Sunday, 3 July 2016

The Beer Festival Behaviour Problems!

Well, we arrived here on Thursday afternoon so we are at the caravan for a week. It didn't go smoothly tbh as OH had a lot of trouble with the motor mover trying to get it to drive the caravan up onto a block! Even more of a problem was attaching a towing hook to the car to do it that way lol. I stayed out the way and sat in the car with the dog. An hour later I managed to get into the caravan and unpack. Had good internet access when I arrived so I was happily messaging my daughter. We went into town and did some food shopping as usual and then settled down for the night.

The next day was Friday and lots of people started arriving on site in various caravans and tents. Lots of dogs around and lots of kids. The internet had almost given up and went off completely by the afternoon. If anyone has ever been to North Devon you will know internet is, at best, very unreliable in the countryside. The groups started playing at 5 pm and I must admit they were good. The camp site had gone all out for this weekend with a stage for performers, hog roast selling beef, pork and chicken rolls, large beer tent (for OH lol,) bouncy castle, candy floss stall etc. etc. We took some folding chairs and got chatting to another couple there.

Saturday morning more people were arriving and the problems were evident! The gent's toilet and shower block had all toilets deliberately blocked with paper – every single toilet so not an accident! Even worse, OH said they had put down the toilet seats and urinated on them, and thrown toilet paper everywhere! Someone also set fire to the rubbish skip last night! The ladies toilet and shower block was clean, but you were confronted with children on scooters riding up and down in front of the toilets and showers, inside the block! Now, it wasn't raining and there are lots of safe little roads around the site where kids can, and do, ride bikes and scooters. People with disabilities use this site and I often see people who are using a walking stick. Imagine if a scooter rode into someone who couldn't move out of the way fast enough coming out of a shower or toilet. So, why are parents not bothering to stop their children from using the shower block with their scooters? And not just one child – there were several. It was very rowdy with lots of people drunk on their way back to their tents and caravans tonight – some singing loudly on their way! I do feel nervous around drunken people I must admit, so I just stayed in this evening with OH and the dog.

The dog is having a wonderful time here going to the beach every day with OH. She loves saying hello to all the other dogs on site. She has, unfortunately, come into season yesterday but I am not that bothered as we have laminate flooring in the caravan so any mess is easy to clean. Other dogs don't seem to have noticed either so all good so far. It is her first season at 9months old and she seems to be all OK about it.


It is Saturday night now and there has been virtually no internet access since Friday afternoon, apart from a few seconds here and there. I'm sending messages to daughter and she receives them several hours later; the same when she writes to me. There is no mobile phone signal in this field either but they do have phone boxes by the reception building. On the way here we drove through roads where there was no radio signal in the car and we were tuned to the local radio station!! I can live without a mobile phone or without internet access, but I do find it difficult to have no access to either. I am writing this offline as a word document and will copy it onto my blog when I get home, or before if we reconnect here. Can hear people arguing and swearing in the tent next door and, as it is 1 a.m. I feel sorry for those with kids who are trying to sleep. I guess you don't get peace and quiet at a beer and music festival on a camp site; it was a cheap weekend price, and so has attracted some of the wrong sort of people. The dog show weekend was so much nicer – just as busy but no noise or damage. Perhaps dog owners are more responsible and caring about others, I don't know.

We are leaving this site at the end of the summer season, and I am hoping to either look for a site near South Devon e.g. Salcombe or Plymouth, or near Bournemouth on the south coast. I did have a quick look around Bournemouth but some of the sites are no children, others no dogs in June and July, which wouldn't suit us at all. Wherever we go I will make sure I have either a mobile signal or internet. I have decided it is very important for me to be able to communicate with family while I am on holiday, and I feel very vulnerable without this. Here, to get a phone signal, you have to drive a mile to the main road which I find unacceptable. Infact it is one of my sister's birthday today and unless I leave the site I can't ring, text or message her, which is not too great. Others may feel they like to be un-contactable and enjoy not having a mobile phone or internet but it's not for me.

Bye for now All the best x




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