It starts! (a bit delayed)

14 Aug - we finally have wi-fi!! So this is our first posting, a bit delayed due to lack of technology....

Our adventure has started! Our first border crossing went without hitch (admittedly I'd hope that crossing into England would be smooth, but you never can tell) and in a minor miracle made it down the M6 without any traffic jams at all, which is definitely a first. It didn't even rain on us, which is *definitely* a first for us travelling the M6, which usually involved a minor monsoon.
We spent a couple of nights around Warwickshire with our friends Jane and Jonathan, to whom massive thanks go for being such fantastic hosts (as always!). The child in all of us was satisfied after we watched some canal boats negotiating the locks at Henley - canal boating is definitely not a pastime for those of an impatient disposition!
We then made our way around the M25 (again without delay - may our luck continue!) and south to a campsite in Sussex, where many hours could be whiled away counting the flecks of paint on the planes coming in to land at Gatwick.
Now a little about the Bongo. The fridge nearly worked for the whole weekend. By the drive down to Sussex it had decided enough was enough however and promptly killed off some strawberries and much more concerningly the beer became warm. Serious indeed.So when we stopped we went to unwind the awning and the split pin in the crank handle lived up to its name and disintegrated. A call to the place that kitted out the van in Fife about the fridge was far from useful ("bring it in and we'll take a look") so the next day after using yell.com and a few calls from Chris we visited an auto electrcian about 8 miles away who worked out tht the split charger wasn't doing as it should, did some rewiring, fixed up the "interesting" wiring done by the conversion company and we now have a fridge again!. It doesn't charge off electric hook-up (so in the protection of strawberries and beer we will have to drive a bit every few days) but that's another wee issue that I may bore you with later. A brief description of the initial charging problem; the converter took a feed from the ignition block so that when the ignition is on the leisure battery charges; all well and good though they chose the wire feeding the wiper motor, so it did charge as long as we had the wipers on...maybe that's why it always worked in Scotland :o)
Next on Chris' phone list was a man about the crank handle for the awning. She found a place en-routish that said they may have something. As it happened they didn't as our awing is some wierd Japanese import oddness though the very nice man there fixed ours instead for nothing. Don't think we have mentioned it yet but everyone we've dealt with near/on the south coast have been really friendly and helpful, great fun and chatty.
Next onto a campsite in a village outside Dover, where it was drizzling and very windy. Would have made us feel at home if it hadn't also been warm - an unusual combination for us! It had a great wee pub nearby where we had our last real ales for a while; we even managed to finish off the best one they had on tap. The morning was lovely and we had breakfast sitting outside the van looking at the sea, very nice. After a jaunt into the local town to get vital supplies (a phone charger for Chris as hers would appear to either be hiding or have stayed at home and some speakers for the ipod) we made the short journey into Dover and boarded the ferry without issue. Currently as we write this we are looking at France getting larger ahead!
If we ever get wi-fi in France we'll actually post this blog...