December Newsletter

Bob and Wendy
Dec 7
5 min read

Welcome to the final newsletter of the year and although it seems too soon - Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. It's a short and sweet one this month with one major piece of news.

That is that this month is that we now have the previews ready for the 2027 Tour Schedule. Bookings will officially open on Saturday 3rd January 2026, which will coincide with the January edition of the newsletter. Read on for more details.

Although we only seem to have just come back from the NEC Motorhome Show, it is only about 10 weeks to the next one. As usual we will be giving away 10 pairs of tickets. You will need to act quickly to get in the draw. Please see below for full details.

As usual we have another “cut out and keep” (Christmas-themed) recipe and this month’s motorhome tips are about the new V-16 Warning Beacon.

2027 Tour Schedule Previews

We are pleased to announce that we have now finalised the Tour Schedule for 2027. With your email reminder for this newsletter you should see a link to the PDF with the details. If you are having any trouble accessing it, please let us know and we can email you a copy.

At this stage the previews are only available to you as newsletter readers. We will not put these on the website for a while. This means that you get first dibs on the tours for 2027.

In a nutshell, here is a list of the tours:

The Baltic States
Northern Spain & Portugal
France Grand Tour
The Swiss & French Alps
Sweden & The Arctic Circle
Croatia & Slovenia
Lake Garda & Venice

Our most popular tours fill quickly, so if there is something you know you want to do, please act straight away as soon as the bookings open. If you need any further information about any of the tours, please get in touch with us this month and we can talk you through it.

NEC Motorhome Show February 2026

As always, we will be at the NEC Motorhome Show in February. We will be in Hall 4 on Stand 4110. If you come on the Tuesday or Wednesday (and you are a customer) there is the chance of a "Crossings' Cookie". They went down very well in October. By Thursday, I have eaten them all by the way.

As usual we will be doing a talk in the Inspiration Theatre. Our topic for this show is going to be Spain. Spain was actually the first place we ever went in a motorhome after the very cold UK winter of 2010 (and then the ash cloud if you remember that). We just headed for the hottest place we could find. Since then we have travelled to the four corners of the country and most places in-between. Our talk will be on what we think are the best bits. We would welcome a friendly face or two in the audience.

Our payment for providing our services in the theatre is ten pairs of tickets that we are giving away free. Regular readers will know that we do this via the fairly un-sophisticated "orange woolly hat raffle". If you want a chance to win, just send us an email and we will pop your name in the hat. We will be pulling the names out on 31st December so if you want to enter - do it now!

Tickets can be used on any day. One entry per household please.

Full details of the show can be found here: https://ccmshow.co.uk/?utm_source=ccms26&utm_medium=nec_web

Coq au Van (the amusingly titled recipe feature)

Tarte Soleil

Ingredients

320g packet ready-rolled puff pastry
plain flour, for dusting
2 tbsp onion chutney or cranberry sauce
250g/9oz camembert (in a wooden box)
1 free-range egg, lightly beaten
4 thyme sprigs, leaves picked (optional)

Method

Preheat the oven to 220C/200C Fan/Gas 7. Line a large baking tray with baking paper.
Unroll the pastry onto a lightly floured work surface. Roll the pastry out to a slightly larger rectangle by about 5mm/¼in along both the length and width.
With the longest edge nearest you, spread the onion chutney over the bottom half of the pastry rectangle, leaving a 5mm/¼in border around the bottom and side edges. Fold the top half of the pastry over to make one long, thin rectangle of pastry. Cut the pastry into four equal rectangles.
Using a sharp knife, cut the first rectangle from the base up to the fold, stopping about 15mm/¾in from the fold, to create four long pastry ‘fingers’ attached together at the fold. Repeat with the remaining three pastry rectangles.
Remove the camembert from its wooden box and discard any wrapping. Put the bottom half of the box in the centre of the lined baking tray. Carefully pick up one of the cut pastry rectangles and place around the wooden box, moulding the folded end of the rectangle around the box. Repeat with the remaining pastry rectangles, overlapping the folded corners very slightly to make a continuous collar of pastry around the box. All of the pastry fingers should be spread out like sun beams.
Twist each finger a couple of times. Secure the end of a pastry twist with a fork then brush the beaten egg all over it. Repeat with the remaining twists. Sprinkle with the leaves from 1 thyme sprig, if using, then bake for 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, score the top of the camembert with a crisscross pattern and scatter a few thyme leaves, if using, over the top. Remove the pastry from the oven, put the camembert into the box and return to the oven for 15 minutes, or until the cheese is oozy and the pastry puffed and golden. Serve immediately.

Motorhoming Tips

You may have heard that Spain are replacing the warning triangle with the V-16 beacon. The beacon is a domed light (a bit like Starsky and Hutch put on the roof), which is orange.

The clever thing about them is that they have a sim card inside, which will provide a geographical location for breakdown and emergency services when the beacon is activated.

At the time of writing, they will be compulsory on all Spanish registered vehicles from the start of 2026. There are no plans to make them compulsory for foreign-registered vehicles as yet.

However, you may choose to get one anyway as they are safer than warning triangles because you don't have to walk down the carriageway to put them out. They also have the advantage of transmitting your precise location.

More details here: https://road-safety-charter.ec.europa.eu/content/spain-mandate-v-16-emergency-beacons-all-vehicles-2026

Keep in touch

Facebook: crossingsmotorhometours

Instagram: CrossingsMotorhome

Please feel free to contact us at any time. When we are away, calls will bounce to our mobiles at no expense to yourself.

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