The was shining and it was Keefy’s birthday, so we of course decided to head out for an adventure. We decided to attend a Camping and Caravan club ‘club meet’, held at Clare Priory in Suffolk and Hosted by the West Essex district.

Club meets are similar to Temporary holiday sites, they tend to pop up for a few days and offer a place to pitch with just basic facilities, usually just a tap and elsan point. They are hosted by different regions and usually are very cheap. Club meets tend to be less than 5 days and therefore don’t require a special license whereas THS tend to be up to 28 days.

We had a very very stressful end of the week so when we arrived at Clare we were like tight coils, stress literally steaming from our (well mine – Lydia’s) ears. I’d unfortunately found a very poorly abandoned dog on my way home from work and of course couldn’t just leave it so spent a large amount of time trying to do the right thing. It was utterly distressing and of course delayed our departure even more.

We were welcomed onto the club meet with open arms. We were a bit worried there would be more of an expectation to be social on this kind of site, and whilst we usually are, today I wanted to sit, drink my cider and be quiet. We needn’t have worried, we were left to our own space and I soon started to feel that stress ooze away.

Dinner was delicious. As it was Keefy’s birthday on Sunday I’d told him I would take charge of catering. I utilised a simply cook box I’d had and on the cadac prepared kerala fish curry which was absolutely amazing, even if I do say so myself. The simply cooks are ideal as they usually are quick and easy to prepare and often only use one or two pans.

After dinner and polishing the wine off, we went for a thigh light walk around Clare country park, which is a stones throw from the priory grounds. We also nipped for a cheeky beer or two.

By the time we went to bed, we were both tipsy but much more relaxed than we’d been on arrival.

Going to bed tipsy means only one thing. The mother of all hangovers the next morning! We both felt it. So had a lay in, until it got so hot we had to evacuate out of the van, we then nursed our heads over a bacon butty – even the tea wouldn’t fix it, before offloading the bikes and going for a ride.

Our route took us past the Rough Acre brewery, so we decided to try a hair of the dog.

We also passed through Cavendish which is so pretty and has a great pub, time for another refreshment stop.

We then went on to Long Melford, home to Melford Hall NT (not dog friendly) and the lovely large green. We had a fabulous lunch at the Black Lion – (dog friendly) and then only Nethergate brewery, where we could have stayed for ages. Their lager and cider was gorgeous, but as we’d had a couple already we couldn’t have more than one there.

Our route took us back through Borley, which was once home to Borley Rectory, once the most haunted place in England apparently before it burnt down.

So we did a spot of ghost hunting in the church yard ( we didn’t see anything but I felt a bit on edge) before making our way back to Clare. It was around 25 miles and the electric bikes were great. Thankfully we started to feel more human too and really enjoyed the cycle.

Dinner that night was a simple hot dog as we were quite full from lunch still. Before a relatively early night.

Sunday morning (Keith’s birthday) dawned sunny and hot.

We were invited to a coffee morning but we were in middle of cooking breakfast, so politely declined. We’d enjoyed the location of the club meet, but probably would have to think hard about if it we were to attend one again. There were a few characters that didn’t quite respect our space and we felt a bit like we were being watched and judged a couple of times. As it was a meet, most people knew each other and whilst they were friendly, we just weren’t in the mood to be socialising this weekend and we felt a bit awquad about that. It just wasn’t our cup of tea, but that’s not to say following a less stressful time we’d probably feel differently, as we do enjoy being social… sometimes lol!

Having said that, if you are looking for a social camp out, these would be ideal. As I said the people couldn’t have been more friendly. We just needed a bit of space this time. To find the THS and Club meet pop ups, you need to be a member of Camping and Caravanning club, and search on the Out and About app.

The site cost £10pn and had a tap and elson point and was within the grounds of the 12th century priory. Clare is a great village to visit with over 100 listed buildings, ruins of a castle, motte and Bailey, disued railway walk (not bridleway) a converted railway station, country park and town heritage walk. It had a coop, butchers and a handful of pubs too. Plus a brewery on its outskirts. So a perfect location for Keith’s birthday celebrations. History and beer ✔️

Until next time

Lx