In which Katie gets her GCSE results and goes caravanning. By Bessie

Katie got her GCSE results last Thursday.  She got 1 A*, 2 A, 3 B, 3 C and we was all super proud of her.    She was in a sulk though cos even though she got all them really good grades she didn't do so well in Drama and was in a funny mood so Mummy said why didn't she come away in the caravan with us so she said she would.

So Saturday morning we got up nice and early to go camping and got all the caravan ready.  Only me was going cos the weather forecast wasn't great and Mummy and Daddy thought Carly and Lotty would be silly if they were stuck inside a caravan all weekend.

Mummy was in the bedroom and Daddy came up and said, "Do you want the bad news or the bad news?"
Mummy said, "Erm bad I spose."    "The car has a flat tyre."   So he fitted the spare but he said it was only a space saver so he couldn't pull a caravan on it and off he went to find another tyre.  When he got to the tyre place he had a good look and found out that there was a nail in both rear tyres.  We blame them bloody gypsys who come into the car park at work at night to steal pallets and leave nails lying around all over the place.  As you can imagine Daddy was extremely cross.   Anyway he phoned and told us that they had to order two tyres and they would be there by lunchtime so we sat down and wondered if we would ever be going camping.  We hoped so cos we had already paid for the campsite.

Then Katie came downstairs in a tizzy cos she had looked out the window and Daddy's car was gone and she thought we were mean enough to go without her.   Mummy said if she had just leaned another inch to the right she would have seen the caravan was still in the drive.  Anyway it didn't take as long as expected and Daddy came back about 11.30 with two new tyres and he wasn't in as bad a mood as we thought cos it had cost a lot less than he thought it would and he said he had been told at his last MOT that he would need two new tyres soon.

Mummy and Katie had finished packing the caravan while Daddy was out so they hitched it up and me and Katie got in the car and Mummy gave Carly and Lotty lots of kisses and felt bad for leaving them.  She didn't feel bad about leaving Tom and Bryn cos they were invited but they would rather stay home.

The campsite was only in Ross on Wye 45 minutes away so we were there by 12.30.    The campsite was down the back of Morrisons and through a bus graveyard but when we got inside it was a lovely place.    We parked up outside the hut and I got out and Mummy went to leave me outside but the man said "Come in, all of you, we are all dog lovers."   And the lady looked just like Shirley Williams.  Mummy loves Shirley Williams, she is like her heroine.    The man showed us where to park and it was all very nice and all the spots were all marked out and quite big so everyone had their own space.   The toilets were HUGE and very clean and there was even a BATH!    So they parked the caravan up and Mummy did all the daft stuff to make the caravan homely even though we were only staying one night like putting out cushions and a bath mat (even though we haven't got a bath, only a shower) while Daddy made cups of tea.   After I had some water and the humans had some tea we went for a walk into town.  It was very hot but Mummy checked and she said the ground was cool enough for me to walk so it was ok.

Ross on Wye is the most dog friendly town we ever saw in our lives.   Mummy, Daddy and Katie had baguettes from Greggs for lunch and they were sat on a bench eating and Mummy was giving me bits of her baguette when Daddy said "Has Bessie not had her breakfast?"  and Mummy said, "Oh no.  I didn't feed her before we left so she wouldn't be sick and I forgot when we got here."  So Daddy went back to Greggs and asked the lady if they had any cool snossij rolls cos it was for me.   And she said I was a nice doggy and she gave him a nice cool snossij roll and when he got his money out she said it was free.  How nice was that?  

Then we went for a walk and we had icecream and Mummy gave me the end of her cone with some honeycomb and fig icecream in it.    All the shops had water bowls outside and there were dogs everywhere for me to meet and greet.  We went down by the river and I tried to make polite conversation with a Mr and Mrs Swan and their children but you can't make polite conversation with swans cos even though they look all nice and posh they are actually the chavs of the bird world and they just kept swearing at me so we went for a walk instead.

When we got back to the caravan I had a long sleep cos I was very hot and tired and Mummy damped a towel and laid it on me to help me cool down.   There was a huge storm with thunder and lightning which was a bit scary and the icecream man came right in the middle of it which was a bit surreal.  Then I had my tea and the humans had burgers and potato salad and coca cola and we went out again to the pub.  We went to a pub called the Man of Ross and it was a nice pub and there was a greyhound in there.

When we got back it was so nice to get back in the dark to a caravan with a roof and lights and a proper bed instead of when we go away in the tent and you are scrambling round in the pitch dark.

The next day it was raining again when we got up but we decided we would stay for the day cos otherwise we wouldn't have even stayed for a whole 24 hours.  So we waited for the rain and Mummy read her Jane Austen book and Daddy and Katie played Sims on Katie's laptop (they have free wifi on the campsite).   Anyway it got to lunchtime and the rain hadn't stopped so we went out anyway.  We drove into town but the car park we picked was so far away it was nearly as far as it would have been to walk from the campsite.   We went to a restaurant called Bistro Mondo and it was dog friendly and the man brought me some water and a family came in with a beagle and he is my new best friend now and the humans had Sunday lunch.  Katie was looking forward to her first Sunday lunch since she had stopped being a vegetablist but they had no chikkin or turkey today so she her and Mummy ended up having nut roast and Daddy had lamb.

After lunch it was still raining so walked back along the river to the car and then we went back to the campsite and packed the caravan up and went home to see Carly and Lotty and the boys.