Category Archive: Five Go Caravanning
Subcategories: Campsite Cuisine Campsite Review Caravan Touring
How to pack a caravan – Five Go Caravanning
It that time of year already – The Costellos are on the move and preparing for our first trip of the 2012 season. Every winter we completely empty our van (even down to putting the cushions in the loft) so we have to start from scratch on the first trip of the year. If I was organised I would probably have a comprehensive list of everything we need … but I’m not. As you can see from the picture, the clothes cupboards are still very empty (I have got a pile mountain of clothes waiting to go in them but it still seems very empty compared with how it ends up at the end of the season. Our first excursion of the year is always a small one, not too far to travel in case we forget anything major (I did hear last year of a couple that travelled 250+ miles and forgot their caravan keys!) I’m still panicking though that we will forget something vital – we are somewhat lighter than last year anyway as we don’t need the Moses basket or the steriliser but this only adds to the panic! Here are some of the items that we have more »
Five Go Caravanning – 2012
Well all the Christmas festivities are now over and so our attention turns to the caravan season. It may only be 2 months since we last went on our travels but we miss it already. Our plans for the 2012 season are slightly different this year. We have decided not to go with a seasonal pitch but instead to explore quite a few caravan parks. We have loved being in Abersoch for the past 2 years but there are sites in the Lake District, Yorkshire and Cumbria that are really easy to get to for us. Mr Costello is still loving his surfing (and no, I haven’t joined him in the water yet) so I feel a trip to The Gower is on the cards this year too – as well as our yearly trip to the South of France. The world is our oyster as they say! We are still undecided about whether to go with a new van or hold on a bit longer. Our van is still in good shape but with only basic bathroom facilities. We have discussed perhaps joining in with some caravan rallies but would need a proper shower in the van first. Rallies more »
Saturday Caption Day
Saturday is caption day – What can you come up with? I am sooo rubbish at these … I’m joining in with Annie over at Mammasaurus’ Blog – Find lots more photos with brilliant captions over there
Five Go Caravanning – The End of Our First Season
So this weekend was our last weekend away of the 2011 season – It marked the end of our first season carvanning as a family of five. And we survived – in fact, we more than survived … we blinkin LOVED it! Here’s some pics above (it will hopefully be changed into a slideshow just as soon as I work out how to do it!) and some stats to sum up our first year of Five Go Caravanning: 5 – The number of sites we visited 13 – The number of holidays we had away in the van this year … plus 3.5 weeks in France in it! Not bad considering some of these were 5+ nights in one visit and we had a baby this year. Hundreds = The amount of friends that the girls have made this year. A Lot = The amount of arguments the girls had with each other (Yep, unfortunately even though caravanning is a fabulous family time you still take arguing siblings with you!) 12 = the average amount of hours the children spend playing out per day at a campsite 12 = the amount of hours sleep the girls need at the end more »
Tips for Ferry Travel with Young Children – NaBloPoMo 6
In the past 4 years we have gone on 3x 20 hour ferry journeys plus extra Irish Sea crossings totalling over 110 human hours of ferry travel for us. We are no experts but have learnt a lot from our mistakes. These are some of our tips for making those boring journeys just that little bit better: For the parents: Take your own bottle of wine& a corkscrew – borrow glasses on board Extra breakfast – you can buy milk on board. Ours always decide that they don’t like crusty bread, croissants & pain au chocolat on ferries. For the baby: Disposable bottles & ready made formula – our steriliser needed an adapter to work. There tends to be a microwave near the cafe area so microwave bottles are fine on board. Your own blanket/baby sleeping bag – ferry baby quilts are not great. For the kids: Small toys! You will have a lot to carry. Our 2 oldest have pink trunkis which they love dragging around. They can hold loads of useful toys and its a way of getting the kids to be responsible for their own stuff. A magazine each – we save this for the return journey. more »
Foodie News from the Basque Region
It will be no surprise to people that know me that just because I was on holiday I didn’t stop thinking about food. Mr C is well used to me yelling stop as we pass interesting places on our travels. Miss M is turning into a mini-me and loves exploring foodie places just like I do. Our foodie journey started as soon as we got on the ferry with our surprise gift from Brittany Ferries of an assortment of macarons and gorgeous fresh fruit. Unfortunately, you will have to imagine how beautiful the food was as they didn’t last long enough to be photographed. I know, call myself a blogger! Macarons featured heavily on our travels in the South of France – we decided that once we are home we will definitely experiment baking different flavours – Raspberry macarons and Orange Macarons are first on the list so watch this space. Seafood is everywhere and the Langoustines are enormous – We still couldn’t get the girls to indulge but hey, more for us eh? There seemed to be loads of fellow foodies on the site and we happily experimented and swapped samples each night. There is nothing like cooking outside more »
Listography – Last Week
Not taken part in Kate’s Listography for ages but when I noticed that this week’s was all about Last Week (you still here?) I thought give it a go. Last week was no ordinary week around here – well, actually we weren’t even around here. Like most of the UK we were on holiday which brings me to … Point 1: Biarritz We started the week here on a campsite near Bidart, Biarritz. Our 3rd time there and my spiritual home. Love it. The pic was taken on our day out to nearby St Jean Pied du Port – even the tweenies were amazed at the view. Point 2: Missing Body Parts V started last week by losing her first tooth (blog post to come – why is V ALWAYS blog fodder?) The only thing I will say is her tooth wasn’t wobbly until a few days before – I think she gave it a little help! Point 3: A Death Imagine the scene: Our last night socialising with some friends and over runs a Dutch lady in a state of panic. She asked if anyone knew how to resusitate and said a man was in trouble in the caravan more »
What’s Going On?
I have said for a few years now that the end of the summer holidays and as the children are getting ready for returning to school feels like New Year to me. I mentally go through my New Years’ resolutions of what I plan to do and this year is no different. Well, actually it is a little different in that I now have 3 children and am that little bit more hectic (read: manic) We came back from a fabulous holiday in Biarritz (finished off with a couple of days in Abersoch) on Saturday night and I’m now raring to go. The next couple of weeks will be really busy with getting ready for school and a couple of cakes to do but that’s life. I didn’t want to put on the blog about when we were due to be back – lets keep those burglars guessing!! So what’s Going On? What are we watching? It seems like the TV schedulers are in synch with me and start loads of new series around this time – I can take or leave X-Factor or Big Brother but my ultimate favourite has to be The Great British Bake Off – Series more »
