Visit to Nottingham

Arriving home from a five day sojourn to Nottingham, I feel I ought to commit pen to paper and provide a swift resumee of the holiday. We stayed at the Clumber Park Caravan Club site which never fails to please. A large site set in the middle of Clumber Park, near Worksop, there are excellent opportunities to cycle on predetermined routes as well as those you might make for yourself through the extensive park and woodland. The terrain is generally flat and the scenery splendid. During the week outside the main holiday periods it is always quiet. This can no longer be said for the site which seems increasingly busy and sensibly should be booked in advance. Sadly, gone are the days when you can simply assume that all sites will have available pitches.

The only niggling problem with the site is the complete lack of mobile phone signal. This necessitated having to travel half a mile both to make a phone call and to collect emails on the iPad. Fortunately, the weather has been very kind so this did not prove too much of a hardship.

The five days have been interspersed with cycling and walking around the park and visiting friends and family in Nottingham. Both my wife and I used to work in the city prior to moving to Essex and my brother has lived in Nottingham for many years. For visiting we hired a car from Enterprise. They provide excellent service collecting from the site and returning you at the end of the hire period. For a Ford Ka we paid £57 for two days which seemed reasonable and included an enhanced damage waiver.

The motorhome has behaved itself except for the inexplicable failure of the piezo ignition on the gas fire. Seems like another call on the warranty when we arrive home. For a new vehicle in 2009, I am beginning to feel that there have been too many problems - many minor but no less irritating for that.

The bikes have behaved faultlessly in the first airing of the season. It was good to get them off the rack and the ten mile run around the estate was good fun though both Jan and I are suffering the consequences!