Llangollen

This weekend we've brought the 'van to Llangollen, to a temporary site beside the canal about 20 minutes walk from the town. The site is run, through the Camping and Caravanning club by the friendly folks of North East Cheshire DA, and we've been coming to this one for the past six years. Why? Because it's less than an hour's tow from home, it has all the right lay-lines and once here there is no need to ever use the car, so it is way more eco-friendly than staying at home, The weather has been okay, despite dire forebodings from the BBC (we've long since learned to ignore these), apart from a bit of rain on Saturday and a cold day Sunday.

So what do we do here that brings us back every year? Llangollen has two things that draw us like a magnet. It has coffee and tea shops in abundance, and it has one of the best second-hand bookshops for miles. True to form I staggered back along the canal, on Saturday, with a bag-load of books that I can add to my growing pile of must-reads. (I really must train myself to read quicker). And NECDA do a picture quiz each year that we've never won (no exception this year) but its fun to do. There's a theme, this year was pop bands, and you have to draw a pictorial clue for your particular band (pulled from a hat) that you display in the caravan window. Then you grap a pen and paper and wander round the site looking at every other clue to try and figure out as many as possible

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Today we've been up to castel Dinas Bran. It was the perfect weather for it, fluffy clouds and good visibility, and I was pleased to get through it without knackering either of my knees, which is the way I usually start the summer. Here's me and Sarah on the top sharing bodily warmth (because the wind was a bit nippy up there). We came down into Llangollen and found a coffee shop, not easy on a Bank Holiday Monday because Llangollen was chocka. But here's the nice thing about temporary sites – there's no pressure to leave by a certain time. We'll have tea here then a leisurely pack. By the time we hit the road the Bank Holiday traffic will be back home watching the telly.