With friends

Yes, it's Small Motorhomes Forum (SMF) meet time again. This first spring meet is, as usual, at Kingsbury Water Park, just NE of Birmingham.

Getting here wasn't bad, although the satnav insisted on the both the closed A6, and the tangle of junctions around the M42/M6 toll. One day the satnav is going to say "if you're going to keep ignoring me I won't bother ” as we willfully insisted on the A5. A wise choice give the fact that we shortly passed a traffic sign detailing a closure of the M6 for a couple of junctions.

Firstly a visit to Market Harborough. This is a nice town. Some proper shops, not just the usual high street chains. And a baker selling highly popular Rutland Plum Lozenges, so popular, in fact, that when we got there at 11am they had already sold out of the day's batch :-( . Still they did bake Borodinsky bread. You what? Borodinsky is a Russian rye bread with a phenomenal orange tang and powerful rye taste. We have only encountered it once before (in Castle Douglas, Ayrshire) and it was fantastic. We'll shortly find out if Midland bakers do as well, as there is a loaf here in the van, just waiting to be cut!

Readers of my previous blogs know I'm interested in people and their approach to strangers (e.g. me). I must say this area of the world is jolly friendly. Folk spoke in the pub last night. Cars stopped and waved us across the road. Liz was a little stiff when rising from breakfast in Waitrose this morning and a passing gentleman proffered a hand and then helped her on with her jacket. Proper put me to shame, it did.

I'd like to have stayed at Market Harborough and tried a local beer in one of the pubs but ...

The Kingsbury campsite doesn't allow new vans on site until after 13:00 - there were at least a dozen already on the SMF field when we arrived 40 minutes layer. Friends old and new. And the sun is shining!

Of course, no meet at Kingsbury would be complete without the Friday night queue for the fish and chip van.