Bang goes another several hundred quid!

On the way up to Towcester to get the jacks looked at I found out that the bang we had heard on Saturday was a rear tyre blowing out. Getting it replaced involved sitting at Cherwell Valley Services for three hours. At the same time Tricia, who was following me on her bike, had broken down and was being recovered.

The jacks were looked at and pronounced knackered and one of the front ones that had been working was broken in the process.

We moved on from Oxfordshire to Worcestershire on Wednesday, leaving Tricia's bike in Oxford to be repaired.

The site at Hanley Swan is very nice, right at the foot of the Malvern Hills. We planned to do lots of sight seeing in the area but first we had to do some shopping and get some bits to fix the van rear lights and towbar socket wiring. We found a retail park near Great Malvern and got the bits I needed in Halfords. On returning to the bike I found that it wouldn't start and so we had to be recovered back to the camp site.

So now we were stranded with only our push bikes for transport, which we used to ride into the local village for essentials. I had to get a new battery sent up from Poole so it would be a while before my bike was serviceable again.

We had a visitor over on Sunday, a friend of ours from Tiverton, and she stayed until Monday when we went for a picnic in the Malvern Hills. The first bit of Cotswold sight seeing we had done.

The battery eventually turned up on Friday and we were able to ride over to Oxford and pick up Tricia's bike. We then rode the bikes down to Poole for the weekend on Saturday and returned to Blackmore on Monday.  On Wednesday we packed up and headed the few miles up the road to Shifnal near Telford in Shropshire.