Taking Julian to Keswick

As promised yesterday here are a load of pictures from my weekend trip in Julian up to Keswick. The purpose of this trip was many-fold; I was meeting a couple of friends for some beers, taking Julian on a longish road trip to work out any problems and finally checking out the recent work which had been done to fix the hookup and internal electrics.

In all of these things I was successful, and the reason for the short post yesterday is testament to how successful the beers were on Saturday night.

I left work Friday and legged it to Blackpool to collect Julian; I have taken this opportunity to get Thomas into the garage to have the slight overheating issue looked at and also get his cam belts checked. I also got to try out the new shutter on the unit and was frustrated in this by the fact that the manual opening thing didn't work, and the fitters had left no keys so my clever thought "I'll use the new inverter in Julian to provide power for the shutter" was foiled. Hopefully the landlord can get this sorted for Friday so I can get the doors open and park Julian inside from now on.

Foam insulation in the fridge hole

After this hectic rush I got on the road in Julian and made my way up the M6 at a steady 55mph. I had blocked the ex-fridge-hole up with some foam padding however I don't think I did a good enough job as I was really rather cold, even with the heater going full. I had also mistakenly moved a mirror a little out of line which meant the my visibility to my right was quite limited; very exciting when trying to overtake an even slower moving vehicle than yourself when you aren't totally sure of your blind spot.

The moon on Friday night

About 9pm or so I arrived at the camp site and was shown to my pitch. It was an amazingly clear night with gorgeous stars and I immediately regretted not bringing my tripod with me. I did manage to take this picture of the moon which hasn't come out too bad - my shaking hands managed to hold steady for the 4-6 seconds of exposure this shot required (by leaning them on the spare wheel behind Julian).

My multi-sleeping bag nest

The ground was fristy-frosty and the air was not much better; apparently it was about -3 degrees at the time I arrived. Fortunately I had made a nest inside Julian which consisted of a doubled up thick rug underneath, a cocoon style sleeping bag for me to get into, a double duvet over the top and then three extra sleeping bags on top of THAT. Suffice to say I was quite lovely and warm throughout the night and even when I had to get up in the night to use the facilities the beauty of the stars distracted me from frost bite.

One of the first things which I did upon arrival was hookup to the nearest electricity point and test out the work which had been done on Julian. The inverter appeared to be working fine; it made a noise and the four way plugged into it came to life and allowed my walky talky charger to work; win. The leisure battery was a little low when I parked which makes me a touch concerned that it is not being charged by the running engine. For charging said battery while on hookup power I have a standard plug in charger and this seemed to be working, as the battery charge went up through the evening.

This is where the good news stops, however. I was unable to get any charge from the four way running off the hookup and then, with some trouble shooting changes, I spotted the following unusual behaviour:

• When the leisure battery charger is plugged in to the new single socket the red light on the consumer unit is steady however the red light on the four way goes off and I can get no power out of the four way
• When I unplug the leisure battery charger from the new single socket the red light on the consumer unit is steady and the red light on the four way comes on solidly
• When I plug anything else in to either the new single socket, or the four way, the red light on the four way started flashing on for half a second every couple of seconds. When this light switched off, the red light on the consumer unit pulsed slightly stronger for a brief moment

Unfortunately when I explained this behaviour to my camper van dude his replies were less than helpful and I am still unsure why this is occurring; I have plans to meet him on Friday to go through this. Anyway, enough of that.. onwards with the weekend.

Nice brew

The second thing I did, after all this fannying around, was to put the kettle on. Ahhhh first cuppa of the trip.

Frosty ground and overcast skies

I woke up comfortable and warm and to a frosty ground with overcast skies. This was a shame after the amazing clearness of the night but probably helped prevent the temperature dropping too far.

The camp site I was in (Keswick Camping and Caravanning Club Site) is situated right on the lake edge of Derwentwater. My first task of the day was to wonder down through the crisp morning air and enjoy the views. Here are some of the pictures I took:

Mountains reflected in Derwentwater

A wading bird

Canada geese and camper vans

Snow on the ridge

Keswick is one of my favourite places and the reason for this is obvious.

After this very pleasant stroll I returned to Julian and found him looking very retro and awesome indeed parked up amongst all the boring shiny new campervans which all look the same.

Julian all hooked up

It was time then for a brew to start my day off before I walked into Keswick for breakfast and a wander through the market.

Kettle boiling / cup steaming

It is a pleasure to sit in Julian on the sofa, feet up across the divide and drinking a brew while reading and glancing out of the window at the world passing by. I do feel very at home in him.

After I finished the brew I decided that a short walk was in order and headed into Keswick centre. It was still early and the market stalls were being set up. Last year when I was here I spotted a picture of a robin which I really liked however they had sold out of the size I wanted; this year I managed to go to the same stall and they had one in the right size. I am very pleased with this.

Keswick clock tower

Keswick has had some christmas decorations put up and I particularly enjoyed this one.

My favourite seat

About 11 I was getting really hungry and so headed to my favourite cafe in Keswick, The Wild Strawberry. First off I had a brew and sat reading and then, when it became clear I was eating alone today I had the breakfast which you can see in the blog post from yesterday.

Bring me more of the one on the right!

The good thing with eating somewhere you are known is they give you extra sausages and then, post a call from the owner, change the size of the tea pot from normal single person drinking alone size to the correct size for me.

My friends arrived just after I ate and we sat sharing a cuppa for a while before going our separate ways and agreeing to meet up later in the day.

I had spotted some stalls on the market earlier that interested me for breakfast; one selling fresh bread, another with cheese and a third which had pickles and other bottled goodness. Before setting off back to Julian I paid each of these a visit, of which more in a minute.

Friendly little robin

I had bought some window cleaning stuff and decided to sort out the dirty windows and wing mirrors so while I was wiping these with a rag I noticed a little robin redbreast hopping around. I do love robins and am always happy when one of these friendly little creatures is around. I was very surprised, however, to step inside Julian after my cleaning and see him sitting on my bed.

Can I leave now?

He did not seem in the slightest worried and hopped and fluttered around the van for a bit, checking it all out. I managed to grab my camera while he was doing this to get these photographs but kept my distance so as to not scare him.

Outside now, thanks for having me

After a minute or so I stood to one side and he flew calmly past me and out of the door, then sat outside looking back in at me.

Keswick sourced lunch

After this excitement I got together the provisions I had bought and made a very tasty cheese and pickle butty which I munched along with another brew.

This is where my pictures of the weekend dry up slightly as I headed to the pub with my book. I had a very interesting time, sat on my own with my book and an excellent pint of Snecklifter or three. At one point I was joined by 10 very friendly lads who were out on a lakes pub crawl (all locals) and then, later in the day, my friends joined me, some of them staying til the end and a couple only for a short while as they had other things to be getting on with.

Taken when drunk at the end of the night

I headed home to Julian about 11.30pm and this second night had to kick the nest off me and open a window as I ended up being lovely and warm. I woke too early and couldn't get back to sleep so read for several hours before dragging myself out of bed, via a brew, back to the Strawberry for another excellent breakfast and goodbyes to my friends.

The drive from Keswick to Manchester was really easy and I found that the cruise control is working in Julian again, and the radio works too so I was coasting along singing to my country and western and happy as larry. One idea I had was to drape the double duvet down behind the drivers cab to keep the cold from the hole in the wall out and this worked a treat; I was very comfortable and warm all the way home.

So now Julian is parked outside my house, I will be doing some more testing of the electrics this week, and hopefully building a hutch for Sassy in the gap from the fridge.

What a long update; thanks for reading.