Arm Update

Whilst strictly not a caravanning subject, many of my blog readers have been following the status of my injured arm, which was sustained during a caravanning excursion and are now looking for an update.

If you want a refresh of what has happened to my arm take a look at these previous posts in order.

1. Where and what I was doing to injure my arm in the first place.
2. The addition of an electric mover and updated arm pics

Staples Are Out

As of writing my staples have now been taken out, I'm no longer using a sling and I've started weekly physiotherapy sessions. I still can't drive, as I can't elevate my arm high enough to man handle a steering wheel, but a least I can get back to some sort of normality at work and am able to use a computer keyboard again.

An x-ray was taken of my shoulder just before the staples were taken out. A photo (taken on my phone) of this x-ray can be seen below. The staples may be seen at the top and those three screws you can see are 50mm long each.

Ouch!

Here endeth the update!

Electric Mover

In my last post I described how a trip to Clumber Park CC site resulted in me breaking my right arm moving our Van on to pitch.

As a result of that, come hell or high water or in our case; limited funds, we were going to have an electric mover fitted to to our 2 berth Elddis Gulfstream Ex2000.

Electric Mover

This we now have fitted. A second hand one admitedly which was supplied and fitted by our local dealers of choice Kenmore Caravans in Mirfield; for the princely sum of £425.00. That went on the credit card I can tell you, given that it was a large and unexpected cost. At least we managed to get one second hand as these things are typically £800 brand new.

So there we have it, a used Powrtouch No1 electric mover now takes pride of place under our van. Works fine and came complete with its remote control, instruction book and cables (in case it needs to be used wired) and even a nice little wall holster to put the remote in.

The bloke down at Kenmore's gave us a tuturial before we set off home, on its use but also warned us once again, that if we did trade up to a bigger Van: then the mover we had probably wouldn't be up to the job. (This we were told before taking the decsion before we bought it, however our thinking is we'll cross that bridge once we got to it and was worth the trade off against the lower cost for a used mover.

Precision Placement

Back at home, it took a little practice to move our caravan onto the drive, which is on a sloght incline, but otherwise no problems and resulted in precision placement on the drive.

Roll on to our next caper.

Oh by the way, here's a pic of the surgeon's incincion on my shoulder (my arm was pinned with 3 screws) whch was taken during a dressing change.

A Break Down at Clumber Park in More Ways Than One

Taking our van down to the Caravan Club Site of Clumber Park last Bank Holiday Monday so that my wife's parents could spend a much welcomed holiday proved to be break for both of us in more ways than one.

The plan was this.

We would take our van down to the Clumber Park Site on the Monday, pitch it up then have a spot of lunch with them and then return home leaving them to stay in it for a rest of the week.

Then come Saturday, we would go back down, again have some lunch with them where upon they would return home leaving us to have a single night stay over on the Saturday night returning home on the Sunday.

What Laid Plans...?

All started off well, we made good time down there; just over an hour and despite a queue at the gate to book we, we quickly found a pitch near the bog block.

I reversed our van onto the pitch well enough however upon unhooking we decided that it could do with shifting over a few feet to the left.

Not a problem, caravans are designed to be man handled (despite what some non-coverts may believe) so we set about moving it over.

Forward a bit, twist and then a big shove back was all that was needed.

Then it happened!

The gravel under my feet gave way and my body slipped downwards as the caravan slowly moved backwards courtesy of my right arm grasping one of the front handles.

Crack!

It was like the sound of a stick snapping. I hit the floor still grasping the manoeuvring handle on the front of our unit whereupon I quickly leapt to my feet dancing around in agony at the very sharp pain that was shooting up and down my arm and across my shoulder.

An inspection by all present seemed to indicate that nothing was broken. By now though I had lost all feeling in the arm and couldn't move it. So we concluded that I had dislocated it at worst or perhaps just bruised it.

We'd pop-in to Dewsbury Hospital A and E (our local hospital) on the way home. So I was left on the sidelines to direct the erection of the awning and the remainder of the van set-up.

Once set-up we went off to look for some lunch; so there I was with a limp limb dragging along by my side eating my carrot cake with my left hand.

A and E

On the way back from leaving our unit down at Clumber Park with my P's in Law we popped into Dewsbury Hospital Accident and Emergency, thinking they would simply confirm a case of severe bruising which warranted a sling.

A couple of x-rays and a few hours waiting around later, it seems I had not only undergone severe muscle damage of my right arm, but had also snapped a lump of bone off the Greater Tuberosty part of my arm (the bit near the ball joint in the example x-ray below)

Added to this, as I found out at a visit to the Fracture Clinic a couple days afterwards (more waiting around), they wanted me into hospital to have the piece of bone pinned back into place (which took 3 screws BTW).

Sob!

So instead of enjoying a relaxing one night stay over at our caravan down at Clumber Park; I spent Saturday in theatre having surgery on my arm and the night over in the Orthapedic Ward which in itself was an endurance test of interrupted sleep, pain and sauna like conditions.

Some pics of my arm and shoulder the day after my operation are below.

Note the rainbow of colours demonstrated by the bruising. Under that dressing on my shoulder is a 5 inch cut held together with metal staples.

Guess what we've just ordered and are having fitted in the next couple of days to our van?

Yup! You guessed it. An electric mover! Gets fitted on Friday. Sod the cost!

Update: The following post to this one offers a new photo of my "incision" to these. Check it out.

Hanging Around in Slingsby

As Britain woke up to it's first hung parliament for decades on the 7th May 2010,  we chose to set off for a two night break at the Slingsby CCC site which is a stone's throw outside the Castle Howard Estate near Malton in North Yorkshire.

The Slingsby site is just over an hours drive from home and is ideal for just two nights. So having prepared our van the night before, when wifey got home from work just after lunch on the Friday; we set off!

By 4pm we were all pitched up and having a cuppa.

Déjà Vu

The Slingsby CCC site is on the outskirts of the Village of Slingsby which is a pretty little place hat features stone cottages and houses down it's typically rural North Yorkshire style, wide main street. The site was the first ever one we visited when we first got our caravan back in March 2008 (the photos you see on this page were taken at that time as I forgot our camera on this occasion).

But this time, having travelled around a bit since our first visit, we were a dab hand at pitching up. So no lost tempers and scraped knuckles unlike last time. This time we pitched up on the far side of the 'bog-block' that you can see in the photo below.

Walking the Dog

Unlike our first visit to Slingsby, we now have Lucy, our Stafforshire Terrier cross who is now 20 months old and as such are always on the look out for local walks when we choose a site to stay at.

The Slingsby site doesn't disappont.

There's quite a few public footpaths close to the site, the main one being directly opposite the main entrance which leads one down a disused railway line which runs for some 2.5 miles, as I found out on the Saturday, to the nearby and attractive, village of Hovingham (again sporting those wide main streets, grass verges and immaculately tended font gardens that are so typical of many North Yorkshire villages).

The Slingsby Club site itself is, we were told, built on an old railway siding which links in with the disused railway line footpath I suppose. 1/4 of a mile in, a plaque by the wayside gave further explanation of the railway which was formally a branch line shut in 1964 by the Beeching Axe.

To the Pub

Saturday night was our last night of this short break. So for some grub and couple of swift-ones we choose to pop in to The Grapes Inn which is on the main street of Slingsby village, about a 5 minute gentle stroll from the site entrance.

A good pub, nice friendly welcome, reasonably priced food and the pints of Guinness and Hobgoblin (on draught, a rare treat) I had were decent pints. The menu was typical pub-grub attire with nothing to get excited about but it was home made and tasty, so no complaints really.

On the whole, a good pub and well worth a revisit when we come back to this site.

WiFi

Before I sign off on this post, it's worth mentioning for our own reference, that CCC sites that offer WiFi, now provide BT Openzone support. Which means if like us, you have free BT Openzone minutes bundled into your Home broadband account; then you can surf away to your heart's content without having to splash out on vouchers for the CCC's own WiFi access or relying upon a temperamental 3G coverage using a dongle.

Good stuff!

That's if until our next caper.

Que te cuides

Kingsbury Water Park Again

Valentine's weekend (13th - 16th February) was our first foray away since September last year and boy did we need it!

Having done our now usual trick of booking our caravanning capers away for the year ahead on New Year's Day; we found ourselves traveling down after a somewhat bitter Winter (so far) on our first caper down to Kingsbury Water Park again
We traveled down on the Saturday after a late night (2am ish) on the lash with some friends the previous evening which resulted us not exactly being 'hung-over' but nevertheless, the 2.5 hour drive down took its toll and a "Saturday afternoon kip" was in order once we'd got pitched.

Post Storage Pains

This was the first time we'd used our Unit since the Autumn the previous year (if you excuse its use on New Year's Eve as a "spare bedroom on the drive" when we had friends staying over at home.)
However it seems the harsh Winter of 2009/10 has taken its toll. Here's a list of niggly things we found after our caravan's Winter storage on the drive which have only become apparent upon first use. Not all these can be accredited to the lack of use over Winter, but hey ho!

1. The kitchen sink tap sprung a leak - a split on the neck, which resulted in a small but constant leak; which in turn flooded the cupboards under the sink basin. A bodge job of wrapping the neck with PTFE and then electrical tape, offered a temporary repair.
2. The bulb in the lamp above my Wife's seat blew.
3. The outlet drain water pipes became blocked resulting in drain water backing up into the shower tray when the kitchen sink plug was pulled. Different drain pipes and a floor mopping exercise solved this, but a pain regardless.
4. We had to put new tyres on before we set off. A swift £100 there then!. The bloke down at ATS said the tyres he'd removed were "perished" and were 10 years old. This didn't surprise us as our van is 10 years old itself this year.
5. For some bizarre reason, one never noticed before; we seem now to have running hot water even without a gas supply. Normally we've had to physically turn on the gas water heater to enjoy running hot water. However after a process of elimination which included turning the gas supply off altogether, it became apparent that the flow of hot water would continue regardless. We're on an "electric hook-up" but that's normal. So where's the hot water coming from? Further investigation is needed when we get home. Clearly we have a gas-electric combi water heater. Something we weren't aware of before. Still we live and learn!
6. Our DAB digital radio, our sole source of media entertainment, decided to pop its clogs which meant a trip to the local ASDA to buy another.

Settled In

This lot aside, we soon got settled in and on this occasion used our small porch awning which was swift to erect, we took Lucy out for a wander.

Valentine's Day

Sunday was Valentine's Day and the weather whilst "fresh", was bright and sunny. Our original plan for this day was to take Lucy out for a quick walk around the pools and lakes in the Water Park and then go for some lunch at the nearby Dog and Doublet Inn on the tow path next to the Birmingham & Fazeley Canal

However, we decided that we'd postpone that until the next day and instead went for a 2.5hr walk around the park.

Tuesday - Packing Up Day

It rain a few times in the night which left the awning soaking wet, however by the time we'd got ourselves sorted out and had taken Lucy out for 45 mins it had dried out a bit and was easy to take down.
Well practiced at packing up now, we were on our way home by 12.30pm and were home by three o'clock.
Roll on the next caper which is at Easter.