words by Williams

We'd promised great nephew Jason a trip out in Betsy during the Easter holidays. He had theatre practice in Shrewsbury on the Saturday so the easiest option was to book a couple of nights at Morris Leisure's Oxon Hall touring park, which was close enough to nip in and out of town.

Funnily enough, it was the first time we'd been to Oxon. Our very first trip out had been to another Morris Leisure park at Llanberis, and we'd recently been to their new park at Poston Mill, so we knew what to expect.

Funny story by the way. In more than four years of living fairly close by and shopping regularly at the Co-op and the Chinese at Bicton Heath, Mrs W hadn't realised there was a touring park a few hundred yards down the lane. Hey ho.

Thing is, this motorhome lark will always throw something at you even if the surroundings are familiar.

We're getting pretty adept at setting up, now, so we were all hooked up in no time. Thing was, as fast as we were filling the fresh water at one end, it was pouring out at the other.

We'd seen something like this before, with the boiler drain, but flicking the yellow switch had no effect. No matter how much we fiddled, Betsy was just a pipe that water came in and out of.

Luckily, there's always a neighbour who knows more than you. "Have you got a lozenge-shaped blue switch somewhere with a blue button underneath?" "No, not as far as we know." "Well, you should have, it's the emergency drain, so that the system doesn't freeze up in the cold."

In the garage, there are three panels - two small ones and a big one. The big one holds the boiler and one of the small ones does something else. We'd never actually opened the third one.

Guess what? Ta-dah!

"Ah, that blue button." Push it in and miraculously water stops scooshing out of the back of your bus. Every day's a school day, indeed.