119 At Bob and Liz's place in Abess roding.

Friday 10th August.
Today we trecked up to Billing, Northampton, for the land rover show. Here they have land rovers in all their glory with different backs and geared up for all kinds of travel and off roading.  They also show and sell all different and wonderful bits and bobs that are a must for all land rover owners. (according to Ray, I just feel another eyebrow raise coming on).
This show had been cancelled from July because of the wet weather and today was really hot and sunny.  Leon was with us and enjoyed his day out in Gromit.
Anyway I digress, we ended up buying a proper tent for traveling and giving us a bit of extra living space when we are in Gromit, and some of the aforementioned must haves. Rather than carry them around we left them at the various stalls to be collected as we were leaving.

Saturday 11th August.
Ray returned to Billing, this time on his bike, to collect the must have that we left behind.  We are definitely getting worse.

Sunday 12th August.
We met up with daughters number 3 and 4, Naomi and Rosie today and went for Sunday lunch.  Rosie is just recovering from having her appendix out and both seem to be doing well. We deprived her of the little fiesta as we are moving from Hertford to our friends Bob and Liz's house in the country.  Gromit is going to tow the caravan and I am towing the bike with the fiesta.

Monday 13th August
We loaded up everything and with the poor fiesta groaning away we started the 20 mile journey to Little Laver for our next stop.  Liz greeted us and made the comment nice to see you are traveling light.  It might not have looked light, but it is all of our possessions in the world.  Ray is God father to Bob and Liz's son Benjamin so it was lovely to catch up with them all again.  We have parked up in the barn and it just gives us a bit of protection from the weather.  Bit of shopping to do and some running around and then a very pleasant meal and evening.

Tuesday 14th August
Mainly a housework day and some odd jobs then we decided to catch up with the pictures tonight and took Trula and Paige to see Ice Age 4.  Unfortunately, I completely misread the program and Ice Age wasn't on through the week.  (Told you we were getting worse).  So we went to see Brave instead, which us girls enjoyed, but Ray was a bit of a grumpy grandad.  He cheered up after when we went for Pizza and Trula spoilt us by paying.   Thanks Trula.

Wednesday 15th August
Its Zoe's birthday today so we popped into Harlow where she was visiting Trula and helped her celebrate.


The next few days have been sort of run of the mill, nothing to report.
We went for a meal with Bob Liz and Benjamin in Hatfield Heath to the Chinese called Mings.  I would recommend them.

Saturday 18th August
Ray took Benjamin out for a spin on the bike this morning and it appears to have been a success.

All armoured up and ready to go

We are both off out this afternoon.  Ray is going to Eagle Heights, a Bird of Prey centre in Kent, run by one of his army mates so there will be a bit of testosterone running down there.  I on the other hand am going to see my friend Mac and her two kids, Damien and Rebecca for a rather refined BBQ.  It was very pleasant and I returned to the caravan with the help of tom tom.  I don't think I'd get very far without it around these little country roads.  Ray is staying overnight and then going to see Taff, our best man and another army mate, on his way  home tomorrow.

Sunday 19th August
Bob and Liz had a busy morning looking after the animals and also mending fences.  Ray returned home about 2 o'clock  and after cooling down, we all settled down for the afternoon for a few glasses of wine. Liz and I sunbathed whilst Bob and Ray cooked the BBQ.  Well Bob cooked, Ray supervised and took abuse from Liz and myself.  We had a great afternoon chatting and exploring the garden, but it was  only Benjamin who was brave enough to get into the pool.  A great day had by all.

Monday 20th August
Ray has taken Gromit to pieces and is replacing various bits to make her run a bit smoother.  This is proving rather challenging, mostly because we don't have the right tools on us, but Bob has come to the rescue so all is not lost.
We ended up taking the bits that need squeezed together to Foleys on Tuesday and left them for Ray to pick up tomorrow morning.

Wednesday 22nd August

After an early start, Ray collected Gromit's bits and has started to re build her.........

Today is Paige's birthday so we are going to take her and her mum out for lunch.   

Very little got done on Gromit  today save to say that it just wound me up immensely due to not being able to push the very large and heavy bits together to line up.

Anyway, we went to the Swan PH near Nazeing and they had a bouncy castle there. 

Two signs said "children must be supervised" and "only children up to the age of 12 allowed". As Karen is always calling me a 5 year old and Paige needed supervision as she was 11 today, I joined in. Well, is it knackering or what. After about 5 minutes of somersaults etc I felt as though a heart attack was imminent so I allowed Paige to self supervise while I went to seek medical aid.

Giggles all round including the 5 year old

Even Karen joined in.

Dinner was small but tasty and after a beer or two we went back to drop Trula off and then headed back to Bob and Liz's place. We popped into their house for a drink that turned out to be many and fell into bed as drunk as skunks.

Thursday 23rd August

I set too on Gromit again, this time with a lot more success and finished the hard bits (the suspension) by 1200 and then set about sorting the cosmetic bits like door pockets and cup holders. This stuff is standard on most cars but then a Landrover is not most cars.

Then it was Wallace's turn. Having chased Ben's buggy around the field on him, it was apparent that the road tyres needed changing for knobbly ones. 2 hours later and all was done. Time for bed said Zebedee.

Friday 24th August

An easy day today that started with a trip to finally see "Ice Age 4" with Liz and Ben. In the evening we went to the White Hart in Moreton. This is the pub that Bob used to own and I have many drunken memories of it. It had been done up and had lost a lot of the original character that it had whilst in Bobs hands. However it was nice to meet up with some of the people that I used to associate with whilst in there.

Saturday 25th August

A quick trip to Stevenage to the Yamaha dealer. He had ordered a lot of nuts and bolts for me under warranty (before it ran out) for Wallace. Then it was off to the shops for Karen, oddly enough.she came back with two pairs of shoes. Strange that. 

In the mean time I gave Gromit a bath in prep for our next adventure.