MOTORHOME TRAVELLERS' DIARY FOR NOVEMBER 1999

POLAND, GERMANY, HOLLAND, ENGLAND

Barry and Margaret Williamson

01 NOVEMBER 1999 PL INTERNAT YOUTH CENTRE, AUSCHWITZ

All Saints Day, a public holiday in RC countries, taken so seriously that we found even the famous salt mines at Wieliczka, 10 miles from Krakow, were closed. In continuous operation for 700 years, with 9 levels and 190 miles of tunnels, it has statues, monuments and even a complete chapel carved from salt.

We left Krakow on empty roads and drove 75 miles to Auschwitz. (Only 50 miles on the back roads but we took the A4 motorway as far as Chrzanow - so new that the toll booths are not yet collecting - to minimise the hassle of country lanes, low bridges and diversions.) Each cemetery we passed was busy with visitors and every grave seemed to glow golden yellow and flaming red with flowers and candles.

The German-run International Youth Meeting Centre, between the town and the Auschwitz Concentration Camp, is a modern hostel and study centre for student groups, offering accommodation, camping and meals to all ages and nationalities when they have room. The only campers, we settled in the car park with a good hook-up and a good drinking water tap within reach. As the campers' toilet-shower block had been drained for winter, we were given a key to the executive bathroom in the office, complete with bath, shower, toilet, 2 wash basins, central heating and piping hot water! We couldn't escape the irony of finding such comfort in a German camp in this very town - the site of the largest Nazi Death Camp, at the heart of the worst genocide in human history, and the world's largest cemetery.

In the afternoon we cycled alongside the river for a mile or so to KL-Auschwitz I (KL = Konzentrations Lager), which we'd visited 10 years ago when we passed it by chance, cycling from Wroc aw to Krakow on our way across Eastern Europe to Istanbul. Though a grim memory, we wanted to give it much more time and see how its presentation had changed in the intervening decade, now that it's in Polish rather than Soviet hands. After Krakow and all our other experiences, we also thought that our own interpretation would have changed.

Where we remembered a little car park office and cafe in wooden huts, one of the camp's administrative offices is now refurbished to provide bookshops, photo exhibitions, a cinema with a 15-minute documentary film shown in various languages, information, change, toilets, etc. We checked the time for the next English screening (tomorrow morning) and asked about leaving bicycles (in the left luggage in the basement), then cycled 3 miles further, along and across a menacing single track railway line, to KL-Auschwitz II-Birkenau, added to KL- Auschwitz I a year later in 1941.

Birkenau, as the principal extermination centre, was even more shocking, the long lines of perimeter barbed wire and watch towers stretching as far as we could see. The railway line runs straight through the often-pictured entrance building, flanked by broad ramps where the summary selection of the deportees fit to work took place. 75% of them were marched straight to the underground gas chambers 'for a shower'. The rest were used as slave labour in Auschwitz and at 40 other camps serving nearby chemical factories until they died of exhaustion, starvation or disease. IG-Farben, of which Bayer was a subsidiary, moved to Auschwitz specially to hire them; Bayer itself tested pharmaceuticals on prisoners and 'bought' a batch of women for experiments - horrific news for Margaret. Many of Birkenau's wooden barrack buildings (over 300) were burnt down and the 4 huge gas chambers (each holding 2,000) and their crematoria were blown up by the Germans at the end in an attempt to hide the evidence of the atrocity, but the ruins are still there, covering 175 hectares, and the view from the entrance gate tower showed the huge scale of the 200,000 inmate camp. We cycled round the outer fences, along country lanes, noting that the former Kommandant's house was now in the hands of the RC church (with notices saying 'Private - Keep Out'). Feeling the haunted chill as dusk fell we returned to the luxury of hot baths.

75 miles. £6.15 inc elec.

Back to KL-Auschwitz I, bicycles stored in the left luggage/toilets after persuading the attendant that they were not a car (she kept insisting that they should be in the car park whilst slowly and reluctantly unlocking her empty storage area - and yet she refused any extra money, accepting only the official 0.3 z per item, a total of 9p). We went straight into an English-language screening of the film about the liberation of the camp made by the Russian Red Army in Feb 1945, with gruesome detail including the thousands of clothes, shoes, personal belongings and bales of women's hair found in the store rooms.

We emerged into bright sunshine and were sad to see the number of noisy school parties entering the camp, some of them quite young, passing the notice 'You are entering a place of exceptional horror and tragedy. Please show your respect for those who suffered and died here by behaving in a manner suitable to the dignity of their memory.' and through the entrance gate under the chilling sign 'Arbeit macht frei'. A decade ago we were the only visitors, today there were 11 coaches including a few vodka-soaked Russians.

We walked round most of the 3-storey barrack-blocks which were open for different kinds of exhibitions. Some were unchanged - the horrific displays of massed shoes, shoe polish tins, prayer shawls, glasses, hair, combs, hair- tooth- and shaving-brushes, pots and pans, suitcases with addresses from all over occupied Europe, Britain thankfully conspicuous by its absence. There were several new displays of documents and photographs which emphasised the bravery and deaths of Poles (about 75,000 killed here compared with at least 1.25 million Jews). A large cross commemorating the Pope's visit outside the camp had spawned 300 more crosses, outraging the Jewish community, and they were all removed in May this year except the Papal one. The Poles may need to rediscover and reassert their Polish/Catholic history, but this is definitely not the place to do it.

We took a break for coffee in the little cafe and bought what looked like the best historic account from the bookshop, written by staff of the KL-Auschwitz museum and based on research in their archives, but it's hard to sift the facts from the propaganda. Finally, we walked round the remains of the single gas chamber and crematorium, with flowers and candles keeping memories alive.

Retrieving our left luggage and forcing a substantial tip on its erstwhile keeper, we cycled over the river Sola which separates the small industrial town from the KL area. We rode out from the centre to the bus station to find the Hotel Olimpijski, where we'd stayed the night on our last visit - the only hotel in town apart from the eponymous Hotel Glob by the railway station. The Olimpijski still looks like an Orbis Hotel but it's getting a face lift with new cladding over the cracked concrete.

Back at the Youth Centre we'd booked an evening meal. For £1.50 each we got a ham and cheese salad, bread & butter and tea. Baough a series of coal and steel works and car factories to Gliwice. This is Silesia, Poland's southern industrial belt gained from Germany after WWII.

On the outskirts of Gliwice we passed a giant Tesco and had to stop and shop (though the food was mostly Polish, they did have brown bread and digestive biscuits!) Continuing in the dark now, we took in a Burger King meal at Opole and finally reached Wroc aw, capital of Lower Silesia, by about 8 pm, a nightmarish journey on rough narrow roads with uncertain junctions and ill-lit fellow travellers.

The campsite is right on the bank of the river Oder just east of the old town, an ideal location (though not in July 1997 when the city was flooded in the deluge that drowned 50 people across Lower Silesia).

163 miles. £5.08 inc weak elec.

A truly grey damp November day, the mist hanging over the river. The trees are full of mistletoe and crows' nests and we have the site to ourselves, wondering why it's open all year. There is one toilet, a tap (not drinkable) and the use of hot showers in the reception-bar, but the main business seems to be car repairs and dodging up crashed western cars (which fell off the back of breakdown trucks?) for the Polish market.

We took time to update the diary, read and try to understand the changes made at Auschwitz over the last decade, now that it's becoming a school visit and tourist attraction. Barry printed the October Diary (a record 22 pages reflecting our engagement with the Baltics and Poland), with the usual ink-flow problems. M made 6 Eccles cakes, using some frozen puff pastry bought in Finland and rediscovered while clearing out the freezer.

The mist had lifted on a clear cold morning and we cycled into the Old Town of Poland's 4th largest city. After 6 centuries in different foreign hands it was only returned to Poland after the last war, before which it had been Prussian since 1741 (German name = Breslau). Towards the end of WWII, it was the scene of the German Army's last stand before Berlin and the Red Army besieged it for 3 months. 70% of the city was flattened and those remaining of its pre-war population of 600,000 Germans fled. It was repopulated with Poles from the eastern regions which had been lost to the USSR, and the historic centre carefully reconstructed.

The huge market square (2nd largest after Krakow) is lined with restored Germanic buildings and contains a splendid medieval Town Hall and Museum. The corner that was once the Salt Square is now a flower market. The generous space contained artists and buskers, though beggars were confined to the underpasses. A few blocks of the Berlin Wall had been re-erected as modern art, one with a Trabant car triumphantly crashing through a hole in the Wall, with West Berlin plates on the front and a DDR one on the back. Good stuff!

South of the centre we found the hotel where we'd spent the night before cycling on to Auschwitz, riding to Istanbul 10 years ago. We remembered our arrival in heavy rain, struggling with wet cobbled streets and tramlines, and dripping across the marble floor of the Monopol, the city's oldest hotel (1892). Our guidebook claims that Hitler stayed there when visiting Breslau and addressed the crowds from its balcony. We didn't know that then - it was simply the first hotel we saw at the end of a long wet ride. The Opera House, opposite, is still closed and under repair from 1997 flood water damage and the Oder, with its 12 islands, parks and over 100 bridges, looks ominously high today.

Back in the Old Town, M had a quick look in a BHS store (very expensive by Polish standards) and we had chicken & chips in a KFC, a change from burgers. Feeling the cold as the short day ended, we rode back through the park past the cylindrical building which is home to the Rac awice Panorama painting. This canvas forms a circle round the inside walls, 50 ft high, 376 ft long, weighing 3½ tons! It shows a battle in 1794 which the Poles won against the Tsar's army (though they were totally defeated soon after). The monumental painting of this last glorious bid for freedom was done a century later by a team of 9 artists and shown at Lviv until 1944 when it was damaged by a bomb. The new Soviet authorities wouldn't show a Russian defeat and it was stored in Wroc aw until 1980, when restoration began. We couldn't face a 30-minute guided tour in Polish, explaining each of the scenes in tund buskers, though beggars were confined to the underpasses. A few blocks of the Berlin Wall had been re-erected as modern art, one with a Trabant car triumphantly crashing through a hole in the Wall, with West Berlin plates on the front and a DDR one on the back. Good stuff!

South of the centre we found the hotel where we'd spent the night before cycling on to Auschwitz, riding to Istanbul 10 years ago. We remembered our arrival in heavy rain, struggling with wet cobbled streets and tramlines, and dripping across the marble floor of the Monopol, the city's oldest hotel (1892). Our guidebook claims that Hitler stayed there when visiting Breslau and addressed the crowds from its balcony. We didn't know that then - it was simply the first hotel we saw at the end of a long wet ride. The Opera House, opposite, is still closed and under repair from 1997 flood water damage and the Oder, with its 12 islands, parks and over 100 bridges, looks ominously high today.

Back in the Old Town, M had a quick look in a BHS store (very expensive by Polish standards) and we had chicken & chips in a KFC, a change from burgers. Feeling the cold as the short day ended, we rode back through the park past the cylindrical building which is home to the Rac awice Panorama painting. This canvas forms a circle round the inside walls, 50 ft high, 376 ft long, weighing 3½ tons! It shows a battle in 1794 which the Poles won against the Tsar's army (though they were totally defeated soon after). The monumental painting of this last glorious bid for freedom was done a century later by a team of 9 artists and shown at Lviv until 1944 when it was damaged by a bomb. The new Soviet authorities wouldn't show a Russian defeat and it was stored in Wroc aw until 1980, when restoration began. We couldn't face a 30-minute guided tour in Polish, explaining each of the scenes in turn from a central viewing platform, and went home to watch the fan heater struggle to work on 190 volts (the microwave obediently revolves the food without actually warming it up!)

Our map showed the A4 motorway for the first 70 of the 115 miles to the German border at Olszyna. However, it didn't show that this was apparently Hitler's original Autobahn for the German army, and Rosie rattled like a tank over the corrugated concrete. Slowed to 30 mph, drawers and doors shaking open, it was an unhappy experience which also saw the final demise of the cab radio (now just a tape-player). It was a relief to stop for coffee but there was no alternative to continuing on this road, busy with lorries and German-bound traffic. Once the 'motorway' ended the route was lined with stalls selling garden gnomes and other pot ornaments, a clear sign of a border ahead. As we got nearer, there were sadder signs - dozens of families trying to sell baskets of mushrooms along the edges of the woods and a few desperate prostitutes, who looked like Philippinos, trying to wave passing drivers down.

We filled up with diesel and LPG (at 30p and 20p per litre) before joining the border queue, making lunch as we waited. Unlike the Baltic borders, vendors plied their trade and we refused cigarettes, flowers, fungi and a windscreen wash, giving our spare change to a cripple working the line on his crutches.

Through in 45 minutes, we changed our remaining Z oty notes into DM's and cheered at the sight of a newly laid Autobahn bypassing Forst and Cottbus. However, after the first services near Lübbenau-im-Spreewald where we had a tea-break, we were back on an aged surface with plenty of roadworks and contraflows. We estimated 170 miles of today's driving was on some of the roughest roads we've driven, and that's saying something. Reaching the A10 at last, the southern part of the huge motorway ring round Berlin, we turned briefly east towards Frankfurt-an-der-Oder, leaving it at Niederlehme for the village of Wernsdorf, 10 miles north, and clearly in the former DDR, with narrow cobbled streets.

As darkness fell, we found the Deutscher Camping Club site on the shore of the Krossinsee Lake and settled among the trees. For the first time since Helsinki, at the end of September, we had neighbours (all German) and were expected to pay over £10 a night, with electricity metered and showers extra. All a shock to the system.

208 miles. £10 + metered elec.

There are compensations to being back in the west - like automatic full insurance cover, good drinking water and campsite facilities - at a price. M did 3 weeks' dhobi, pleased to find the washing machine token she bought was identical to 2 we already had (found in some forgotten laundry). The only problem was drying it all, as washing lines between trees were one of the many things forbidden in the lengthy camp rules, so we tied a labyrinth of lines under the awning.

M also rang mum, now our plans to visit the UK are firmer, and we were invited to an 85th birthday dinner. Barry printed Rosie's service schedule ready for Wettringen and did 80 labels ready for the annual newsletter, coaxing the printer head along with its by now familiar rinse under the tap.

As the 10th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall approaches (9th Nov), the evening TV is very interesting with programmes recalling the events and people's experiences of the dramatic change. There was also a startling programme about Hitler's rise to power.

Finding that a visit to Berlin would mean using a bus, a tram and a train if we didn't want to cycle in the dark, we decided to find somewhere more accessible. M rang Berlin Tourist Info and the DC C and was directed to Camping Gatow, between Kladow and Spandau, as the nearest site to what they called 'the centre'. We hastily exchanged our empty German gas bottle at the site office, struck camp and returned to the A10 motorway. We made lunch at the first services, then turned off at Potsdam South and followed a good, well-signposted road, no 2. Potsdam, once a DDR city (famous for Frederick the Great's palaces, the proclamation of the 3rd Reich in 1933 and the Potsdam Conference in 1945) was a busy city between 2 lakes, with lots of building work going on. We continued, turning off at Groß Glienicke to Kladow and along the Havel See to the campsite, near the former RAF Gatow airfield, now a Luftwaffe Museum!

We settled in with more German neighbours and M made a couple of phone calls, arranging to have booster injections at Thornton Clinic, making a dental appointment and checking the Rotterdam-Hull ferry costs and times.

The TV here is carrying the BBC World channel (normally on satellite only), with informative news, weather and current affairs programmes in English. We enjoyed watching Tim Sebastian interview Helmut Kohl - a big man in every sense - and Bill Clinton's speech on the Fall of the Wall, delivered at an American centre for students from Eastern Europe. Both fascinating insights into what was going on behind the scenes in 1989. Another bonus is that our old friend, the BBC World Service Radio, is broadcast in Berlin on FM as well as the usual rather uncertain short-wave.

56 miles. £10 + metered elec.

Rain poured steadily from a leaden sky and we did some reading and writing and watched the TV coverage of Helmut Kohl, Mikail Gorbachev and George Bush addressing parliament in the restored Reichstag building. M checked details of buses into Berlin, as an evening concert in the Pariser Platz (in front of the Brandenburg Gate) promised music from Rostropovitch's cello, flares lighting the path of the Wall and a firework display.

However, the rain never ceased and we preferred to watch the whole celebration on television, the BBC World channel giving it much better live coverage than any of the 12 local stations! Crowds braved the weather under umbrellas but it was an oddly low-key event, organised for international youth groups and over in an hour.

The rain had stopped, leaving the cycle-path pavements thick with wet leaves as we rode 11 miles into the city centre. At least we didn't have to share Heerstraße with the dense traffic as we crossed Charlottenburg, and the cycle paths only occasionally ploughed us into waiting bus queues as they ran straight to the centre, through the wooded Tiergarten and the Brandenburg Gate. The whole city had been transformed since our visit in summer 1990, shortly before reunification, but we did recognise the Reichstag building, restored to more than its former glory. The rows of stalls selling mementoes of the Wall and Russian and East German uniforms and memoribilia were among many things that had been swept away.

There was a long queue waiting to enter the Reichstag, go up in a lift and walk round the glass dome, to look down on the parliament below and see the effect of the computer-controlled dome's mirrors and lenses on the interior. It all looked splendid on television (a British architect). We crossed the massive building site which is rapidly filling the open spaces around the former Wall and passed under the Gate to the East, along Unter den Linden. The covered podium from last night's concert was being dismantled, the champagne corks and beer cans swept into piles along the gutters. We were almost there!

A crowd had gathered outside the majestic Hotel Adlon, a convoy of chauffeur-driven limousines and motorbike outriders were waiting, cameras were poised. We waited to see who would emerge (several Heads of State, past and present, are in town for the celebrations), while enjoying excellent sausages and coffee from a stall for those working on the surrounding construction sites. Eventually a middle-aged man in a grey suit came out to a ripple of applause and was whisked away. We were none the wiser, though the flags on the Mercs were Polish.

Barry mended M's rear puncture outside the State Opera House, by the remains of a Prussian palace, and we continued in search of the Wall, finding a double line of bricks marking its route on Mauerstraße. The Checkpoint Charlie Marketing Company in one of many modern glass & concrete office blocks on Friedrichstraße was a hint that we were near the site of the famous crossing point, where the American and Russian sectors met and spies were exchanged. There was little left, a museum of photographs and just one stall still selling Russian military hats and pieces of the 'true wall', at prices which make our collection valuable!

The location of the city's centre is now uncertain, moving east but as yet undefined. Berlin will again be a great capital when (if ever) it's finished!

We turned back through the city for home, with a detour to Spandau to check out a motorhome dealer for accessories (which had ceased to be). Pausing to fill our cycle panniers at the first Aldi store we'd seen since Denmark, we reached the campsite as darkness fell. Evening television and radio both had good programmes on the historic end of the DDR and the intervening decade.

Driving to Falkensee to join Autobahn 10 we stopped at the huge Havel shopping centre. Barry bought a new beard trimmer, as the much-repaired and rebuilt Braun has finally given out, and M got a calendar of the German Alps to give mum. We posted her the October diary (which never in fact arrived), found all we wanted in the supermarket and had tasty lamb kebabs from a Turkish Gastarbeiter for lunch.

Then a long drive west on Autobahn 2, past Magdeburg, turning south at Braunschweig. The 395 took us to Bad Harzburg, from where road 4 climbed into the Harz hills. By the Torfhaus (National Park Info Centre) at 798 m/2633 ft, we turned right for a twisting 5-mile drop to Altenau, once a silver-mining village set in the forest at 450 m/1485 ft. We located the motorhome-parking place but it was empty and remote, on the site of a disused station outside the village, with no hook-ups. The campsite on the banks of the Oker river was open and we opted for its comforts, choosing a hedged pitch right by the water.

193 miles. £9 + metered elec.

Barry took his bicycle back up the hill to Torfhaus, cycling 14 miles and climbing 1500 ft. Margaret walked into and around Altenau, watched the film about the Harz in the Visitor Centre and climbed up the rocky mound overlooking the village to take in the view. The gift shops specialised in woodcarvings and minerals. The weather was bright but very cold, the temperature falling rapidly after dark.

A cold wet day, watching the antics of the Great Tits in the trees outside and working on the annual newsletter. Barry drafted and re-drafted while M researched the various names and places, proof-read and corrected. We finally 'put it to bed' at teatime and turned our attention to keeping warm. The gas pressure was very low and the boiler struggling, and sometimes failing, to light. Barry checked everything, found no problems, so we hope it's simply the poor-quality Polish gas not working at temperatures below freezing (useful that!)

We woke to thick frost and sleet set in for the morning, so decided to wait another day before driving to Wettringen. Barry printed the newsletter, ready for copying, and 75 envelopes were labelled for the post.

After lunch a dry spell tempted us out for an hour's walk through the fir trees and along the Okertal, where the river flows into a reservoir. It's very peaceful now, though the campsite is fully booked for Christmas and New Year, with a big Silvesterabend party in its restaurant. Again the temperature fell well below freezing at night as we huddled round the fan heater and TV (of which more tomorrow!)

At 7.30 am, the temperature inside was just 36°F! We couldn't wind the TV aerial down as it was frozen upright and Rosie's roof was a sheet of ice. Barry finally thawed the aerial enough to move by pouring hot water on it from the step-ladder, and we made an early start, glad that the weather was dry. We drove down the valley to Goslar and on to Autobahn 7 at Hildesheim, joining A2 by Hannover, then A30 past Osnabrück leaving at Rheine (which isn't on the Rhein) for the last few miles to Wettringen.

At Ardelt's premises at 3.30 pm, parked with free hook-up and talked to the Service Manager, Manfred Rengers. Sadly, he didn't have a firm's van or courtesy car to rent us (despite his previous Kein Problem assurance), could only suggest local car hire firms at about £40 per day, but promised to complete Rosie's service as quickly as possible so we could continue to England.

190 miles. Free parking.

We collected 4 breakfast rolls from our door and handed Rosie over at 8.30 am. After inspecting the stock of Wo-mo's large and small, we walked into Wettringen and shopped at Aldi for our Christmas wine, marzipan and presents, between visits to the cafe and the grill for a good piece of Schwein for lunch. It was very cold and Barry had forgotten his gloves but found an excellent pair of warm red Thinsulate ski gloves in Aldi for under £3, so now has a spare pair.

We also found an 85th Birthday card to post mum and phoned for ferry prices from Rotterdam to Hull and Harwich, the latter being much cheaper.

Back at Ardelt, we were told Rosie had been serviced but needed new ball-joints which had been ordered for delivery tomorrow, so we hope to leave on Thursday.

We waited till the parts arrived at 10.30, then walked into Wettringen for another day's shopping, passing time in its only cafe and grill. We booked the Harwich ferry for 1605 hrs tomorrow (a high-speed catamaran for £128 one way), made appointments for M at the dentist in Thornton and for Rosie's overdue MOT at Frenchies, and posted a German Christmas card to the Gorries in Wark.

Back at Ardelt, Rosie was finally ready for the road by 6 pm, so we stayed another night.

Light snow on rising, which became heavier as we travelled. On the A30 Autobahn to the Dutch border only one lane was open and we passed an accident in the slushy snow. M rang mum from the border (discovering that our German phonecard worked in this Dutch phone without using any units!), promising to try and reach Thornton for the 20th despite the delay.

We crossed Holland on its busy wet motorways, filled our diesel and gas tanks in Rotterdam to avoid UK prices as long as possible, and reached the Hook by 3 pm only to find the quayside deserted and a notice that the ferry was cancelled due to the stormy conditions. The snow had turned to rain and the wind had risen. We learnt that the catamaran doesn't sail at gale force 8 plus, and the next would leave at 7 am tomorrow weather permitting!

So a windy night on the harbour, glad we hadn't booked the overnight ferry for Hull after our experience returning from Romania when we had an extra 24 hrs at sea (a total of 38 hrs) in gales and finally docked at Immingham.

180 miles. Free parking.

The 7 am ferry finally sailed an hour late and was virtually empty. Rosie had a huge one-level deck on which to manoeuvre with ease. The single passenger deck above was very comfortable with picture windows of high waves and various eating places (including McDonald's), doing no business as we all stayed in our seats. The 3½-hr crossing took over 4 hours, but it did ride the sea better than a conventional boat. A good crossing depite the weather, force 7-8.

On arrival at Harwich M rang mum, and also Turner's to arrange a visit to Heaton Road. Then we made our way across Essex to the World Famous Comfort Cafe near Cambridge, an old favourite. After a good meal we spent the night in their lorry and caravan park (£2.50 for customers, £3.50 for others) and signed the petition for planning permission to improve their facilities (denied to them while a huge Little Chef & Travelodge has opened right next door). Radio 4 and British TV are a novelty, catching up with 'The Archers' and enjoying 'Have I Got News For You'.

62 miles. £2.50 parking.

In which we drive to Newark and enjoy fish & chips

Up the A14 and A1, past Eve's, Peterborough, Grantham to Newark, gradually adjusting to driving on the left and all things English (except diesel prices at nearly 80p per litre, almost double our average).

Reaching Brownhill's we checked in for free parking and hook-up and were even offered a free lunch in the restaurant tomorrow, though we can't linger that long!

We bought various accessories before walking into Newark to shop at the market and the South Lincs Clothing shop (Barry's outfitters). Armed with a Radio Times and British stamps, we are trying to feel as if we belong here. Excellent fish & chips on the way back, eaten out of the paper, helped!

92 miles. Free parking.

An early start for a busy day. In the A57 layby near Worksop we bought 4 boxes of 'broken' biscuits, then in Sheffield we left the bicycles with Tony Butterworth for service and new parts. In Huddersfield we went first to Heaton Road to collect a few items for use, check on the house maintenance and empty the locked cupboard in the front bedroom. We met the 3 official tenants again, plus 2 'friends', and were given mugs of tea to get over the shock of the bright yellow lounge walls!

Next we called at Steve the Fridge Doctor's, in Meltham, to collect the drinking water filters we'd ordered. He was out but Janet made us more tea and chatted until it went dark. Then to Taylormade at Honley, to order a thermal screen for the overcab window, where Mrs Taylor was recovering from flu.

Emerging into sleet, we finally made it to Holme Valley Camping and settled in among the winter residents and ducks for a night (or two, as it turned out).

95 miles. £7.95 inc elec.

Barry felt tired and groggy on waking but put it down to the long hard day yesterday. We set off for Thornton, stopping in Huddersfield to get a new rear numberplate made at Charlie Brown's and shopped at Paddock Warehouse while we waited for it. By then, Barry was clearly unwell (Mrs Taylor's flu?) and we returned to Holmfirth. M rang mum and ordered some StarWriter ink from Pentapaper.

Pausing at M62 services to make coffee, Barry was no better and we decided not to take the flu bug to Mum's. We rang Kneps Farm (closed, as expected) and the Caravan Club site at Mereside, which was open, so we went straight there, 5 minutes from the end of the M55. It was quiet and immaculate, though a long walk from the nearest shops and bus stops.

M had a dental appointment at 2.10 pm (already postponed once) and managed to get a bus to Castle Gardens and walk from there, arriving just in time. Check-up, X-rays and 2 fillings later, she walked round to mum's for the rest of the afternoon and bacon & eggs once the anaesthetic wore off.

Back to the campsite in the dark, with a bus to Castle Gardens and the last no 4 to Mereside, to find Barry asleep.

76 miles. £9.70 inc elec.

Barry rested all day, with a temperature of 100ºF, not even up to eating or reading. M saw to rejoining the Caravan Club and ordered a new Continental Sites Guide and Camping Carnet from them. Later she walked to the enormous 24-hour Tesco, the nearest shop, along country lanes with no footpath and across the M55 access with difficulty - the car is certainly king here.

Up after lunch, temperature normal, Barry felt much stronger. We sorted the stuff from Heaton Road as far as possible, ready for mum's attic, and prepared to move.

Along the seafront from Starr Gate to Cleveleys, we parked on the promenade coach park behind Beach Road. The tide was up and waves crashing over, the few remaining illuminations swaying in the high winds.

We took the annual newsletter for copying on Rossall Road, hunted for books in the Charity Shops and bought Lancashie Cheese from Bowland while we waited - but not Eccles cakes, what has happened at Beans?! Then, at last, we arrived at Mum's for a warm welcome, hot food and a comfy bed. Rosie was squeezed down next door's drive, where both flats were empty, after Mum got permission from Mrs Hackett's family (though tenants are moving into her flat tomorrow).

We unloaded the stuff for the attic and put some of it up there, had baths, talked, and found Mum's birthday presents. In the afternoon Alan & Pauline came round and were presented with the fossil from Morocco and a German calendar (free from the bank in Wettringen - we collected several!) A good evening of videos followed.

Up early to make tea for the removal men and meet the 2 ladies moving in next door, glad that they don't mind Rosie's presence. Mum went to church while we sorted stuff in the attic (finding some useful clothes and shoes up there, as well as CD's and the keyboard). Then we all took the Stagecoach bus into Cleveleys for Mum's late-birthday lunch at 'What's Cooking', an excellent 3-course meal (trout for M and steak & ale pie for B). It was difficult to visualise where 'Wave Crest' had been until we walked round the back, not so beautifully transformed as the interior and facade. We walked round Cleveleys a bit - the wind had dropped and it was relatively mild - before getting the bus home.

We began to tackle the 6-month backlog of mail, extracting the personal letters to read and leaving the bills and statements for another day. Margaret had sad news from Maureen Wood, that Beryl Moseley's 26-year-old daughter Sally had been killed when she had a stroke at the wheel of her car and hit a lorry.

Leaving Barry to work (refitting the motorbike rack and moving the cycle rack, varnishing Rosie's cupboard doors, writing on the annual newsletters, etc), M and Mum went Christmas shopping in Blackpool. They found 1999 road atlases for both Britain and France at discount prices, a good map of Greece in Waterford's and underwear in BHS. M also had a list of stuff to buy at Boots and collected information on mobile phone deals and ferries back to France.

Back at Mum's flat, M finished top & tailing newsletters for the post.

Walking to the local shops (Kwiksave and the DIY Workshop) we posted most of the newsletters. We also finished sorting our mail, finding an offer to renew the Vodafone contract at last year's price which we took up.

The end of a month of amazing contrasts and rapid changes of plan, from Auschwitz to Wettringen to Thornton - what next?