Madness. I has it......

Apparently the campsite we were all booked into for the duration of the Easter break is flooded. All of the grass pitches are waterlogged and inaccessible and there are no hard standings available.

So at the 11th hour yesterday, three of us were frantically ringing around trying to find alternative campsites. One of the places I tried, the chap just laughed.

So.

Thanks to (probably a glitch) on the Caravan Club website, we identified a sudden number of vacancies on a site which only 30 minutes earlier had shown up as full. Quick as a flash, all three couples in our little camping group booked in, and tomorrow we will be setting off to spend 5 nights in the Romney Marsh area.

Hm.

Yes.

I know what you're thinking.

Marsh = wet + boggy

However, any port in a storm and all that. Plus the site does have hard standing pitches, onto which they will want to put the two of us who are in motorhomes. Our friends in the caravan are probably going to have to go on grass but as they have a big 4x4 towcar I expect they'll be ok.

We're all of the opinion that as sites are cancelling their bookings left right and centre due to the weather and not wanting their lovely grassed pitches churned up to buggery, the CC website probably had a massive hiccough, which resulted in the pitches we discovered.

However.

Since we will be turning up at the site as close to noon as possible, we are reasonably confident of bagging a pitch, and avoiding the inevitable mayhem at around 6pm when any potential 'double bookings' arrive to fight it out over the remaining pitches.

Unfortunately it is unlikely that we will be able to have three pitches together, which is disappointing. Thankfully the site isn't very big, so even if we're all at opposite corners, it will only require a 5 minute dash through the driving rain to reach sanctuary.

I've hit on a damn fine plan to use the two youngest dogs (Small Dog and Young Fred - full name Frederick Albert Chang) as messenger dogs. We simply attach a message to their respective collars and send them off to whichever of our camping friends need to be alerted to the imminent opening of a wine bottle, serving of lunch, or whatever.

Naturally this plan has its glaringly obvious flaws. But it has to be worth a try.

In other news....



Yes.

Small Dog finally has her very own range of dog fud.

Apparently this is 'a balanced doggylicious meal for your Small Dog' with 'little pieces for smaller mouths'.

According to Small Dog the jury is out on the former, but she gives a firm paws up to the latter. The original version has chunks so big we worried she would dislocate her jaw trying to chew through them. In the end we had to pick them out of her dinner bowl out as she took to burying them down the back of the sofa.

We will be taking a small bag of these '35% smaller for easier chewing' samples and will report on Small Dog's qualified opinion in due course.

OK.

On with packing the van. I have to unearth a few more essential items........wellingtons, raincoat, sou'wester, plastic poncho, cagoule, rain hood, Small Dog's waterproofs etc, etc, etc.........