Time to Face The Music

foxgloves

Mr F did exactly the same last night, @RelievedSheff. We read in the news that petrol would very soon top £1.50 per litre, so decided to fill up while it was at least a little bit lower.
F

Sun_Addict

It was over £1.50 a litre at a garage I passed today so must’ve gone up overnight. It has a knock on effect on prices so even if you don’t buy petrol it still affects you in the long run. 

ladyholly

We do very little mileage but filled our tank last week as we could see how things were going. Noticed on Tuesday the prices were starting to rise. 

RelievedSheff

Diesel is £1.55 on the main road we use into Sheffield. I filled up closer to work here and it was £1.46.

With oil well over $100 a barrel prices at the pumps are only going one way in the next few days. We are out in the van this weekend so will top that up as well on Sunday on the way home.

joedenise

@RelievedSheff we're out this weekend too but staying on a campsite rather than a car park where we usually stay so that we can have electric for the heating as it's going to be cold!

The book we use for France is CamperStop.  We find it much better than All the Aires and certainly has a lot more aires in.

Filled the car up this morning at £143.9 was only £136.9 last week from the same garage.  It's dearer at garages in the opposite direction!  We'll fill up the diesel and gas on our way home on Sunday I think before it gets any more expensive!

EssexHebridean

One of the two garages on the main road into our town has been 152.9U/L and 155.9 Diesel for a week or more now - I'll be entertained to see how much it's gone up as I pass on my way home tonight - this is the first garage in the area to hike prices every time anything occurs! 

RelievedSheff

joedenise said:

@RelievedSheff we're out this weekend too but staying on a campsite rather than a car park where we usually stay so that we can have electric for the heating as it's going to be cold!

The book we use for France is CamperStop.  We find it much better than All the Aires and certainly has a lot more aires in.

Filled the car up this morning at £143.9 was only £136.9 last week from the same garage.  It's dearer at garages in the opposite direction!  We'll fill up the diesel and gas on our way home on Sunday I think before it gets any more expensive!

We are in a pub car park again this weekend. It's a friends birthday party on Saturday night so we are stopping there rather than trying to get a taxi home.

It will be the first real test for the Lithium battery we installed late last year. It has been relatively mild every time we have gone away since we fitted it so it has not had a proper workout yet. It will certainly get one on Saturday with the heating on overnight and no EHU.

Will grab a copy of that book as well thank you for the recommendation.

Any recommendations of places we should visit or stay in France would be welcomed as well if you don't mind  

joedenise

It really depends on what sort of things you like to do and where you want to be.  Our preference is for aires in Normandy and Brittany as we like coastal places.  We also like the Loire Valley and tend to just meander along the river driving for a while and then using the sat nav to find a nearby Aire so we certainly don't plan anything!

If the weather is nice Champagne is really nice but most of the aires are on grass and we don't tend to park on grass when it's wet as our van is 4.5 tonne and tag axle so would churn it up.

Quite honestly we just like being near the water so tend to follow the coast or along one of the rivers.  I don't know how much driving you want to do between stops but we rarely do more than about an hour or so; maximum 2.5 hours.

If you are wine drinkers then a lot of the vineyards let you stay overnight but expect you to buy a bottle or two!  We've bought some lovely wines but they are definitely not the cheap stuff you can buy in the SM!  I think the cheapest we bought was £11 a bottle and that was about 6 or 7 years ago!

The only place I would recommend if you haven't been before is the Bayeaux Tapestry.  You used to be able to park up and stay overnight right in the centre of town about a 5 minute walk away but it's been a few years since we went there and I think they've stopped the parking right in town but not certain.  You can pay a small charge to get head phones in English so that you can understand what the different parts of the tapestry represent.

The only thing we plan is the date we are leaving and the date we are returning!

joedenise

Just had another thought!  Have you got a Camping Carpark card?  If not that's well worth getting as they seem to be taking over a lot of the aires.  They charge I think 4 euros for the card but that's a one off payment you then top up the card whenever you want to online.  We used a lot of their aires when we were in France in December as they always have electric and water, even in winter whereas a lot of the village aires turn the water off.  Electric's handy for the heating in winter but obviously not necessary earlier in the year.

There's no need to put a lot on the card but it will come up with a suggestion of 80 Euros! but just put enough on to cover the aire you're on if you don't want to tie up your money.

Enjoy your weekend away.  I'm really looking forward to getting away this weekend as it seems ages since December!

milann

Like the planning for future trips👍