Camping on a Bank Holiday weekend, with no booking - drrrrrrr!

"Let's head off in Billy-Bob Jalopy for the weekend", said Clever Bird. "Good plan, I've got an extra day", said Calum. Stuff all packed yesterday and this morning - so off they headed. Off to Baggy's Dad's house first, to make sure it was okay now that the tenant has moved out. Step one to getting the roof taken off. It's fine. Freda Fretter stopped worrying about it. Then to Southwold to camp. As they drove through Southwold, trying to avoid the tourists who were twenty deep on the pavements and falling off into the road, the significance of the fact that it's a Bank Holiday weekend - no, let's be accurate, the main Bank Holiday weekend of the year, began to sink in. "Urrrmm, I'm beginning to think that perhaps this wasn't Clever Bird's brightest idea Calum". As they tried to negotiate the little town, Baggy and Calum reminisced about how sleepy it was when they were kids - no trouble parking (or even getting on the pavement) then!

As they got closer to the campsite, it was clear that it was heaving. Big sign at the entrance, "Campsite FULL". Oh dear, well done Clever Bird. They headed to the car park by the harbour. Boy was it windy - proper surf on the sea. Calum whipped out his laptop to do a campsite search while Furry Mama took Minty Mutt for a leg stretch. By the time she got back, Calum was in full sense-of-humour-failure mode. No phone numbers on the websites.

As Calum got more and more mad with technology, Furry Mama and Mint went for another wander. When they got back things had not improved. "Why don't we just drive, look for campsite signs and hope for the best?" suggested Freda. Off they set. A few miles down the coast Baggy spotted a caravan site sign. "Let's try it", said Baggy holding out little hope. Psychic Ploppo remembered her dear Mama, whenever she couldn't find a parking space, after trying for twenty or thirty minutes, she would "do a spell". It always worked. Ploppo muttered, "I'd be really grateful if there was a space. It's our first trip. We only need a diddy one". They pulled onto the site. It was heaving. A lady on a cycle stopped. "Can I help you?" "We were just hoping that you might have room for a little one. We picked our camper up yesterday and didn't think this through." "No, well we've been fully booked for four months." "Oh dear". "It's okay, give me a minute. You're here now, so we won't turn you away". She went off to check and someone had cancelled their space this morning. Not only a spot, but with proper electric hook-up!

Lovely campsite. Lucky Baggy family. Café with home-made sausage rolls and scones. Yes they have been consumed. Now they're on the beer and wine. Happy campers.........

What a day!

Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow! What a BRILLIANT day Baggy and Calum have had. Fat Club first and it was good news. Clever Bird had Baggy following the Slimming World rules, pretty much all week. She was determined that Baggy should lose the two pounds that she had put on in the previous two weeks. She did! Plus another one-and-a-half! Yep bloggees, three-and-a-half pounds gone. Yee-hah. So on the way to pick up her camper van she celebrated with a fry-up at the local café in the layby. Correct bloggees, she shouldn't have, but heh!

Sooooooooo excited to pick up Billy-Bob Jalopy! Quick blokey look at his innards - Baggy didn't bother and he was ready for the off.

As Baggy still hadn't driven him at this point, Calum drove him home.

But he is Baggy's baby really and she is very happy about it!

She even put her new trousers on for the first time in celebration. Mind you they drove her nuts, the number of times that she or Minty Mutt trod on them!

While Calum headed off for an appointment, Baggy packed Billy-Bob for their first trip away. Well, she tried anyway! Yesterday they had an immobiliser and an alarm fitted. Clearly Clever Bird hadn't actually paid enough attention to how the system worked, because if it went off once while she was packing stuff, it went off twenty times! She gave up and waited for Calum to get home and disarm it! Petrol required. Plus a new key, as Calum managed to break the original one the first time he used it. Sigh! Calum drove them to the local town. It was actually the first time that Baggy had sat in the front! Quick fish and chip supper - no bloggees, Baggy had salmon, new potatoes and fresh green veg. at the chippy! See she can be good. Clever Bird checked Baggy's e-mails on her phone, only to realise that Creative Clara has had another order from her little Etsy shop Realuv. This one is off to Milan, Italy - more international by the day bloggees!

Home via Cal's work place as they needed to ascertain where they could buy gas for the cooker. It's down a private road. So Clever Bird persuaded Baggy to drive for the first time. Once she'd figured out that the gear stick is on the "wrong" side and the gears take a bit of finding - oh and that the brakes are "interesting", she began to get the gist of it. No power-assisted anything, but then B.B. is nearly forty years old. Going round corners - well, there were a few arrrghhs, as the whole thing felt as though it was going to tip over, but being on the left wasn't an issue at all. Baggy felt confident enough to take Grotty Groom for an evening visit to see the horses. By the time she got to the yard along one of the windiest roads in the area, she had a very large grin. Baggy loves B.B.!

Grotty gave Wesley extra hay, as he'd eaten the lot and it was only 7.00pm. He was very grateful. It's all very well being on shavings now, but he can no longer munch his bed. Surprisingly, Joey still had some! He still got more though. It took a few moments for Clever Bird to realise that the horse that belongs to the people who have upset Baggy so much has left!!!!!!!!! Baggy, Grotty, Freda Fretter and Hormonal Hannah and Calum, will never have to tread-on-eggshells around them again. Instantly, Baggy's heart-rate dropped; no need to worry that they might turn up. Grotty can (and will) get back to looking after AND ENJOYING the Boys again. Yee-hah! In fact Baggy then felt so relaxed, that after Grotty had given both Boys a cuddle and treats, she decided to drive B.B. home along the single-track roads, in the sunset! By the time she got home, she was in love with his foibles!

Tomorrow, Calum, Minty Mutt and Baggy will be heading off - somewhere - on their first adventures. It really has been a jolly good day. Here's to lot more of them............

Baggy's got the travel bug.

This hot weather is just not British. Baggy is rubbish in the heat. She got quite poorly last night. Her own stupid fault of course for letting Creative Clara paint the summerhouse in the worst of it. She's stayed out of it today, but she still doesn't feel too great. She resorted to having a cool shower and washing her hair to try to cool down a bit. Ridiculous. Even more ridiculous when you appreciate that most Brits thought that autumn had arrived last week. Anyway, the heat's addled Baggy's brain, because she's only just remembered that Clara hadn't blogged today - so here goes.

Not that she has a huge amount to say. It's been a bit of a none day really. Grotty Groom had intended going to ride the Boy Wessles, but Clever Bird didn't want him or Baggy to keel over with heat stroke, so she hasn't been. As they're now out during the day, she couldn't even have a cuddle with him unless she'd stood in his paddock in the sun. But she's planning on starting to look after them again fairly soon, so then she'll see the Boys every day. Meanwhile, Baggy is so exited about the latest member of the family who arrives tomorrow - Billy-Bob Jalopy should be coming home in the morning. As it's a Bank Holiday weekend in the UK, Baggy and Calum have decided to head off with Minty Mutt for the weekend and check out what we need in him. Baggy is soooooo excited!

She's already packed a little picnic basket of plastic plates etc and dug out some bedding. When Clever Bird can see just how much storage space she has to play with, when he comes home tomorrow, she'll work out what else can go in. But for once, Baggy is going to attempt to travel light - yeah right! She'll try to remember to get Clara to pack the laptop and a dongle, otherwise Baggy might be off-grid for a bit. Baggy, Calum and Minty Mutt's first ever holiday away together! The closest they've come before was house-hunting in Wales (three-and-a-half years ago), so this is hopefully the start of proper holidays.

Grotty will miss seeing the Boys, but as she couldn't have ridden this weekend anyway (too much stuff happening at the yard), it's a good weekend to go. No idea where, but who cares when you have a camper.........

Wednesday part 2 - Grrrr! in full swing.

Clever Bird finally had a total sense of humour failure over the fraud on her Amazon account and the total lack of support that they have provided Baggy. To distract her, Creative Clara decided to keep Baggy busy - on the hottest day since forever - she painted the summer house a.k.a. her woman cave. It is now a very bright and chirpy blue. She just needs to repaint the yellow bits and it will be done.

Well, except for the inside, which she also wants to paint. It only took her about two hours, in the melting heat. Then Gloria Gardener got involved. She wanted a bit of rearranging done of her pot garden. Baggy nearly keeled over trying to move the dragons, but at least she'll have burnt some more calories off!

Meanwhile Minty Mutt paddled in his relocated pool and Baggy almost jumped in with him - fully clothed. By the time they'd finished, Baggy felt more relaxed and about half-a-stone lighter and Freda Fretter decided to use Baggy's inner Grrrrr! Freda phoned the credit card company again and told them that she didn't see why she was trying to resolve this as it's clearly credit card fraud. The girl agreed and said she wasn't sure why the payments hadn't been stopped when Baggy first called this morning. She agreed to cancel them. Finally. Phew!

Meanwhile the e-mail that Clever Bird had finally managed to send to the vendor of the drone and/or Baggy's earlier ranting blog, resulted in an e-mail from Amazon saying that they would refund Baggy's card for one of the two orders - it will be a good trick if they can do it, as the card has been cancelled. Funny how the account is still active though, in spite of being told by "India" that it had been closed. Funny too, how there seems to now be two "open" orders on the account! Clever Bird is beginning to think that there is literally a cloned second account. It's a scary world out there in the ether bloggees..............

Baggy has been hacked/scammed/cloned - stolen from!

Wow Clever Bird is MAD! In this twenty-first century that we live in, sadly (as far as Baggy is concerned), a lot of what we do, is now done on the internet. Some of that is great. Creative Clara loves social media and Blogger. But some of it is terrible. Shopping on line is often the easiest (sometimes the only) way of getting certain products. It's convenient, cheap and fast - when it goes right. When it goes wrong, it's a nightmare. The really big players make it pretty much impossible for the normal person to resolve things when they go wrong! A few years ago Baggy's e-mail address got cloned; could she cancel it? Could she heck. Could she actually speak to someone about it? Could she heck. So for weeks her e-mail sent out random e-mails to all her friends.

Yesterday Baggy got an e-mail from Amazon saying that there had been fraudulent activity on her account, but that they'd dealt with it. All Baggy needed to do was to go back in to her account and reset her password. As Baggy gets approximately five fraudulent phishing e-mails a day supposedly from Paypal, Inland Revenue, her bank, a random bank, ebay etc, she assumed the e-mail was a scam. Then she read it properly and decided that maybe it wasn't. So Clever Bird made her log in to her Amazon account (NOT via the e-mail) and reset her password. When she logged in again, the fraudulent order (for what appears to be a drone) had been removed. Okay. She then tried to call someone to cancel the account. IMPOSSIBLE! Plus every number that exists a) goes to India and b) is £1.50 connection and £1.50 per minute!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! While they put you on HOLD!!!!! You also cannot cancel it on-line. Or if you can, after an hour of trying, Clever Bird gave up.

This morning Baggy got an e-mail from Amazon to say that her order has been despatched! Meltdown. Two-and-a-half hours of phone calls!!!! Credit card cancelled! But there are TWO orders on it from two companies, both for drones from Amazon. The card company will not cancel the payment because they say it's Amazon's problem. Amazon are ****ing USELESS. They will not cancel the account; put Clever Bird through to anyone in England; put her through to their fraud team; get someone to call her back! In fact they will do nothing except "e-mail back within an hour". That was THREE hours ago.

The whole thing has put Hormonal Hannah into a meltdown. Clever Bird is about to phone her card company again and if they won't deal with it she's phoning the police.........

Baggy's inner grrrrrrr! was in use today.

Baggy had to get up at silly o'clock to get her car MOT'd. Why oh why does the DVLA not remind people about MOT's? In spite of Baggy's car being in the garage TWICE last week and Baggy asking whether it was due for an MOT nobody spotted that it was overdue. Clever Bird had a bit of a sense of humour failure about it. The garage sold her the car second hand, so Baggy had no idea when the MOT was due. They however knew exactly! But Baggy was basically driving illegally, with no idea whatsoever, and when Freda Fretter found out, she went into a bit of a mini-meltdown. But with her new "take control" attitude, Baggy told the garage that they could fit her in today (not on Friday which is what they offered), as she wasn't happy with them! Inner grrrrr, did a good grrrrr! It did another one when Baggy asked them to replace the clips that hold her floor mats down, that they vacuumed up last Friday when valeting the car! They said that they couldn't because they came with the mats. Hormonal Hannah said that she'd had enough of Fiat at the moment and as they'd vacuumed them off, the least they could do was to replace them. Grrrrrr! They did!

On a roll, Baggy decided to tackle her list of twelve urgent things that needed sorting (mainly to do with Baggy's Dad's house). Two-and-a-half hours of phone calls later, she had almost succeeded when Clever Bird realised that Baggy had to take Hormonal Hannah to the last Stress Management course in thirty minutes - just as at the same moment, she noticed that Amazon had spotted fraudulent activity on her account. Panic. Grrrrrrrr aimed into the ether as Clever Bird tried to sort it out.

Baggy was so pleased that it was the last day of the course. It is so tiring for some reason. But when she got home, Baggy found Gloria Gardener wanting to cut the lawn; mainly because next door are having a BBQ party this evening and Freda Fretter was embarrassed by the state of Baggy's lawn. Baggy was invited to the BBQ but once home from the Stress course she popped round to say that she wouldn't make it after all. Strangers and fattening food were too much of a challenge today. But Baggy is doing really well. She cannot believe how much she has achieved today - all things that a couple of weeks ago were totally overwhelming her. It's helping a great deal that Baggy will be getting her camper van very soon. It's given her a real boost..........

Grotty rides again!

Clever Bird booked Grotty Groom a riding lesson for today, because for various reasons she has barely ridden her Boy Wessles since their inspiring trip to Ashen EC back in July. In fact she hasn't been on him at all for over two weeks. She wasn't expecting it to be so hot today though. Furry Mama realised that it was when she took Minty Mutt for his walk this morning. He certainly felt it!

Mind you, he'd probably throw himself in this stream if it was frozen! On the way to the yard, Creative Clara posted her latest order off to the U.S. of A., she's so excited to be international! Once again, the parcel ended up being six times the size of the item itself, but Clever Bird knows it will pass her "bounce" test! And as it's a glass perfume bottle that's going so far, it needs to survive some knocks. But she is very chuffed that of the literally millions of shops on Etsy, Realuv has begun to take off. Little steps! The customer paid more for postage, than she did for the bottle, but actually Clever Bird is well aware that she got a bargain, so it's all good. She might be a tad surprised when she sees the English egg box on top of the perfume bottle, but it made for very good padding, with the English newspaper inside the dog food box. Recycling at its best eh bloggees?

By the time Baggy got Grotty to the yard, it was boiling hot! In spite of the wind, it's so humid that it was ghastly and Baggy had put on a long-sleeved t-shirt. By the time she'd groomed Wessles she'd lost a pound in weight in drippiness! But the lesson, although exhausting went really well. After some initial camel-like riding, Grotty and Wesley got in the groove and both went beautifully. Grotty's trainer, Vicki-May, understood Clever Bird's vague explanations about what Grotty needed to achieve and Baggy's confidence soared as Grotty got Wesley going beautifully. Once they are a bit fitter, it should be really good. Happy Grotty. Yee-hah..........