The Ham Nomads

1 Dec 2015. <GB-ENG> Leicester, Leic —

The end of our stay at the Leicester Forest East services on the M1. We went into Leicester (in our beautifully clean Gertie) with a few aims in mind. First up, to get the laundry in to be washed. Our reconnaissance yesterday had removed two possibilities from the list, so this time we tried phoning the best remaining possibility — and guess what — they were there, and sounded perfect. So we drove over to the Clarendon Laundry, run by a family of South Asians (hesitate to say Indians, as they could be from anywhere round there), who took the laundry in and we were promised it for that evening or the next morning. We opted not to return today, so there's another task set up for tomorrow.

We pulled up on the footpath outside
(there are double-yellow lines everywhere!).
Gertie reflects well in the window!

We then adjourned to the nearby Morrison's store. We had noticed a group of charity bins opposite their petrol station, so spent a bit of time loading some of the clothing we didn't need from here on, and dropping it into these bins — we got rid of about six bags worth!

Went into Morrisons, bought a baguette and went back out to Gertie for lunch, then back into Morrisons for coffees.

Halfords was only a couple of blocks from Morrisons, and the 16amp switch we had fitted to Gertie (fully knowing it was inadequate, but it was all we could get at the time) had burned out. Dropped in to Halfords and, miracle of miracles, they had 30amp switches on the shelf — new stock — which were exactly what we needed. We bought two, one to install, one as a spare.

Then it was time to get to the Premier Inn, in Leicester Forest East — yes, not far from where we had been staying. Tom had already booked us in, so it was just a matter of arriving and moving in. This meant moving out of Gertie. We were amazed at how much we had accumulated over the last couple of years — the bags of clothing we had disposed of earlier in the day were starting to look a little insignificant!

Just after we pulled up, about 2.30pm, we noticed someone going towards the entrance of the hotel. Tom and Lauren were dropping in to see is! We intercepted them, as we had not yet checked in, and we caught up with them out by Gertie. They are so excited about the prospect of taking her over. They were going to take us out to dinner tonight and tomorrow night, but as we still had so much to do, we opted out of tonight and arranged to meet up properly tomorrow, and do the formal handover of Gertie then as well.

So, again on our own, we checked in, and started moving everything into the room. Just as well it was a big room — as things came out of the crannies in Gertie, it started to look like a jumble sale in the room. But finally Gertie was pretty-well clear, and we started giving her a proper cleaning inside, to match the wash she had had at Bubbli yesterday! Warren also installed the switch.

Finally, exhausted, we had our Last Supper in Gertie (finally emptying out the refrigerator) before adjourning to the hotel room to try to find a gap in the debris to go to bed!

At the end of the day, in the room, we finally had time to read some of the smaller articles in The Times, and found one about the weather! Apparently this November in the UK has been the dullest on record, with only 18.4 hours of sunlight for the whole month! Can't wait to get back to the Sunshine State!

Distance driven — today, 29 miles ( 47 km ); to date, 31,218 miles ( 50,241 km )