Glendale is starter to the Caravan Show

The 160th Shepherd’s Show takes place at Town Yetholm, just south of Kelso, on October 3. What a feast of memories added to years past, this one is going to be: it began building for us from a Cotswold Windrush caravan 45 years ago. We’d pitched at the neat little Kirkfield campground, it’s a must again for this autumn diary.

You couldn’t go anywhere that beats this meeting and the greetings on The Haugh by the river. This is the true Big Weekend for community and friendships at the top end of the Pennine Way, start-out point too for when old chum Cameron stepped closer to Cape Wrath, laying a new long walk. This is countryside that urges you with quiet welcoming. Take your pick on how to Make The day Count.

Here be sure autumn is doing its last colouring, some yellow on the broom, glad rags and some Tweed, kilts and skirling pipes. Cheerful greetings. This Show in the Scottish Borders comes always on the first weekend of October, this year it looks we’ll tug to there from Essex after a drift that may take in the West Midlands, possibly the Welsh Marches before a Carnival in East Anglia. As many the time it happens, I do like these impulse trips: a long sweep one direction or other – instead of what had looked that straight-on, heading to the horizon occasion.

There is nothing better than confusing your mind with flickering compass points of course: you got up this morning, let’s Make The Day Count. Of that feeling, I’ve done a little Reel of a thing called “Give Yourself a Chance”. The opening shot is of Frogmobile on the hook leaving Saverne from a campground on our way to the Black Forest and Bodensee. In a month we’d get back home, it’s something anyone can do: just get up and go.

At August Bank Holiday the Frogmobile tug will be to The Cheviots for The Glendale Show, take in Ad Gefrin, a Chillingham Wild Cattle opportunity and possibly a Billy Shiel’s wave topper to see ripples as though on a pond, yet not too many white horses please. At Wooler in Northumbria is held the Glendale Show on August 29.

Three weeks into September there’s a West Midlands weekend for a two-wheel catch up. What to do in between? Countryside beckons. It’s a Weatherman watch but I fancy Wales. Having not seen the Trough of Bowland for a spell, perhaps another Witch Watch Time (Living published in January has storytelling from there) or perhaps we’ll have an M6 straight blast to head into the Welsh Marches: let’s see what’ll get firmed up in the next few days.

It’s surprising what ground you can cover in four hours on the road when you plan self-cater into rest stops: rest is the key word. There’s theatCarnival on the Dengie Hundred peninsula just days after the West Midlands bicycles event. Burnham Carnival is always held the last Saturday of September: it is on 26th of the month this year. I recall those starter years, when the illuminated procession was lit by flickering candle power. One year I rode a dragon we’d built on Harry’s trike. A picture proves it.

After that weekend a 370 mile tug up country it may be: over fours days that simply will be easy peasy touring. Or a one-stopper and stay-over time on the way to the Scottish Borders for fun again on The Haugh. One big autumn treat, and more, in store! The plan is to harvest goodness all of September and looking at it right now there is an outline plan on the stocks.

Of touring: To weigh up shifting across distances, it depends how you treat the travel bit. The offer to stay on the hook with your caravan at a motorway services station, sleeping there, is a preference for long hauls to a far off destination. The in-late, then out-early at a campground needs to match gate-times, the same “quiet-time” night spell exists with a THS or Meet at a green field of course: a unit cost – not ppn – is charged, so easier on the wallet.

At a motorway stop-over you pay more, yes: but you can get a breakfast with the pitch, all the facilities are there to use! The unit cost at Tibshelf on the M1 on the Notts/Derbys border is £38, which includes the £12 vouchers you get for food. Supper or breakfast is your call. Some may call this breaking the journey, you can also say it is making the journey: evenings on the road are when traffic is quieter.

Now for the commercials (which it isn’t really – just some catch ups)  the book ‘Burnham Boy’ published in 2018, tells what it was like doing bike, hike, travel and tourism since WWII time till 2018. Lots of pictures.  (FeedAread publishing .com (isbn 978 1 78876 423 0 9000) There’s plenty of “how kids did it” through to getting to 50 in Lapland, the birth of backpacking and how it was sailing through the fifties.

The Post you are reading here has a Newsletter companion (you get it free on request) that does picture storytelling   Of the 2026 Partwork project, just last month on July 31 came “Living 2” the second edition that is revealing some of the 75/90 Factor with beingThere insider stories : wysiwyg portraits of People, Places and Product from the forty years of the tradeandindustry b2b series. That KSA publication gained global readership, carried scoops and highlighted happenings. Some of the stuff offered comes with moving pictures and voice, all is the wysiwyg way of living. 

And so far, no mention of NEC and the October 13-18 Caravan, Camping and Motorhome Show. You can be sure it’s going to figure in the next shout about travel.