Rhea Alton, husband Simon, dog Norman and friends Tom and Vickie Warren, all from Shrewsbury, have embarked on a mission to enjoy a ‘holiday on a shoestring’ around the UK in a motorhome. Rhea updates us on their trip at the end of day six.

Today we had a little lie-in and enjoyed bacon sandwiches in the van for breakfast because the rain has finally caught up with us.

We set off for Oxford and the historic city tour at about 10.30am and popped into a farm shop to buy potatoes and carrots for tonight’s dinner and four apples to eat during the journey. The bill was a massive £1.35 so not too much of a hit for the budget.

Posing for the camera in Oxford

The shop had only just opened so there was no meat or breakfast goodies so we are going to try and pay another visit to a farm shop before tomorrow.

We have decided that because we still have a fairly large budget left that we will dine out in Oxford for lunch so we contacted the local council to find out if there was a park and ride we could park the motorhome in and to check whether Norman the dog would be allowed on the bus. They were very helpful and gave us the postcode of the park and ride to put in our sat nav.

We then turned to our mobile phones to search the internet for a dog friendly pub and found two options in the centre of Oxford – one of which had Shropshire blue cheese on its menu at least 12 times so we opted for that as our first choice.

The park and ride was £5 return for two people so it cost us £10 for our travel expenses.

We were really pleased we chose today to come to Oxford because there is definitely a permanent drizzle in the air – although it always seems to be sunny when Lewis and Hathaway are solving murders in the city so we remained hopeful about a ‘brightening up’ stage.

It was not to come so after a lovely lunch at the Turf Tavern – regularly seen on Inspector Morse we were told – we perused some of the colleges then headed to our campsite at about 4.30pm.

Lunch was £28 for the four of us, bringing today’s total expenditure to £39.35 and the budget to £68.02. We also took a trip to Marks and Spencer for yet more alcohol and snacks, spending £36 and bringing the budget to £32.02.

Makes a change from driving the motorhome

Greenhill Farm site in Bletchington was a 25-minute drive from the Park and Ride but was worth the journey as it was complete with fishing pool, games room and a wonderful shower block.

There is a shower in Rocky but as there are four of us and we didn’t want to empty the water barrel every night we have showered in the site facilities throughout the holiday. We have only had to fill up the barrel twice so far despite all the teeth brushing, dirty plate washing and toilet trips.

The campsite cost £24 so our total campsite fees have been £120 – spot on our budget. We haven’t put any more petrol in yet but we have to take Rocky back to Horizon Motorhomes in Chirk with a full tank so that will be the final expenditure and I have allowed for a further £110.

One night and one day to go and we will be back in Shropshire . . .