A new addition – Lace-up leather jeans

 Was in Canterbury yesterday and stumbled across Leather Fashions in Palace St. Loads and loads to choose from – even a selection of long leather coats, but it was the jeans that caught my eye. They are OSX branded – my regular leather jeans are OSX and since I bought them in Brighton nearly six years ago I’ve been very happy with them. These look to be just as good although they do need turning up, which ain’t easy in a caravan, so I’ll do it when I get home, and plenty of pictures will follow!

The New Forest

The end of October saw us heading west, this time in the school minibuses for several trips along the delight that is the A27, to the New Forest. We've been through it many times but I've never stopped there - Trev had, but more years ago than he cares to remember.

Anyway, the purpose of the trips were to drop off the kids at the start of their Duke of Edinburgh expedition and pick them up a few days later, hence the multiple trips.

Obviously I took the chance to grab a few photos, only wishing that I'd brought the proper camera.

Well, it looked stunning, as I'm sure you can imagine, the changing colours of the leaves bringing its own beauty.  We loved seeing the ponies ambling across the roads and managed to get a few snaps. Seeing the deer scamper through someone's garden and across into the woods was wonderful but they were too quick for the moment to be captured to digital memory.

The meeting point for the kids at the end of their trip was a fireplace. Yep, you read it right. To be precise, the Portuguese Fireplace is all that reminds of a cookhouse used by Portuguese soldiers who helped the local area with logging during the First World War.

So, the New Forest has most definitely joined the long list of 'must do's in Patsy', hopefully next autumn.

Going to Battle – or is it Hastings?

1066 saw the Battle of Hastings, in er, Battle. OK, Hastings is only a few miles away and they didn’t have Google maps in them days. Anyway, one Wednesday in October saw me heading in that direction at the wheel of one of the schools shiny new minibuses – they were still clean then, not with a party of kids on a History field trip, but some parents. A club had been set up to provide various activities for said parents to enjoy, presumably as a bit of a thank you for the considerable sums in school fees they hand over every term.

The organiser had contacted me prior to say they was an admission ticket for me if I wanted it, and it seemed a good opportunity to grab some photos. Not only that but they had dragged a couple of history teachers along for the ride so I even got to learn something. It linked in well with our time in France in the summer, and Normandy in particular when we went to the the Bayeaux Tapestry which depicts of course, the Battle of Hastings.

It’s owned by English Heritage – so members will get in free, and car parking is available, and although I didn’t get a chance to have a look around, the town looks a pleasant place to spend a few hours too. Anyway, enough of the waffle, time for the photo’s:

Richards Wrecks - Number Nine

With things going well on the parcel front, we decided to splash out and trade the Ford Courier (Number Seven) in for a Nissan X-Trail. We ended up with a 2.2Di SVE from 2003. The later DCi would have been nice but there none around at the time for the money we had to spend.

A fantastic motor to drive, sure footed and easy to manoeuvre with a great driving position, but again, as with most of my cars there were issues. It gradually became gutless - as if the turbo had vanished - not great when you’re trying to zip in and out of traffic around Brighton's busy streets. Of course the problem didn’t arise until it was out of warranty. Some sensor was diagnosed as the cause and was replaced. Yeah, ouch.

A few years later the problem arose again, the same sensor was blamed and the problem fixed. Within six months it had re-occurred. The garage that fitted it said it would have to go to Nissan as it was a warranty claim. Nissan said that it wasn’t said sensor and further diagnostics were necessary. I bet they were. Kerching. By now we’d packed in the parcels and were on the hunt for a caravan so we took at away.

We decided to flog it and was sold to an acquaintance within a couple of weeks who was fully aware of the problem and was happy with the price. Later we heard that he took it to an expert, who diagnosed a completely different issue that was promptly fixed.

The power issue aside though it was a good motor - full leather and all the usual refinements. Very spacious and plenty of room in the back. the 4 x 4 mode was great on the rare occasions we had snow as we could still get out and about with the parcels. We got pretty close to buying another for towing the caravan too.