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……….