Freddie Mercury and kamikaze larks

23.2.12

Stocking up with borrowed DVDs to while away any chilly nights, we said au revoir to our friends and set off for Bordeaux, and thence down into Spain.

The combined efforts of loggers, roadworks gangs and prairie farmers with their ranks of huge irrigation booms alongside the route south to the Pyrenees have created a scorched-earth landscape of such spectacular hideousness that even the buzzards have given it up as a bad job and gone elsewhere.

After a day of solid motorway driving, the first Spanish aire we stopped at, in Miranda de Ebro, did nothing to lift our spirits, having sounded far more pleasant in the guidebook than in reality, with rudimentary facilities, and lorries thundering by on a main road almost overhead into the early hours. Sitting in our little tin can cooking up pasta, we really did feel, in a forlorn way, in a little world of our own. And we felt compelled to set the alarm before going to sleep.

But next night saw us up in the snow-capped mountains, in the tidy little spa village of La Alberca, near Bejar. En route we’d seen red kites and buzzards galore from a grotty roadside service area, storks nesting on roofs as we crossed a high plateau where the earth was the brightest rusty orange-red, griffon vultures, and countless kamikaze crested larks and sparrows on the hard shoulder. We’d been surprised by the abundance of wind turbines on the hilltops – the Spanish are clearly going for green energy in a big way – but such is the scale of the landscape that they did not seem out of place.

We arrived at our free car park aire in time for a relaxing walk through the forest – the area is a national park – and found a ‘free gift’ that must have been left behind in the CD player by the previous owner of our motorhome. So we sat there eating a wonderful warm salad that included sundried tomatoes, chorizo, marinated anchovies and all sorts of salvage from the fridge, listening to Freddie Mercury singing “It’s a kind of magic.” Which it was. And to make it even better, there was a phone call from Number One Son, to say he’d arrived home safely from India.

Davy's Dordogne curry house

February 22, 2012

AFTER four days in the Dordogne, we’re off to Spain. From our guidebook, most Spanish roadside aires look pretty unprepossessing so we’re not likely to be hanging about, but heading straight for the sunny south coast.

As usual we’ve had great fun with our old friends Sara and Roger and their very welcoming social circle. Highlights included a curry night complete with commemorative place mats hot off the computer, an initiation into the basics of wine-tasting (rather than guzzling!) and what’s becoming almost a ritual trip to the shopping centre at Trelissac, where Leclerc’s fish counter is a sight to behold.

  

Stuffed to the gills with a colourful array of species you wouldn’t see in a lifetime of British supermarket shopping, and occupying an area even larger than the inexplicable square footage devoted to loo roll at Tesco, it makes you yearn to be a better cook. Plus, there are no screaming kids. How do the French achieve that? And whatever their secret  is, could someone please bottle it and sell it in Salisbury?

Also obligatory for retailers back home ought to be a visit to the wonderful Maisons du Monde, where beautifully designed homeware and gifts are well displayed at prices that don’t make you gasp. I stocked up on girlie pressies to be left with our friends and collected on the way home.

“The last time we were here, I saw Elliott Morley in Riberac market,” recalled my husband. “That was before he was caught fiddling his expenses. I suppose he must be in prison now.”

Finally, I have to mention an extraordinary dog walk. We must have looked like the Magnificent Seven coming over the horizon. There were seven Brits, plus seven independent-minded mutts of assorted shapes and sizes, all except our one constantly haring off into the woods and tending not to come back when called. Glen preferred to try tripping people over with an assortment of sticks.

You could hear us coming a mile away as we toured the landscape around La Tour Blanche, following a local history route. We found a troglodyte cave, an old drove road with rudimentary seats carved into the stone lining the sunken path, and Neolithic grain stores that were holes in the ground just waiting for the unwary. Not much wildlife, sadly - maybe scared away by the racket.

Migration route

18.2.12

HAVING sworn to avoid motorways as much as possible, we’ve travelled on them almost all the way down through France. The traffic is, for the most part, so light that it doesn’t feel stressful at all.

 I’ve even driven the Hymer myself for all of 20 kilometres. My husband said the autoroute might be the easiest place to get used to it because there’s not much manoeuvring involved, and he was right. I’m still not at ease with it, but it will get better with time.

My advice for pitstops – take a short detour off the motorway, it’s so much nicer. We found another lovely little aire in the town of Vivonne where we parked up under the plane trees in the square to enjoy our French bread and some very un-French strong Cheddar that had been presented to us by our friends Alison and Harry in a bagful of goodies they thought we might miss while abroad.  

Surprising things we saw along the way … wide, frozen rivers, though little trace of the recent heavy snowfalls; what looked like a huge corrugated iron warehouse on the roadside in the middle of nowhere advertising tea dances inside; 28 buzzards perched on fence posts.

Now we are at Les Granges, our friends’ home, where we’ve been sitting on the patio outside their converted barn, eating lunch in 27-degree sunshine! It may still be icy at night, but by day it’s like an English summer.

On a long walk across the fields to visit another English couple we’ve met before, our attention is caught by the calling of common cranes circling overhead. We look up and there must be a hundred of them, getting into V formation, migrating northward. By the end of the afternoon at least a thousand have passed over the house, in wave after wave, an unforgettable sight. 

We're off at last!

February 17, 2012

I can’t think of a worse way to start a holiday than a jaunt round the rush-hour M25. But with last-minute panic packing taking longer than anticipated it was mid-afternoon before we set off for Dover, waved off by our friend Fi, who photographed our departing rear end and then chased us up the road to hand over the camera.

At the port we followed the online advice of seasoned motorhomers and parked up in Marine Parade, two minutes from the ferry terminal, ready for an early start.

At last, we were really on our way. It was time to unwind over a drink, listening to the sounds of the rain pattering on the roof, the dog gnawing contentedly on a bone – and the sudden, shocking shrieking of the fire alarm as my husband fried some onions to add to our instant pasta sauce. Clearly, it would have to be disconnected every time we cooked.

Drama over, we drew the blinds and curtains, cutting off the outside world, and it was like closing a door on an old life. In this little studio flat on wheels I felt as though we were in a time capsule, and I wouldn’t have been amazed to wake up next morning, peer outside and find that aliens had taken over while we slept.

We still managed to miss our ferry, because I’d failed to realise we had to check in 35 minutes ahead of departure. But there was another one along 40 minutes later, and buoyed up by a full English breakfast on board, it seemed like no time before we were setting off from Calais for the Dordogne.

Our first overnight stop in France was at a municipal aire in the little town of Marboue, just off the motorway below Chartres. It had everything we needed – a grassy riverside walk for the dog, a bakery on the street corner, facilities for emptying dirty water  – and it didn’t cost a bean. What a brilliant system! We tucked into spag bol and drank a toast to absent colleagues who had kindly sent us on our way with a great bottle of red and two glasses. There was just room for a slab of our friend Julie’s home-made fruit cake – another thoughtful farewell present. A time to count our blessings.

Last-minute panic

Sunday Feb 12

UPON mature consideration, otherwise known as last-minute panic, further (expensive) improvements have been made to the Hymer.

It now boasts two new electric sockets, invisibly wired in, which will save us tripping over the lead to the oil filled radiator on chilly nights, and a Tyron system which will make it much easier to control in the event of blowouts or punctures. Don’t even think about it.

Packing is now proceeding apace. Some forethought is required to work out where to stow everything we might possibly require to sustain us for six weeks, and luckily forethought is my husband’s strong point, since it isn’t mine. A massive Tesco shop this morning must surely have provided enough food to get us to the Dordogne and quite possibly to the South Pole, where we’d doubtless feel quite at home in the sub–zero temperatures

Wasp stings dog

February 8, 2012

THE first night we spent in the van was Tuesday, January 31. I remember it seemed a really significant occasion.

We set off as soon as we could after I finished work and I was quickly struck, as we headed down the A303 to Taunton, by how being in the front passenger seat of a Hymer, with the huge windows that give it such fantastic visibility, was like riding a roller-coaster.

Every time we went down one of the lengthy hills on the westward route, it was like pitching over the edge on one of those scary rides, with nothing between me and the fate lurking below but a sheet of glass. I felt stressed out, constantly pleading: “Slow down!”

It was dark, and after closing time when we arrived at Cornish Farm, the site adjacent to Vanbitz, where our alarm was to be fitted next day. But there was a notice directing us to our pitch, and once we hooked up to the electricity supply, with the lights and the shiny new red kettle on, I cheered up.

The facilities on-site were immaculate (although it was rather spooky to hear a Radio 2 DJ chirping away through loudspeakers to the otherwise empty washrooms whenever one opened the door).

The van felt cosy and safe once we’d drawn the  blinds – though not for the dog, who squeaked in protest as he was stung by a sleepy wasp we must have dislodged from their folds.

We’d cheated, and cooked a Thai curry before we set out, so heated this up and ate it. It’s a sign of how exhausted I was that when my husband, draining the rice, complained that the colander leaked, I fell for it!

A couple of glasses of wine later, and with the gas heating proving effective, we were feeling very relaxed. From my point of view there was only one drawback. “Bonus,” said my husband as he switched on the radio to find live commentary on the Spurs match. “Who could ask for more?”

The dog soon settled happily on his bed (no.3, in case you're counting) and our own drop-down mattress proved amazingly comfortable.

Next morning we were given a lift in to town to while away the day. We’d been seduced, while waiting for the ride, into buying a TV, and that was to be fitted as well.

Taunton, even on an icy day, proved a pretty good place to hang about. We decided to look for fleeces and sweatshirts for our trip, and the dog made us instant friends in every clothing shop we entered, being particularly successful with females under the age of 30.

One of these, a lovely assistant at Crew, directed us to The Scrumper, a café where we could sit outside with Glen in relative shelter and even catch a few rays of wintry sun. We had brunch there and were so pleased by it that we returned for a late lunch.

The town has a truly fascinating museum, its only drawback being that we were only allowed to look round it one at a time, while the other sat outside with the dog – though if you asked me what kind of hazard a border collie posed to relics safely ensconced behind plate glass I’d have to say I’m not sure. 

Shopping proved productive and we returned to a demonstration of the full bells-and-whistles alarm system at such volume that the dog had to be removed to a safe distance to shield his delicate ears. We arrived home quite worn out, but comprehensively equipped for whatever Europe could throw at us …..?

Role reversal

30.1.12

ANOTHER piece of good news, though. No. 1 Son, currently in India with girlfriend and judging by the pictures on his Facebook page, partying like there’s no tomorrow, will be back by the end of February.

That means the house will be occupied most of the time we’re away. I’ll be sad to miss their homecoming after 18 months apart, but I suppose a few weeks more won’t really matter.

So while we’re off jaunting about the place in young and carefree mode, they’ll be starting to look for proper jobs (fingers crossed) and working out how to afford a first real home of their own. Poor things, I don’t envy them.

Dog eats bed

January 29, 2012

WE’RE fairly whizzing along now, and we haven’t even left home. My husband has concocted a fitted carpet for the Hymer from offcuts lying around in the garage, and a smaller table, just wide enough for a bottle of wine, a couple of glasses and a book or two, which will slide into place to give us and the dog a little more legroom.

In fact, the more he thinks about it the more ideas he comes up with to make life on the road more comfortable, and he’s been haunting the local caravanning supplier over the past three or four weeks, coming home with handy gadgets at regular intervals – such as a bargain plastic holder for mugs, to stop them rattling around, reduced to a few pence because it’s got a crack in it which he’s promptly mended.

I really do appreciate his efforts, it’s just that I can’t understand why he finds this kind of thing fun. All I can say is, thank goodness he does.

Meanwhile parcels have been turning up containing yet more essentials. The latest yesterday was a big box of melamine crockery.

 What is about caravanning and camping that encourages designers to throw taste out of the window and indulge in some of the most revolting patterns known to man? We couldn’t find a plate or bowl that we could live with. Plain white was what we settled on, and it took some tracking down because shops only seem to stock up in the summer. Anyway, the internet came to our rescue and it’s here now.

And the new table will be holding a celebratory bottle or two on Tuesday when we spend our first night in the Hymer.

As soon as I finish work we’re off to Taunton to get an alarm system fitted. Not just any old alarm system, you understand, but the top-of-the-range, specially-designed-for-motorhomes kind, as recommended by guru James Brown in his invaluable Motorhome & Caravan Security Handbook.

Auntie B, who lives for part of the year in Spain, has been reinforcing my fears about tyre-slashing robbers lurking at traffic lights to leap on unsuspecting tourists, and I’m up for taking every precaution, regarding the ever-mounting cost as a sensible investment.

I’m also hoping that the dog is an effective burglar-deterrent. I’ve told him he  needs to earn his keep, since he’s just munched his way through the fluffy new bed we bought him for travelling.

The charitable view of this misdeed is that he mistook it for a cuddly toy. I suspect, however, that he was showing off because we’d had to leave him unattended for a few hours and he was bored.

Either way, a shredded mass of kapok stuffing greeted us on our return home, and after a certain amount of bad language (not on my part, you understand) it was off to the pet shop to acquire a bean bag instead. So far he seems markedly disinclined to lie on it, preferring the floor.

Mayday!

January 11,2012

SUDDENLY our departure date is hurtling towards me like the ground rushing up to meet a novice parachutist and while I’ve never jumped out of an aeroplane and have no intention of ever doing so, I imagine it’s a similarly panic-inducing moment.

A sense of perspective

January 9, 2012

I have a dear friend whose son-in-law has been posted to Afghan, as he calls it. The dangers he faces make my concerns about our trip look truly paltry. I think of him often and pray he will come home safe. And yet my own concerns feel no less real to me. I shouldn’t be even talking about them in the same paragraph.

It seems incredible that while he and his mates are laying their lives on the line – for a cause I have to say I don’t believe in - we should even be free to think about indulging in such frivolities, let alone bothering our heads about the possibilities of meeting unfriendly natives. But that’s the way it is.

It feels almost as if we are stepping outside the real world for a while. We aren’t, of course, however much that formed part of my earlier wishful thinking.

Silly, really. The gap year as originally envisaged has shrunk to a couple of months, followed by two or three months at home over the summer, with a variety of family commitments already made.

With luck there will be time for a couple of weeks away in the motorhome in the UK. With more luck, a lengthier trip abroad in the autumn. But we have to recognise that the biggest stroke of luck of all is that my parents are still with us. And it is precisely life’s unpredictability that has persuaded me to leave a job I love, and just get on with it, as best I can – right now.

Perennial problems

January 8, 2012

NEW Year agonising over the need to get fit is usually fruitless. But this year there’s been a much-needed boot up the backside because hard physical labour will be needed to get the garden fit to leave by the end of the month.

Having neglected to cut back perennials or do any pruning in the autumn (too busy, and the seed heads are lovely for the birds over the winter, aren’t they?) we are faced with an overgrown mass already bursting into springlike life on the first of January, while birds are making sweet music all around and will soon be prospecting for nesting sites in those overgrown bushes.

I foresee four weekends of hacking when I should be packing.

Four weeks and counting ...

January 7, 2012

OMG, where has the time gone, and how suddenly has it come to this? In four weeks’ time we will be off. I have given in my notice. It is official.

Somehow I think for my husband it has been more real all along than for me. But I’ve been quite happily preoccupied with day-to-day life, especially in the run-up to Christmas. And now I can’t pretend it’s just an idea any longer, even if I wanted to ….

I have even driven the thing – albeit only for 50 yards and a 3-point turn on the access road to Booker’s cash-and-carry on the way back from the local weighbridge. And only after dark, when there was nobody about and the road was lit up on either side with little lights on sticks like an airport runway.

But still, nobody to see me tootling along in second gear, far too far over where the white line in the middle would have been, if it had been a real road.

I was advised against attempting the mile-long trip home. Maybe when it’s daylight, said my husband kindly.

Preparations are now in full swing. While my husband has been crafting a shelf to fit over the side of the drop-down bed to hold my morning tea (how sweet of him is that?) I have been scaring myself silly by reading online advice on how to motorhome safely through Europe without getting a) mugged in any number of  major cities b) broken into at a motorway service station or c) flagged down on a Spanish roadside, and possibly even gassed (I am not joking) by Moroccan marauders pretending there’s something wrong with our tyres, all the better to rob us.

If I believed it all – which I kind of do – I’d never dare leave home. But of course there are all sorts of tips about alarm systems, extra door and window locks, money belts … and of course we’ll be following them up. Though I’ve ruled out the 130-decibel interior alarm, on the grounds that if the poor dog’s on his own in there when it goes off, he’ll be so traumatised by the noise that he’ll refuse to get back inside ever again.

We’ve bought a safe, and the practical half of our relationship has been bent double half the evening trying to bolt it into place in the cupboard space under one of the beds, amid much grumbling and a trip back to the retailer to exchange the original purchase for a smaller version.

He’s also been very happily shopping all week, both online and at our local Lakeland, acquiring wine glasses – what’s wrong with the plastic picnic ones we already possess, I say? - saucepans, bits of rubbery fabric to stop the cutlery rattling around in the drawers as we’re going along, etc etc.

A certain amount of muttering has been created by a fruitless search for melamine plates with rubber rings round the bottom to stop them slipping, like the ones he’s got for his boat, which seem to have gone out of production.

Once you start thinking about kitting out a motorhome it’s amazing what’s involved. Even if, like me, you tend to assume somebody else will sort it out.

I did think about bedding – and can’t even decide whether we should buy new or make do with some of the spare room stuff from home. I favour polycotton because I can’t see myself ironing, while my husband insists he won’t be able to sleep under anything but cotton in the heat of southern Spain.

And then there’s the question of how to secure the house while we’re away. Precautions I’d previously considered and filed away under ‘To do – some day’ suddenly seem highly important. Should we invest in a burglar alarm? Possibly just a dummy one? New bolts for the back door, certainly.

Then there’s the insurance to sort out. As long as we’re away for no longer than 60 days the house and contents are covered by our existing policy.

But there’s insurance for the motorhome, including European breakdown cover. And EHIC cards won’t cut it if anything serious goes wrong with either of us, so we need a travel policy. And the dog needs one, too, so that’s another £28.

And the bills keep mounting at the same time as we’ve decided to forego salaries.

Hello, Hymer

November 26, 2011

Well, there’s no escaping it. There’s a monster on my drive. A 20ft Hymer-type monster, its nose pressed up to the garage door and its rear end just about squeezed off the road to avoid upsetting the neighbours in our cul-de-sac.

It’s not an elegant beast, but it is beautifully functional. It’s been there for a fortnight now, apart from a brief foray to Tesco to fill up with 5p-a-litre-off diesel.

In between house refurbishment and coping with the death of my father-in-law just days after my husband’s eventual redundancy, we’d been scouring eBay and dealership websites for months and the summer had disappeared.

There had been wasted viewing trips to London (me) and Bristol (husband). Finally, like buses, two motorhomes that looked as if they could fit the bill turned up at once. With time in such short supply we decided to see them both in a day – a Pilote in Birmingham and the Hymer in Grimsby. Of course. What could be simpler?

Pausing only to invite ourselves to stay overnight with friends in Bridlington, we set off for Birmingham in a state of high excitement, feeling more adventurous already. We had to wait an hour or two to get a test drive, and decided to pass the time at a nearby greasy spoon – a very friendly place, but a bit of a mistake, as it transpired.

The Pilote not only sported that bilious maroon-and-yellow-spattered upholstery that Europeans seem to love, but also turned out to be rather rattly. We left for Humberside unconvinced and way behind schedule, with the world’s heaviest fish-and-chip lunch – I had no idea people south of Glasgow put batter on their chips –sitting uncomfortably in my stomach, as it would for the next 24 hours.

I can’t imagine we’d have remained on civil terms if the Hymer had also proved a disappointment, but luckily it didn’t.

It was dark by the time we reached Ikonic Kampers, so the test drive had to wait until next morning, but I could tell the moment we sat inside that this was the one. Not only was it upholstered in soothing shades of blue and grey, but it had pretty little blue LED lights and loads of storage space as well as all the boring practical things that my husband was talking to the dealer about.

The dog seemed to like it, and fitted nicely into the space under the table, which was a bonus. Mind you, the poor animal would have liked anything after eight hours cooped up in the back of a Peugeot 307 with only the briefest of walks.

A deal was struck, and a week or so later, formalities completed, we all met up again at Watford Gap services for the big handover. I forgot to mention that the Hymer is a left-hand drive model, and as the dog and I followed it home down the motorway there were one or two heart-stopping moments when my husband appeared to forget that vital fact and veer into the next lane.

Still we made it, and here we are. With my husband’s new business taking off, I can’t see us taking off much before February. But just looking at that big beast outside does make anything seem possible.

Will it ever happen?

June 22, 2011

TIME, as Steve Miller so presciently sang, keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’ into the future. And the timescale for embarking on our Great Adventure seems to slip further into the future every week.

We remain determined to make it happen – it’s just a question of when. Having agreed that we can’t really leave our families to their own devices over Christmas, it hardly seems worth going abroad before then and having to drive back with all the argy-bargy of getting the dog inspected by a vet 24 hours before our return sailing etc etc.

Particularly when my husband has decided to set up a consultancy business so he can do some work online while we’re away. Particularly when we’re  renovating a smaller house, which we can let out and keep as an insurance policy against the need to downsize when we get back. Particularly when we’re both still working. And even more particularly when we may have to help my father-in-law put his belongings in store so he can let his house to pay his care home fees. In short, we just ain’t ready.

In the meantime we’ve inspected dozens more camper vans – driving all the way to Newbury for a monster motor home show this time. Even more mind-boggling than the trip to a dealership, all it did was make us realise that the models we’d had in mind shared one insurmountable drawback – they were too long to fit on our drive and we would have to scale down our ambitions.

An afternoon spent saying excuse-me and squeezing past other couples in and out of so many little doorways to inspect every conceivable internal layout was exceptionally hard on the feet, and quickly palled, I have to say.

And the dog – bored stiff on his lead all the time, poor creature - didn’t help when he decided to nip the nose of a passing baby border collie. Cue glares from doting owner, and hasty retreat, whilst hissing furiously at husband ‘I told you not to let him near any puppies!’

Going nowhere fast

April 24, 2011

MY home, with its view over the water meadows in all their springtime lushness to Salisbury Cathedral, is indescribably dear to me. Yet I am contemplating not only leaving it for 12 months but leaving it to a stranger. For the sums only work if we rent out the house.

 I keep looking at the garden – as close as it gets to perfection after repeated weeding expeditions, before the mare’s tail grass starts filling all the gaps and more – and wondering if a tenant can possibly look after it as I would. Ludicrous, really, since I am not a good gardener, merely an enthusiastic summer gardener. But the thought of coming back and finding an overgrown ruin of what little structure there was is heartbreaking in advance.

We have just celebrated our 32^nd wedding anniversary here (cheaply, I hasten to add, since we are saving up!) and when I think that we have lived here since 10 weeks after our younger son (now nearly 20) was born, it is understandable that this is where my heart lies. And yet, even when we come back, if we are ever to realise our dream of a bit of land and a few animals, it can’t be here. The geography is against us.

Another bugbear – I have told a few friends about our half-formed plans but am afraid to be more open about them in case my employers get wind and deem me expendable. In due course I may deem myself expendable but until then we’d rather have my salary coming in!

What a peculiar, in-between world to inhabit for months on end. Every minor triumph and tragedy of the gardening kind seems exaggeratedly important because I won’t be here to see it 12 months hence. How pathetic is that? As if this is the only world there is …………………

A recipe for disaster?

November 30, 2010

In between negotiating his future with his soon-to-be ex-employers and putting up a shelf in the kitchen for his ever-increasing collection of recipe books (for how long, for goodness sake? We’re going away) my husband has been looking up all the best birdwatching sites in Europe and marking them on an outline map of the continent.

Now he wants me to mark in all the places I want to visit and have never got round to. Birdwatching is his thing. Cities, most definitely, are not. I like both, and it’ll be interesting to see how this pans out. Already it’s clear that these wish lists will have to be heavily edited. Even a year won’t be long enough.

Other questions I’m asking myself. Maybe it would be better to fly home separately to visit family every couple of months rather than having several long-haul trips back to a Channel ferry. What if there’s an emergency? One of us will have to fly back while the other drives, accompanied by the dog. What if it’s me that has to drive the monster van? Aaargh.

In the meantime, what shall we have for dinner? We’ve been so distracted there’s not much in the fridge, though at least when we contemplate what we’ve dredged up from its depths we won’t be short of a recipe.

Normal life has got to carry on for some months while we plot our escape. We can’t just waste the time anticipating the future. 

Home and away

November 29, 2010

The Dear Leader, with his son and heir watching and learning, has been reminding his neighbours lately that it’s best to leave North Korea well alone.

Which is a particular concern since our own Number One Son is just next door in South Korea, teaching English for a year.

Luckily he’s miles from the action, since he wouldn’t be able to run away very fast with his broken toe. But what kind of a mother would I be if I didn’t worry just a bit?

On the home front, another worry has been looming ever larger since we went on a little jaunt to a dealership in Poole this week. It’s called a Hymer. How on earth am I going to drive such a monster?

Turns out my husband had never even considered the cute camper vans I’d spent hours looking up on the internet. They were, he pointed out, an unrealistic – not to mention claustrophic - option for two adults plus dog to spend a whole year in. 

An afternoon spent clambering in and out of a couple of dozen motorhomes to explore some more commodious possibilities promised to be fun. But a) it was freezing and my feet went dead, and b) every blessed one had a different  internal layout, leaving me totally bamboozled.

So many questions I hadn’t considered. Will we need an oven? Many European-made motorhomes don’t have one. But could we live without, say, roasting a chicken for 12 months? Or even (look away now, healthy eaters) heating up a supermarket pizza?

Do we want one with a bed that pulls down from the cab roof to give us more floor space? Or would it be better to have one with a fixed bed platform overhead so we could use it for storage and sleep on the seats?

Can we afford what it looks increasingly likely that we will require – a small house on wheels? Can we afford the fuel it will guzzle at 25 miles per gallon?

And most pressing of all, can I visualise myself at the wheel of such a behemoth? No I can’t. When I sit in the driving seat I can’t see out of the back. I’ll have to rely on the wing mirrors – which are, admittedly, massive. Good lord, this is scary.

The possibilities are endless ...

November 24, 2010

MY poor husband is dutifully going in to work, feeling more and more of a stranger each day.

 I, too, am feeling strangely unsettled in a job I enjoy which, as far as I know, is not about to disappear. It’s contagious. Writing – something I’ve always done for a living – has, when undertaken on my home computer, suddenly become a release.

An evening spent perusing the camper van adverts on eBay passes in a flash. Why am I doing this? I always leave practical decisions to my husband.  Within half an hour I know I am wasting my time. It won’t be me who chooses. There are so many of them – you can buy one ready-made, you can buy a vehicle to convert yourself, or you can buy one for a professional to convert.

And then there’s the question of what make?  VWs, while loveable and gorgeous, are prohibitively expensive. What about a Mazda? That’s where I’m leaning at the moment. But is it actually big enough to live in plus dog for three months at a stretch (we’re planning on returning three or four times a year to spend a week with our parents) or will I go completely barmy because I’ve only got room for two changes of clothes?

My husband is away, so I spend the rest of the evening poring over Son No. 2’s old school atlas, trying to work out possible combinations of destinations that break Europe into bite-size chunks.

And then I start thinking, well what if it drifts into more than a year? Getting a bit anarchist here. We could just keep travelling and travelling. Suddenly, faced with a map of Europe, twelve months doesn’t seem like very long……….