Never mind Scotland the Brave.....

This year the annual 'family holiday' was camping at the Solway View Campsite in Dumfries And Galloway. Booked and organised ages ago, and we were all very excited to go... the girls loved the idea of crossing the border to a foreign country and my youngest born was looking forward to the proximity of the sea.   I was excited as this was the first real outing in our new van... Dr Fred and I had been to this favourite camping before and we love it - so always happy to revisit. 

But.....

There was an air of 'not to be' hanging around this planned holiday from the very beginning....  little did we realise but we were doomed 🤣🤣

The plan was for my daughter and her girls to come up on the train at the beginning of the week as she had plans with friends at the weekend. A train was booked - Dr Fred and I got our new van ready for its inaugrual outing... I was very excited.  Giddy even!!

My daughters weekend plans were cancelled...then she broke a tooth... managed an emergency dentist appointment but there was little they could straight away.. 

Surprise surprise, the trains were late or cancelled, but the excited travellers got here eventually - to be greeted by an extremly smelly back yard...shockinglybad egg smell.  The new solar set up on the new van wasn't working correctly and the leisure battery had over heated - giving off extremly obnoxius sulphourous nasty gas.  Dr Fred - understandably,  was very concerned. I was very alarmed, we googled it... more concerns, alarms and a feeling of mounting panic... we were less than 24 hours from heading up country on holiday and the van was playing up.  

A quick phone call kind off resolved the basic issue but the van will have to go back for sorting out... we opened it up and aired it out.. the battery cooled down and we tentatively investigated hook up power instead.  Our confidence in the battery was (is) low further compounded by the fact it is very inaccessible without major upheaval... back to the van convertors - they assured us they can sort it  - eventually - meanwhile we have a holiday to start.  I was concerned we might not be able to use the battery but it turned out that it was the connecting feed thingy what's it to the solar panel that was probably faulty, so once that was disconnected we could just rely on an electric hook up, not ideal but it did mean we could at least go on holiday.

My daughter had borrowed a tent for her and the girks to sleep in - I wont bore you with the errecting the tent debacle... suffice to say it had been put away wrong and was in fact two different tents - very different tents - and had a very odd unexplained collection of tent poles, and a wrong bedroom!! We made it work! No choice really....   While we were very grateful to have a borrowed tent some clearer instruction and the right pieces would have helped diffuse fraying tempers from the onset.  This is why we have a van!!!!!

However, eventually we were able to drink gin and take in the beautiful surroundings that would be our home for the next few days... 🌞

Dumfries And Galloway was glorious and the site just as we remembered it. Fabulous panoramic views and a pleasant wander to a private cove with safe seas, sand and rocks. There were several families on site so we soon lost the girls to new friends.  We had a great pitch, tbf I dont think there is a bad one on the campsite, ours was particulary roomy with a picnic table and fire pit, sited near the facilities including 24 hour access to a small but fully equipped cook house.  This campsite is gold standard and all sites should be modeled this way. 

We relaxed into holiday mode... excited to sleep in the van for the first night and the girls happy to sleep in the Heath Robinson tent we had managed to construct - we collectively sighed in relief as the wind dropped.... maybe the tent would last the week....

We started the chicken sticker challenge... stickers for innovative and/or good stuff  etc - mostly awarded at Nanas discretion but mostly a joint effort... .. chairs out around campfire and marshmallows for later. 

The BBQ was lit, cocktails consumed, party mode was on... all very splendid, lovely evening in Scottish sunshine - fab family memories in the making... and so it continued the next day - the sun came out - Dr Fred went up a hill, the girls spent most of the day in the sea and I sat on the beach reading and drawing.

The van proved to be comfortable, roomy and most importantly the electrics were working.  We made pizza in the new ridge monkey pan - all was just hunky dory - yes - too good to be true🤣🤣🤣.

The next day dawned... probably a bit less sunny but that wasnt a bad thing.. we had all been caught out by a touch of sunburn - nothing serious but a reminder... but looming was the 'toothache'. 

Dr Fred went off kayaking..

We went into Kirkcudbright for a mooch and got pain killers - it improved. For a while.  But it was evident that that nudge when walking caused pain...  Another visit to the sea and lots of relaxing just hanging out...

 

but the tooth got worse. In the evening we went back to Kirkcudbright to see the Scottish night (Dr Fred's worse nightmare🤣🤣) it was quite entertaining. 

Little legs ran about with various flags she could wave in the Harbour Square along with all the other children.   We had a picnic of fish and chips because we couldn't get in any of the pubs.. they were all fully booked.   We watched a Scottish folk band and we were quite enthralled by the Kirkcudbright Pipe Band who were very impressive with their uniform and marching and playing the bagpipe skills.  Meanwhile the tooth THROBBED!!  

We decided that maybe another visit to the dentist was imminent.   My daughter agreed to take stock first thing in the morning... First thing in the morning arrived quite early for her when her face became very swollen and her eye almost shut!  The weather changed and the wind was up, and the forecast was for some serious gusting, and, guess what, the tent did not like this! 

One of the tent poles split meaning that the front end of the tent where long legs's makeshift bedroom was, was looking very precarious.  It didn't look like it would last the next hour let alone another three days.

Again I'll save you the details but after several phone calls we realised we needed the service of Dumfries A&E department and after a lot of discussion we decided to abandon camp and head home via the A&E... the face got worse... I can only imagine the pain.

A&E were pretty fantastic and fairly quickly assessed the situation, they had IV antibiotics shoved in and and within a couple of hours the abscess and offending tooth removed.   Not the most comfortable process but the only option left. Because we were travelling with two vehicles I left my big girl in the hospital and brought the little girls home while Dr Fred waited with the van until the patient was discharged and eventually we all wound up back in Coundon Towers... sad and a little worse for wear..

Even us tenacious die hards were defeated by this holiday.... and it didn't stop there.  I ended up at the emergency doctor to get antibiotics as I had a very aggressive UTI which I have been trying to ignore (foolishly) but now we're all on the mend and we are reasonably pleased because we had three days of quite good fun - sorry we had to come home early but I've no doubt that will do it all again and hopefully more successfully next year!