Sunday Roast Post; Cleeve Cloud

The blog's branching out to write about some of the things our family loves.

Namely family days out and camping (involving the van) and eating (involving my tum).

I love a good roast dinner. But I am not a fan of slaving over a hot hob and oven and then a soapy sink for hours when we could be spending precious time together as a family.

Instead, we often take a road trip in the van and pay to enjoy roast dinner delights cooked and cleaned by someone else. (Only if my mum's not cooking. And then we help clean up.)

Now, finding a family friendly restaurant that serves up a roast anywhere near as good as my mum's is the holy grail. (My mum's roasts are, after all, THE best).

We've tried, and are continuing to sample, a few in our quest. So I thought we would share our experiences in a regular 'Sunday Roast Post' review to give you an idea of where is good for families with little ones who want tasty, fairly priced, honest good food in a home from home atmosphere.

The first review goes to the Cleeve Cloud, Cleeve Hill, Gloucestershire.

We held a large family gathering here to celebrate our daughter's christening in their skittle alley come function room recently. Instead of the usual three kids we had nearer 10. A big test!

And here's what we thought:

Gravy Goodness
To me the most crucial part of a roast dinner and top of my review criteria...

Tasty but a little thin.
3/5

Menu options for grown ups:

Three roasts were on offer, each with tasty trimmings; chicken and stuffing, pork and crackling and beef and yorkies. All came with boiled potatoes, crunchy fluffy roasters and shared veg sides.

5/5

Children's choices:

Same as above, only kids sized, sharing the sides of veg. Nice and easy.
4/5.

Veg variety:
All good roasts are made up of more than meat and two veg! Oh, and tender carrots, not crudités or baby mush...

Huge veg side dishes with scrummy creamy leaks, cauliflower cheese, buttery cabbage, peppery swede mash and seasoned carrots. All served piping hot and cooked to perfection. This really was the gold star of the roast for me.
5/5

How good's the pud:

A cheese board and choice of coffee nicely complemented a selection of British pudding favourites for both adults and kids. Three flavours of ice cream too. The warm fudge brownie was a favourite.
3/5

Kid's things:

Ample outdoor space being atop the highest hill in Gloucestershire. Although I don't think the groundsmen appreciated the impromptu kids footie match on the putting green.

You can close yourself off in the function room, and the skittle alley shute and balls provided a great giant marble run game for the kids.
3/5

Changing children:

Being a golf club it has changing rooms with showers (although thankfully we had no need for them this visit!) and lots of space. Didn't spot a change mat, station or nappy bin on my visit though.
3/5

Highchair happiness:

Two available. Could do with updating.
2/5

The price's right:
Feeding a family of five is an expensive business, help us out here...

Straight forward, really reasonable prices at £6.95 per adult roast, £3.95 per child roast and £3.95 per pud. Drinks were reasonably priced too.
5/5

Parking:
A biggie for us, needing ample space for the van, and a short distance to cart changing paraphernalia,  buggies, toys and not forgetting children...

It's a golf club. And popular. So even though it has a huge car park it's always packed and trying to find a space can turn into a bit of a game of cat and mouse.
2/5

Warm welcomes:

Staff were super efficient and smiley even though they were super busy. (Not only did they have our large party to serve but the rest of the restaurant was packed too.)

The club house itself is a bit dated, but in my opinion this adds a bit of 'vintage' charm.
4/5

Total score:
39/55

Final Sunday Roast Post Review:
A straight up tasty home cooked roast in pleasant surroundings which offers REAL value for money, which is very rare these days.

We will be visiting and eating again!

Getting rubbed up the wrong way

Just what is it with our darn van?

We really have a love hate relationship. We love the van, but it seems to hate us.

It just feels like every other month there is another thing that needs to be fixed or is going to cost us more money then we bargained for.

It's beginning to really rub me up the wrong way.

This month I went to get a quote for bumper colour coding and found out that the rear bumper crash bar has had a whack, buckled up and is ever so slightly making our back doors rub the bumper. This means, without being fixed, our nice new shiny red bumper would get a great big dirty scratch from the doors rubbing.

I've had enough of bloody rubbing recently.

As you may know from my previous post here, our new super size 20 inch alloys are rubbing VERY LOUDLY when on full lock.

I forgot about the full lock thing the other day when trying to execute a swift three point turn in the road to avoid some roadworks and BRRRRRRRRRRRRR. 

Wouldn't be so bad if I was on my own, but I had an audience of a gaggle of road workers hanging around on their tea break who promptly turned around to see what was making the noise.

'It's me!' I smile sheepishly through the open window. 'Ahhhh. Big wheels' one replies as he puts his hands up, gesticulating like he just caught a big fish.

This means I now can't do three point turns and instead have to make pigeon point pirouettes, which frankly makes me look like a bit of a tit.

After being delivered the bad news of the bust bumper bar at the paintwork shop I had to get out of a really tight spot surrounded by big machinery outside a work depot on the packed industrial estate. And yet again a gaggle of road workers who were yet again on their tea break.

I provided them with great entertainment inching forward and back, then forward and back, then forward and back about 16 times in what could easily have been accomplished in six turns using full lock.

I wound down the window and employed the same gesture of the previous road worker. 'I can drive, promise! Can't use full lock. BIG wheels.'

I am hoping the rubbing will stop, in all senses of the word, but we have got the dreaded MOT next week. Oh, and I swear I can smell raw diesel when sat in the passenger seat, even when the window is up.

This can mean one of two things.

1. There is something wrong with the van. Again.

2. I am pregnant. Again.

Keep your fingers crossed the van sails through its MOT. And that I won't have to upgrade the van and change the blog to T6 for 6! (The husband has mixed feelings about this).

A growing obsession

I don't know how I got into VWs.

I have just always loved them. Beetles, splittys, campervans...

Family and friends have fed my obsession over the years by giving me quirky 'n' cute VW or campervan related gifts. You can see from the bottom of the page I have a lot.

From chess board games to salt and pepper shakers and from waste paper baskets to cookie jars. I have even framed VW related birthday cards given to me to decorate the house.

And my obsession, it seems, is rubbing off on the kids.

My little sister once baby sat for our toddler and let him loose with his older nephew's box of cars. Our boy, who must have been just 18 months at the time, went through the whole box (literally hundreds of cars) and found two VW campers which he would not let go of. All day.

Even at the park he wouldn't let them go, toddling around with a VW camper in each hand in a pudgy vice like grip.

We're nurturing our boy's love of all things VW. When his little sister arrived we gave him a present. A 'Happy Land' bright orange camper play set (which very aptly came complete with a 'mummy', 'daddy' and 'meewee' aka Marley, our dog) and a die cast VW Transporter.

It took me absolutely ages to track down the Transporter, eventually coming across one Down Under. (From the comfort of my own sofa on eBay of course, as I was heavy with child and by that time too fat to fly.)

And that's the problem. There's loads of vintage VW gifts on the market, but very little Transporter related.

Luckily, Campervan Gifts is doing a bit of new product development, with the backing of VW, which I'm really excited about.

Top of our gift list would be a cuddly transporter kids toy. Our toddler often goes to bed with his die cast VW Transporter clasped in his little hand after several failed attempts from mummy and daddy to extract it.  A cuddly version would be far more comfy, and safer.

Second on our list would be a Transporter bunk bed. Came across a wooden split screen camper bunk at Busfest last year and loved it, but not so much the price tag. Found a DIY Bay Window version on the net which I am sure the talented husband can knock up though.

We've also been eyeing up pop up campervan play tents for the kids, but a Transporter tent would go down a storm here in our house. Especially if it was red, like our van.

Thinking about it, a lot of my vintage VW trinkets are bright orange or baby blue. And I desperately searched for a red Transporter die cast model for my boy, but it only came in black, blue or white. What is the best colour for Transporter trinkets?

Campervan Gifts are scouting for people's ideas on what would make great Transporter related gifts, and in what colour. (Team Red, Team Red!)

They are also looking for T4 or T5  photos to adorn said merchandise. So if you fancy your van being immortalised forever get in touch with them. Unfortunately the ugly mug of Elvis the T5 for 5 is not quite beautiful enough to grace a coffee mug, just yet!

Share your Transporter gift ideas here on the blog, via Twitter @t5for5 or get in touch with Campervan Gifts.

We are looking forward to seeing the results, and fuelling the obsession a little bit further.

A wheelie great Father's Day gift

We've been eyeing up alloy wheels for the van for a while now.

It's the next big (and expensive!) step in our quest to convert our commercial van into something more worthy of a T5 Forum member sticker.

We've spent hours trawling through google, eBay, the Forum and numerous VW shows looking for the holy grail of alloys.

Some we liked, some we loved and others we had to agree to disagree on.

We've looked at deep dish, mesh, stormers, turbines, 18 inch, 19 and 20. We even checked out bandeds.

Finally, when it felt like we would never find a set of wheels we liked (without having to remortgage the house and feed our entire family on beans on toast for a year) we came across a nice set on eBay.

The husband liked them. And they came with new tyres, which meant our wallet liked them too. Get in.

Now I was a bit mean here and pulled the 'we can't afford these as I am still on maternity leave' card. But I was hatching a little fathers day related plan ;)

The next day I secretly ordered the wheels over the phone, but not before being given an A Level physics test first. What was the load rating of my van? What kg per rim was I looking for? Did I want to run them on 255/40/20 or 275/40/20 tyres. Next question please!

Thankfully, with a little help from the Forum and the dealer, I order what I think is right.

The new wheels arrived next day whilst hubby was at work. They were so big I didn't think they would fit, but the delivery guy (who was a Transporter fan) looked under the arches and assured me, 'There's bags of space love. Transporters look great with fat alloys like these.' Phew. Glad you approve. Hope the husband will! 'Let's hope he gets you more than a box of chocolates next year, eh?', he chuckles.

Luckily, our local Halfords Autocentre could fit us in that afternoon to get the alloys fixed on. Cheers guys! The plan was falling into place nicely ready for the big reveal when daddy got home from work later.

With the sparkling new alloys gleaming in the sunshine and a big grin on my face I put the van onto full lock to swing out of the car park. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

What the hell was that? My grin was replaced by a champion gurning face and a couple of mechanics came out to take a look under my front arch. 'Just rubbing a little on the plastic weather cover' they said, 'just don't use full lock'. Right.

Terrified it would rub again or that I would kerb the new alloys I drove home like a granny, parked up outside the house, decorated the van with daddy's day banners (I would say the kids did them, but they are all my own work. Physics and art were never my strongest subjects at school) then we waited.

Daddy pulled up with a look of bewilderment on his face. 'What's all this for?' he says pointing at the banners.

'Happy early Father's Day' I say, smiling. Surely he has noticed them. How can you not notice them? They are flipping huge!

Still a look of puzzlement.

Luckily at this point our toddler pipes up 'Wheels, daddy.'

And then he clocks them. And he likes them. Result.

And here they are.

Our van's great timing

What is it with vehicles and children?

You have something important to do or you need to get somewhere fast and they just go wrong.

It's like they have this inbuilt code that tells them to do something really bad at a really, really bad time.

For example. Quick! Mum's late for the nursery run. Let's both do a great big messy poo that goes right up our backs and all over our clothes!

Or, in the case of the van, let's belch out great big black puffs of smoke just before we are about to take the family and a quarter tonne of beautiful Morrocan pottery to our very good friends wedding in the wilds of West Wales.

Cue panic stations. Will the van get us there? Is the black smoke getting worse? Will the wedding guests have to eat their delicious scrumptious food off their laps?

Thankfully the van made it, but not without erupting a few cubic square meters of volcanic gases into the atmosphere and choking and blinding the unsuspecting motorists who were unfortunate enough to be down wind of us on our journey. Boy, West Wales is hilly and yes the black smoke is getting worse. Mostly when you drive up hill!

And the problem? Busted intercooler (read all about that here).

The van also tried to self destruct on our first family holiday away in it down in Dartmouth.

Me, heavily pregnant sat in the back with a tired toddler and two teenage boys up front are just about to enter Dartmouth when I start hearing a strange whining sound every time the husband shifts the van into third and fourth gear.

'Can you hear that?' I say.

All three boys in front. 'No.'

Husband adds. 'Stop panicking. You're hearing things. It's your pregnany hormones.'

Well I had heard carrying a baby gives you a super sense of smell, but heightened hearing was a new one on me.

The noise rumbled on and I begin picturing wheels falling off, engine blowing up and terrible accidents (now that is the blasted pregnancy hormones) until eventually even the boys (with the DJ Beats or whatever they're called muffling their ears) could hear it too.

Thankfully we get to the campsite and on inspection it's some loose hose, so off husband goes in search of the nearest garage who fit a jubilee clip to keep the pipe in place. How fitting since it was the year of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.

But I could still hear the noise, and on our return home one test drive by the lovely vehicle technician at my favourite VW Commercial Van garage in Cheltenham confirmed it was the gearbox.

Gah. Great timing. Again! Just as I am about to go on maternity leave.

I suppose any time is not a good time for something to go wrong on the van, but is it just us that it always seems to happen at the worst possible moment?