Bodiam Castle and Folkestone

Two weekends ago we went for a trip in our campervan. We had lovely weather and a great time.

Our first stop was a camping ground near Bodiam Castle. We arrived quite late and there was only a short time for a play on the play ground before the children had to go to bed. The next morning, we took our bikes and rode along a nice path, right next to a stream, to Bodiam Castle. The kids did really well, considering it was quite bumpy and about 2 km long.

We had lunch at the cafe...

... and then walked over to the castle.

This is Bodiam Castle, another National Trust site, a great castle with a big moat and a path running all the way around it.

Our second stop took a little while to find. I was hoping to look at the town Rye, which sounded nice, but because there was a fair on and no vacant camping grounds nearby we moved on. We tried to find a spot along the seaside, but that was difficult as well. Because the English are not very friendly towards campervans and all car parks by the beaches have hight restrictions, we had to find a camping ground within walking distance to a beach, rather than camp inland a little and then drive to the beach. Most camping grounds we found either had only static campervans or were booked out. Finally, by the time we got to Folkestone, we found a nice camping ground on a hill right above the beach. It was getting towards bed time, which was perfect timing.

In the morning I went for a run along the beach. The beach was quite unusual, because it had a concrete path running along it (we think from the war). On a walk along the beach later on, with the whole family, we managed to find a nice beach that was half pebbles and half sand. We spent the rest of the day there.

The kids had a great time. They threw stones into the water, ...

found a star fish, ...

 and built a sandcastle.

Finally... some sunshine!!!

After a long looong winter, the sun finally made an appearance here in Maidenhead and we just spent a lovely long weekend in the sunshine. Unfortunately Lindsay had to do quite a bit of work, so we couldn't go away on a trip in the camper-van. But he managed to get out on his bike a couple of times and I did some day trips with the kids.

On Friday after school, I took the girls to Cliveden, our local National Trust site. We only had about an hour there, but we enjoyed the sunshine, an ice cream and the play ground. Yana took Cheeky Monkey along, who she got to spend the weekend with as a reward from her school teacher.

 

On Saturday we took the girls to their gymnastics classes, Anya in the morning and Yana in the afternoon. In between we did some gardening. The plants Lindsay grew from seeds are making great progress and the strawberries I planted are already flowering. Again, Cheeky Monkey was there to help out.

On Sunday I took the kids back to Cliveden to spend most of the day there. Lindsay biked out there to join us for a picnic lunch. We had a great time. The kids continued building the den that someone had started, we went through the maze and spent a long time on the playground. I managed to get quite a bit of reading done, which was lovely.

In the evening we went for a bike ride to a nearby pub. Anya was on the back of Lindsay's bike and Yana managed to bike the 2km there and 2km back again. We sat in the beer garden and had dinner there.

On Monday, while Lindsay went for a huge bike ride to Wallingford, I took the kids to another National Trust site called Waddesdon Manor. It was a great place, with a lovely manor house and gardens, and an adventure playground that the kids loved. The weather was amazing.

We had a picnic by the playground, went for a walk through the gardens, sunbathed in front of the manor house and had an ice cream. We also saw a light show exhibition by Bruce Munro and some videos showing other light displays he had done. The kids were fascinated by them and didn't want to leave.