Diet starts tomorrow.

After dinner we took a walk along the canal. It’s a really gorgeous spot.

We saw a guy trying out an inflatable kayak he’d bought from Lidl. He was loaded up with camping gear while his mate walked alongside. The whole thing looked questionable. It had no keel and didn’t seem interested in travelling in a straight line.

I wished him luck and got outta there. I wasn’t jumping in to save him.

Despite being in a pub car park on a Saturday night, we had a really quiet night.

We’re on the road again.

For how long, we’re not entirely sure. The vague plan is to make our way up to Scotland, have a look around, and see how we feel. So, about as organised as usual.

For some reason, our first day on the road turned into a tour of British supermarkets.
First stop was Lidl to stock up on supplies. From there, we went to visit Mich, who is currently off work with sciatica, before hitting the road.

Quite why we thought setting off in the middle of the school holidays was a good idea, I’m not sure.
The roads were packed. Roadworks seemed to be everywhere, sections of motorway were closed, and we had no choice but to take the back roads.

Normally, we love the back roads. In Spain and Portugal they’d taken us through tiny villages, over mountains and along roads where we could drive for miles without seeing another car.

England is slightly different.

Here, there are other cars on them.

Eventually we made it to supermarket number two: Tesco, for a sandwich and snack deal. Proper road-trip cuisine.

Then we sat in some more traffic.

As we drove through Bradford on Avon, the air suddenly became thick with smoke. There had been wildfires breaking out around the UK, and driving through the haze was a little unnerving. I was starting to wonder whether this was really the best time to be setting off on a road trip.

The plan for the night was Ludlow, but somewhere just south of Gloucester we hit yet another traffic jam. As I stared at the map, I suddenly realised we were going to be passing quite close to Matt and Sonia’s place.
Mike gave Matt a call.

And just like that, Ludlow was abandoned and we were heading to see them instead.

Via Aldi, obviously, to get beer.

Three supermarkets in one day. We know how to travel.

It turned out to be a really nice change of plan. Instead of spending the evening looking for somewhere to stop for the night, we got to catch up with Matt and Sonia, and even had a proper bed to sleep in.

Scotland will just have to wait.

Today we went for a walk in the Malvern Hills with Matt, and we almost got injured twice!

The first walk was fairly uneventful, although it was quite steep and we had a bit of trouble keeping up with Matt, who was powering up the hills. I hadn’t realised how unfit we’d become! It was a gorgeous day though, and the views from the top across the countryside were well worth the climb.
The second walk was much more eventful.

Our first panic was the parking. We’d already paid £6.50 at the previous car park, and when we arrived at the next one, the machine wanted another £6.50. I’m not used to paying to go for a walk, so paying twice didn’t sit right with me.

Then we spotted the small print. The ticket actually covered all of the Malvern Hills car parks for the day. Phew!

Before we set off, we stood watching dozens of paragliders drifting overhead, floating around in the thermals. There were so many of them, I couldn’t work out how they managed to avoid each other.
The walk started along a lovely narrow woodland path. Matt spotted a sign marked ‘MTB Route.’

‘That’s a mountain bike trail,’ I said.

‘Nah,’ he replied. ‘Probably stands for Malvern Trust Board.’

About ten seconds later, two mountain bikers came hurtling towards us.
The path was so narrow I had nowhere to go and just hoped they’d stop in time. Thankfully they veered off around a corner at the last second.

That was close.

Our second close call came when we reached the top of the hill, where the paragliders were getting ready to launch. We watched one take off beautifully. It looked so effortless.

Another pilot was preparing to launch, so we stopped uphill to watch. Mike and Matt stayed back while I wandered a little closer to get some footage.

The pilot’s wife was helping him when, all of a sudden, he took off!

Only instead of gliding away downhill like the previous paraglider, a gust of wind blew him straight towards us.

He narrowly missed his wife, then he was coming for me! I took off running, then turned around just in time to see him heading straight for Mike and Matt.

Mike ducked.

Matt carried on filming.

Thankfully nobody was hurt, and looking back at the footage it was actually pretty funny.

But later that day we heard that a paraglider had been seriously injured and airlifted from the hills.
We couldn’t help wondering if it had been the same guy.

We finished the evening with a game of Scrabble.

Mike proudly played a T on a triple-word score, managing to make both AT and ATE at the same time, giving him a grand total of 8 points!

I said, ‘Matt’s probably sitting there with an X thinking, “I could have got 50 points with that, but you took my spot!”‘

Mike looked at his letters. ‘Oh. I had an X,’

Today we left Butlins and headed up to Ledbury to visit Matt (Mike’s son). It’s normally a 2.5-hour drive from Minehead, but it took us about 3.5 hours due to traffic and roadworks on the motorway. (Yes, we had to take the motorway, otherwise it would have taken 5 hours!)

Matt and Sonia took us for a sightseeing tour of Ledbury, which is a charming historic market town, full of chocolate ripple and wonky-shaped buildings (my favourites).

We went to the Prince of Wales Free House for drinks, and this is a proper olde-worlde pub. And apparently it’s haunted!

Sonia said there had been reports of people’s drinks falling off the tables, but they’d never seen anything before.

We sat down with our pints of Guinness and all was well. Until it was time for our second pint. Mike and I decided to share one, so Matt bought us a can to share. I had just finished pouring our beers and placed the can on the table when the ghost decided to visit!

The can just started sliding across the table, all on its own!

We all just sat there watching it. It was proper spooky.

There had to be a perfectly sensible explanation.

We threw a few ideas around, but the only logical conclusion we could come up with was that the ghost wanted a Guinness. We didn’t stay for a third beer.

After that we went to a beautiful Italian restaurant for dinner. And it was delicious. I chose the creamy salmon pasta, which was delicious, and Mike had a tortilinni.

We were too full for dessert, so we went back to Matt and Sonia’s and had yogurt and mango. Then we sat around outside chatting for the rest of the evening.

We had grand plans to walk to Dunster today.

Then we woke up a bit late… and couldn’t really be bothered.

So instead, we decided to do something even more exciting.

Laundry.

Our plan was to get it over and done with early, but there was a queue. Then, when we finally got a machine, the payment system wasn’t working. There was a bit of a kerfuffle as everyone tried to pay, failed, and started ringing customer services.

Not Mike though.

Despite being the oldest person in the room, he was probably the calmest. While everyone else was flapping about, he quietly downloaded the app, paid through that instead, and had our machine running before anyone else had even finished complaining.

By the time the washing was done, it was 12:30. So much for an early start.

We wandered into town for fish and chips after being told the best place wasn’t on the seafront. Even better, they did senior meals, which means you get free chips with your fish.
Naturally, we both ate far too much and spent the next hour wondering why fish and chips always seems like such a brilliant idea until you’ve actually finished it.

With the day disappearing, we figured we should at least make use of everything we’d paid for at Butlin’s.
Our first ride was the merry-go-round.

That didn’t go entirely to plan either.

Our first idea was to share a horse. I climbed on the front, realised there was absolutely nothing to hold onto apart from the horse’s neck, and decided this wasn’t how I wanted my obituary to read. So Mike climbed off and found himself another horse.

Problem solved.

For about thirty seconds, the horses bobbing up and down felt surprisingly dramatic.
Then it became… a merry-go-round.

Next was the giant slide, where they hand you a sack and encourage you to throw yourself down it. There was a lovely view from the top, although I spent most of the climb concentrating on not dropping my 360 camera while wrestling with a hessian sack.

It was actually pretty tame.

Then we finished the day with tonight’s show, Electric City.

And wow.

It was genuinely next level. Laser lights, glowing costumes, incredible dancers, loads of energy… definitely not what we were expecting, and a great way to finish our last day at Butlins.

Yesterday we vacated our smelly Butlins unit, today we were exhausted!

We grabbed a few hours sleep in the van, and went back to our unit to use the loo. We’d left all the windows open in the hope that the smell would clear out a bit, but it was still hideous. I decided it wasn’t good enough, so I rang them and complained.

They said they would send someone to look in the next 2 hours. I asked if we could just move rooms, but they said it was full. Apparently if we had’ve complained on the first day, they might have been able to move us. I’m not 100% sure that would have been any better.

Anyway, two hours later nobody had been to our room, so I rang again. They said someone will be there within the next two hours (4 hours by this stage).

So we waited another 2 hours and went back to check. A guy was just turning up with an Ozone machine, which is supposed to remove bad smells. He looked at the carpet and decided to clean it first. He said it would take about 2 hours.

So we went to an afternoon show called The Masked Singer. Apparently it is based on a TV series where you have to guess who the masked singer is based on clues they give you. I’d never heard of it.

Anyway, it was fun. They had two masked singers, and a panel on stage, and they even asked members in the audience who they thought it was. I’m not sure anyone actually got it right.

The masked singers turned out to be people I’d never heard of. Some guy from Emerdale farm, and a lady, who was on Emerdale a long time ago.

After that it was time to check out our room. The urine smell had gone, and the carpet was a completely different colour, but now it had a chemical smell from the ozone machine. We wouldn’t be sleeping in there. We left all the windows open though.

That evening we went to a show called Mad For It, and it was a fun cheesy pop sort of thing. A fun way to finish the day. Then back to Bertie to sleep.

One advantage of sleeping in Bertie (there are actually many) is how quiet it is at the edge of the carpark where we camped.

At our unit, people were constantly walking right past our room making lots of racket, oohing and aahing at the tree outside our window which was lit up with fairly lights. We knew to expect this so it didn’t bother us as it’s like being at a festival. But when we got to Bertie it was absolutely silent. And clean!

And that was day two at Butlins.

We arrived at 1 pm. Check-in was in the skyline pavilion which is a big top tent. Immediately it felt like I had walked into Circus-Circus one of the older casinos in Vegas. It really had that vibe about it. But rather that slot machines, there were arcade games. You know, the multilayered coin games where it looks like it’s going to drop any minute but it never does? That’s the level of gambling going on here.

Check-in was super easy and we got our big envelope containing our welcome pack. But we couldn’t go to our room until 5pm. So we went back to our van to look inside our pack, excited there might be goodies inside.

But when we opened it, it was a little disappointing. That big envelope contained only two wrist bands and two key cards.

At 5pm, we were finally able to see our room. And holy crap it stunk. Real bad, like someone had pissed on the floor bad. In hindsight we should have complained straight away, but by this time it was 5.30pm, we were due at Ems and Nicks place for dinner and we had a show to see that night.

Included in the Butlins ticket is accommodation, shows and rides. We paid 300 pounds for 4 nights, which seems pretty good value considering all that is included. The accommodation we chose is basic, just a room, with a bathroom and a jug and mugs. And if it didn’t smell it would have been fine.

Ems and Nick have much nicer accommodation. Theirs is a 3 bedroom apartment with a kitchen. But it was still pretty dirty. Ems spent most of the afternoon cleaning it. I don’t think Butlins put much effort into cleaning here which is pretty shocking.

The evening entertainment was a show called Theatre of Rock which I really enjoyed. Then came the part I was dreading. Going back to our room.

I don’t think I got any sleep at all as I was constantly gagging on the smell. And I kept on thinking how it would be infusing into all our clothes and bags and stuff. We’d brought our cereal into the room with us, but there was no way in hell I would be eating in there.

By the time 4am rolled around and the seagulls started making a racket, I’d had enough.

‘I’m going to go sleep in Bertie,’ I said to Mike who was also restless.

So we picked up ALL our stuff and started trudging back to Bertie at 4.30am. It was still dark and as I came around the corner a guy dressed all in black gave me a fright. I thought he might have been a security guard, although I hadn’t seen one so far.

‘Checking out out early?’ he asked, noticing us loaded up with our backpacks.

‘Nah, just out for an early morning hike,’ I replied, knowing we probably shouldn’t be sleeping on our van.

But he wasn’t a security guard. He was just looking for somewhere to buy a fizzy drink.

We’d parked Bertie at the far end of the carpark in the dark. We crawled inside and didn’t even bother making the bed up. Luckily Berties day set-up has two single beds, so we collapsed and passed out. We were home again.

It rained! Really, it did! Overnight. I woke up and it was all damp outside.

As a result, my nose was streaming. Mike’s had hay fever for a couple of days, and now I have it.

Just some observations from the campground here. People clearly aren’t touring, they come and set up for a week or more I am guessing.

They all have an awning or some sort, which I understand, but the thing that gets me is the clothesline. Not simply a piece of rope like we have that stashes away neatly and has multiple uses. But a proper full on rotator clothesline like you would have in your back yard at home. And absolutely EVERYBODY has one! (They must have been on special at the motorhome show.)

We were both really tired today so we had a quiet day, resting up ready for this weeks adventure at Butlins! I’m not sure whether I am looking forward to it or not.

It has finally cooled down enough to not be a sweaty mess 24 hours a day. We even had our jumpers on this morning and evening.

It’s nice getting up in the morning and being able to boil up our kettle outdoors. There are a load of pigeons here and they are noisy. If you watched our video a few weeks ago, Mike heard the birds saying “can you hear me?”

I hear the pigeons talking too. They are saying “I can’t do poo poo” over and over again. Then they proceed to crap all over the van.

It was supposed to rain today so I spent the day getting a video edited. We probably should have gone out and done something as it didn’t rain at all.

We tried for a healthy day today, starting with a banana, mango and salad smoothie, but the day got progressively worse from there. We had bacon and eggs for lunch, followed by chippies and then some chocolate. And a third coffee.

Not much else happened.