As you may have gleaned the last few days have been cold and wet. A consequence has been that Basil’s heating has been on much more than normal. So yesterday afternoon, as we were being almost flooded out by a persistent deluge, I decided I better check our LPG levels, and I got a shock. We had used probably 75% of our supply!

I have become aware that there is a shortage of LPG in the whole of the south of England and the south west in particular. During our drive from Abbotsbury to Torcross, a few days ago, we had called in at three garages advertising LPG only to find they had each run out. Therefore I realised that unless we could find some gas today, we might have to retreat out of the Devon/Cornwall peninsula just so we could get a re-supply.

Last night I put out an SOS on the Hymer Facebook forum and got 65 responses, some more helpful than others, but nobody seemed to have any definitive knowledge of LPG availability in the region. Then this morning, as I was eating breakfast, I fired off an email to Autogas, which is the largest of the LPG suppliers, more in hope than expectation. Much to my surprise I got a response within half and hour identifying four Shell garages in Cornwall, all with current supplies of LPG and better still one was on today’s route.

We set off for Looe in the late morning. Driving Basil in this part of England is not straightforward. Even the main roads are, at times, not wide enough for two large vehicles and the enormous amount of recent rain meant that there were some tricky flooded sections of road to negotiate. I am now quite experienced, I like to think, in manoeuvring Basil’s bulk down all sorts of roads, but today’s drive required a high level of concentration and Basil had to suck in his tummy on a number of occasions to allow traffic to pass.

When I looked for LIDL’s en route I was delighted to see that the Plymouth area is awash with them and so we called into one for a quick shop. Again I could find nowhere to park and so dropped Sarah off and came back to pick her up when she had secured supplies.

As we left LIDL we saw a Shell garage, not the one recommended by Autogas, displaying a price for LPG. We squeezed onto the forecourt, only to find the now familiar sign on the LPG pump saying they had run out of supplies. So when, eight miles further on, we spotted the recommended Shell supplier, we had our hearts in our mouths as Basil approached the pumps. Much to our relief there were no “pump closed” signs or any notices of any kind and Basil’s Gaslow system was soon replete with 22kg of precious gas. There was a collective sigh of relief from all on board, except Melek who, as usual was fast asleep!

Basil’s new home

We finally arrived at the Caravan and Motorhome Club site near Looe, Cornwall, in the late afternoon and found a large site with very few residents. It was really too late to explore Looe, but I have found a footpath down to a beach and then along the coastal path into the town which will be our outing for tomorrow.

An empty Looe site. The grass on all sites is just unusable at the moment.

At last the weather seems to be improving, a bit. Very little rain today and temperatures are back up into double figures. May it long continue.