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| With Sheila Kiggins outside Camping and Caravan Club Offices |
Back from an exciting week in London. If there is a
down side to any caravan holiday it is most often the journey home. This time
was different, though. We called into Camping and Caravanning Club HQ in
Coventry for a chat with the lovely Sheila Kiggins. Now, if there are two things I can
talk about forever it’s Caravanning and Science Fiction, and you can read all
about our talk on Sheila's Club People page of Camping and Caravanning Magazine, scheduled
for the July edition.
Before the journey home, though we had a wonderful five-day
stay at the CCC site in Chertsey, which we used as a base for coordinating two key things: For
Sarah it was the set-up for this year’s SBA exhibition in Central Hall
Westminster. (I helped. I carried stuff, and I suggested things like, put the big
painting here and the little one there, and the artists smiled and patted me on
the back and then did it the other way, the right way, without hurting my
feelings.) Then, a couple of days later we were back for the exhibition
opening, where the excellent Matthew Biggs of Gardener’s Question time was the
celebrity guest. For me, the big event
was my first visit to the London Book Fair at Olympia. I hadn’t appreciated just
how big this event was. I had my smart phone step counter switched on and
realized later that I’d done nearly seven miles walking around the exhibition
space. Seven miles! I kid you not, I got blisters. I went to some of the free
seminars and also had a long and fruitful talk with the KDP people, amongst
others, and have something interesting simmering away for release in the not
too distant future.
The site at Chertsey is lovely. We've stayed there
several times in the past, and this time we had a pitch that was only two or
three feet from the banks of the Thames. Very restful. Getting into London,
though. Sheesh! I hope nobody read my last Travelling in a Box post, because if
you did, then I apologize. I led you astray. I claimed the train from
Walton-on-Thames to Waterloo was cheap, using an Oyster card. It appears that
the train from Walton-on-Thames is neither cheap nor within the Oyster zone. On
weekdays there are staff on hand to do the wrist slapping. I won’t go into
transport-geek details, but we think the best way to keep the price down is to
buy return tickets to Surbiton, online in advance, and use a rail card to get
some discount. If anyone has a cheaper plan that doesn't involve a day of
cycling, walking or canoeing down the Thames, I'd love to hear from you.
A stay in Chertsey is not complete for us without a
meal in the Kingfisher, just over Chertsey Bridge. We went there on our final
evening. We love the place. Good food, rustic charm and not too expensive. A
successful week, and one that had us on the go, every day. Now we just need to
book a site where we can go for a rest.
