Sunday 8th December

We’ve been busy with life since we picked up the van, it’s sat on our driveway, and we’ve migrated the stuff from the old into the new one.

For all they’re both 6.4m vans, the storage is very different, we had to make some tradeoffs in moving things around and while there is a lot of storage - it is configured very differently.

We couldn’t quite get away for a full weekend but fancied a nice night away with some good food, so we made the short drive along the M8 to “The Paddocks” in Bishopton.

The sat nav in the van didn’t quite get us there, so we were nearly parked up in someone’s driveway, but back to the trusty Apple Carplay and Google Maps and we found our way in after driving all the way round the site.

I had received an email directing us to Pitch 28 and we had no problem getting pitched up (we were slightly tilted backards and to the left, but a single levelling block fixed that), while the worst of Storm Darragh was missing us, it was windy and bitterly cold.

We had a spot of lunch - tomato soup and bread, which was the first meal we have made in the new van, and a wee glass of prosecco and a mince pie.

It’s a nice clean tidy site, and the facilities were great.

We spent the afternoon relaxing until it was time for dinner at Palomino’s, one of the on-site restaurants.

At around 6pm, we pulled on warm clothes, grabbed a head-torch and set off into the bitter cold towards the restaurant, we had planned to have a wee pre-dinner drink, but our table was ready and we were seated.

Dinner was really nice, I had black-pudding bon-bons and stornoway chicken (black pudding and chicken with a really nice sauce), while Gayle had pâté and a very nice lasagna.

All the food was great, I had Guinness and Gayle opted for an Aspalls and a Pina Colada.

My meal was rounded out with an After Eight sunday, which was also really nice, Gayle struggled to finish a very nice Bakewell tart after such a big meal.

We wandered back to the van where we caught up on “Have I Got News For You”, and went to bed, it was nice not to have to make up the bed.

Despite the wind, we could hear a bit of noisy music from the function rooms, but it didn’t stop us getting to sleep, and we didn’t wake ’til 7:30am.

It was a cold and breezy morning, we packed up and headed off home.

We have a lot to learn about the new van, there are some great things, and some small niggles, but we can fix or adapt to them.

Looking forward to our next nights away!