Greetings From Camp Granada

                         

As I sit here alone (Marion is out visiting Sarah) in our brand new caravan waiting for the cycle store to be delivered, a glance out of the window immediately reminded me of that old song from my childhood, Camp Granada. You know the one that goes ‘Hello Mother, Hello Father, Here I am at, camp Granada. Camp is very entertaining and I think we’ll have some fun when it stops raining’. But that would be unfair really as the sun was cracking the flags yesterday as we arrived and emptied the heavily laden car’s contents (all that extra weight only resulted in 3 miles per gallon more fuel used than normal which means we used 0.88 litres more or about £1.25). It took us a few hours to get everything straight but it’s now starting to look a bit more like home.

                     

                          

                                             

Yesterday evening we dined at the site restaurant. The sign outside said booking recommended but Wednesdays must be quiet days and there were only four others using it. We had a cheap but hearty meal but we’ll be mostly cooking for ourselves from today onwards. This morning the TV Aerial man came and did that engineer thing of shaking his head at all the other aerials on the site and commenting upon how they were all way too big and unnecessary and wouldn’t be right in a strong wind. We would only need a small one. Have to admit that he was right as we’ve got 97% signal strength and a great picture He was a scouser but considers himself a naturalised Scot. It was quite funny noticing all the little bits of Scottish amongst the scouse with regular “ochs” and “wees”. He loves it up here and has even joined the local pipe band where he plays a drum and his young son plays the pipes. I told him about the pipers on New Year’s Eve at The Old Course hotel when we saw Prince Harry attending a famous golfer’s wedding (so famous I’ve forgotten who he was) and it turns out that he and his son were playing. He said it was a bit of a nightmare as the fireworks preceding the pipes were so enormous that bits of debris from them was raining down on the band who were worried about their feather busbies and sporrans going up in flames.  It could have been nasty.

                              

Last night we watched another of the Harry Potter films that we got as a present from a friend and we are now a bit more up to date. I’ve enjoyed them so far but do feel that they are a bit on the long side. Now that the TV has an aerial we can see what Freeview has to offer. However much we may dislike the Murdoch empire we are going to miss Sky while we are here.

                     

Tomorrow we are having a base fitted for our cycle store and then we can go and buy some bikes. The caravan site is up a pretty steep hill so we’re going to need some decent gears. Hopefully we’ll find a helpful bike shop. I phoned one in Dundee the other day and they were great on the phone. I found them on the internet but I’m struggling with the internet here. There is Wifi on site and it’s not too expensive (£75 per year) but there’s not a great signal in the caravan and I am finding it easier to log on with the iPhone than with the computer. There’s a great signal in other areas of the site so I can see myself camped out in the open writing my blog and catching up on all the metal detecting forums, or, heaven forbid, going internet less while we are up here.