Living in a motorhome demands a bit of self discipline. Keeping the contents in their proper place as much as possible saves a whole lot of frustration. We’ve been doing pretty well so far – until today. We’ve lost the remote control for the TV!

I have a vague memory of seeing it and putting it away – the problem is I can’t remember where ‘away’ is. We’ve been through every cupboard and looked on every surface. We’ve looked in the bin and the fridge. We’ve crawled on the floor and emptied our knitting bags but there is no doubt about it – the little so and so has disappeared.

Operating the TV now involves opening the door, standing on the step to see the side of the TV where the manual controls are and holding up my glasses so that I can read the ridiculously small writing under the buttons through the bottom part of my varifocals. Tonight, instead of changing channels we turned it off and put the radio on instead – that’s how bad things have got round here.

This is our last night in Fife and, other than one or two challenges, it’s been great. We can thoroughly recommend this site. It belongs to the Caravan Club and has immaculate facilities in a beautiful environment. The wardens are a real delight – pleasant, humorous and welcoming. They’ve made the place look spectacular with plants and flowers everywhere and even a ‘help yourself to the herbs’ tub by the gate. I must confess that there have been times in our touring past when Club wardens have been so officious that we’ve been close to cancelling our membership but here the experience is so positive that all is forgiven. In fact, we are feeling distinctly chirpy about the potential for discovering more of their sites. Doesn’t it just go to show that how we are treated, and indeed how we treat others, makes all the difference?

This morning, as I was dragging a filthy, muddy and exhausted Poppy back from the first walk of the day, accompanied by an embarrassed and rather haughty looking Boo, I met the lady warden at the gate. She laughed at the state of Poppy and then invited me to use the motorhome point to wash her down with the hose. “It’s cold though,” she said and I could almost believe that she had some sympathy for our bedraggled little cockapoo. I put the hose on her without any mercy (the dog not the warden) because I am all out of patience with her rabbit chasing ways. She’s still not speaking to me.

Yesterday was a big first. We did our first day of the Couch to 5k programme that is designed to get people out there and running. It is NHS and Heart Foundation approved and promises to get the shockingly unfit able to run 5 kilometres in 9 weeks. The first day is supposed to be easy, alternating 60 seconds of jogging with 90 seconds of walking for 20 minutes. All this is set in a sandwich of 5 minutes brisk walking on either side. It didn’t go well. We couldn’t jog any more after the fourth set and the heavens opened as we dragged ourselves back to the van. The instructions say that you can repeat any of the weeks before moving on. Maybe we’ll manage week two by September.

So it’s goodbye to Fife for now and for a few days we’ll be staying in a house again. We’ll be back with an update at the weekend when we move to the next stop on our journey.

Oh – Stop press! Remote control is found safe and well. It was under a seat back cushion. I think Poppy hid it there after her cold shower this morning but she’s refusing to comment.