Bye bye Winter, Europe in a campervan

Europe by Campervan:

I'm lying on an air mattress surrounded by so much stuff. How can we still have so much when I've been giving it away every day single day for a month? It's been sneaking off and multiplying clearly. After 22 hours of intensive cleaning, and I know not how many sorting and giving away stuff I've given back my house keys, we are rent and council tax free and homeless, on my mum's floor.

So the news is good, we have sold our previous camper "Winter Dolphin Magic" (I have a romantic streak as wide as the Nile and a nine year old) and got a fair price for her! Few! Turns out I could have got more if I was an arse. The whole thing was a roller coaster of raw emotion.

She was no good to us because the law has changed and you can't add rear seatbelts any more (I'm a researcher but I tripped up here, I can't stress enough, don't just do research, do ACCURATE research!) but the list of jobs was getting a bit daunting too - she needs some love.

Well we listed her and got a storm of interest, cool surfer dude turns up first, I pull up at the same time as him and the radiator starts leaking down the street!!! Cool surfer dude heard me swear, those who know me will know I hardly ever swear! So we get a quote to fix it, bring down the price, get a temporary fix and edit all the listings to include the new problem.

The camper garage told me it's worth £5,000 but I get a series of calls saying it's worth nothing from chancers, and offers for £900. I start to freak out, I've spent a lot of Tim's money on it and then my step dad got it serviced and four new tyres, what if I've wasted their hard earned money. Just when I've taken to waking at 4 in the morning and making contingency plans, we get a good offer and say yes. Then I get lots more interest! Several people say "I'll give you the asking price and come get it today." I told them I had to keep my word. I'm happy it's defiantly worth what I've sold it for. I phone the people who have bought it, they are coming in a few days. They are perfect because they are a couple (no seatbelt problem) and he was once a mechanics apprentice, he's still friends with them and can get her fixed up, I'm very straight with him about what needs doing and what's good too. I tell him I'm getting higher offers now, but I'm keeping my word. We get on. After the phone chat he put the rest of the money in Tim's account!!! They don't have any van, paper or keys!! They just trusted me! Goes to show - you get the treatment you dish out!

Now what? Well I've fallen in love with an American Beast that Jasmine wants to call "Sparkle!!"

It has four seat belts (built with four). I say beast as it's a 5L engine, my pervious camper was a 2L engine for a two ton vehicle, this is smiler and more than double, it beasts along!

Remember the A Team? It's their van but longer. In fact it's the one used in the new movie but not the original series. Now we have to re-edit our stuff to fit a smaller van, oh! Help!

However, we will be able to get closer in to cities, cover more ground faster, it's not so high top, so it's less rock-like-a-boat to drive. It's also totally un-rusted and apart from a service sound enough to take on a two or three thousand mile trip tomorrow. Oh and it's right hand drive? Left hand drive? Europe way around!!

I have a question, so you have heard of a learning curve right? Why is it all my life I seem to set myself up to go up the learning CLIFF, straight up? Please can someone point out my comfort zone on the horizon so I can at least head that way one day? In the meantime, wish me luck driving a wrong way round van all the way home on Friday! :)

Europe by motorhome, we may need a different van!

I'm gutted, My motorhome has to go. We called her “Winter” after the dolphin that still swims eagerly with a prosthetic tail. Becuse it's got 16 dolphin stickers on it! You can watch Winter the dolphin live on webcam cam here:

https://www.seewinter.com/animals/webcams/winter-zone-cam-1/

Turns out the tail is a little too prosthetic for us! It has some rotten wood at the back which needs replacing and it's too much work for us as we need to go soon, before real winter comes and finds us homeless!

Fortunately the camper garage experts also say she's worth £5,000 even needing a little work, so I have definitely not wasted Tim’s money.

But we put heart and soul into her and we have now to find a newer van and get that all checked out! Also it's two weeks till we are homeless so we are probably going to have to camp on my mum's floor while we van shop! I keep going back and forth on sell or not to sell.

Also it turns out that the law has changed, and despite what you will read on line you cannot add seatbelts or seatbelted seats to a vehicle built without them and then get a UK MOT. I have it straight from the camper garage, so we have to get a van which was built with four seatbelts. Winter will be wonderful for a couple who can both be in the front.

So I need to;

Empty and clean my house by the 9th!

Sell Winter (the motorhome).

Find and buy a newer motorhome (automatic with four seatbelts).

Continue to parent a 9 year old and a 2 year old.

Move out and live on the floor!

So it's all pretty glamorous here at the moment.

"Classic" motorhome. Europe by motorhome.

"Classic" motorhome.

So I've done some research and it turns out that while "vintage" is quite specifically defined "classic" gets applied to anything the owner deems cute over 20, or so, years old, hence fourth my best-up, rusty, loud, tank-o-camper shall be referred to as a "classic motorhome" and I'm coming for you in two tons of roaring steel if you gainsay me!

It seems it's impossible to own a "classic motorhome" without becoming a total nerd! In order to find out how tons of stuff, I don't have instructions for, work I have had to join the Auto Trail owners facebook group, and you can see me, to find out about, rust removal and silicone sealants, this reached an all time high when I got very excited about a very compact 10 meter hose I found for filling our water tanks, so excited I very nearly took a photo of it to send my mum! Then I suddenly realised that hoses are the second most boring thing in the universe (after politicians talking), nerd! Super nerd! 40 year old hose nerd!

I have now driven 100 miles in my "classic motorhome" and I'm learning about it, for example, don't leave a side window open and drive off! I did and the van attacked some trees and green stuff. When I got home I found it had chopped off a lot of tree which was all over, including an explosion of blackberries in a post atomic bomb splatter pattern, all over the top bed space, and no less than TWO surprisingly chilled out shield beetles! However driving the big vehicle is not as hard as I thought it would be, you have to give yourself time to stop, but from up high you see things coming a long way. Also people hang back and give you room. You know that thing where you have people up your bum being pushy because you won't jump out into a gap half the size of your car? That doesn't seem to happen when you are driving a three meter high, two ton tank, with a massive steel bar on the back. I think it's for one of these reasons:

1. They realise you can't fit in those gaps, nor accelerate enough to make it.

2. They realise it's in their interest not to mess with you.

3. They are going nuts back there but I can't see out the back too well!

  

We have now given notice on our house and I'm getting rid of our stuff for real. I've worked so so hard renovating the van and cleaning and packing and shifting furniture out.

Every now and then I am hit with sudden waves of mini fridge panic! I stroll into the kitchen and casually get some milk from the huge fridge, bigger than me, then I'm sized by the thought, "How can I feed a family of four out a fridge the size of four shoeboxes (at best)!" I've told my daughter we must all eat mini food now! She thought that was really funny, then we went to a cafe and they gave us mini honey pots with our porridge! It made her day, but I'm still telling myself "even if we live on chocolate spread, don't back out for a fridge!" I imagine being old and telling my grand kids, "I nearly had cool stories to tell you, I wanted to go to Seville, but I couldn't go without chilled orange juice!"

Nonsense for my kids:

The worlds going to go past this door dears, the world will go past this door.

Mountains, lakes, rivers and supermarket car parks. Slices of glittering ocean and dull little towns in the rain.

Places the kids speak Arabic, places it's Portuguese, don't worry you go armed with a couple of frisbees.

Long ago I sold my flute and it took me as far as Berlin, long ago an impulse "yes" took me to Poland and back.

I've never regretted those days dears, I've never wished for them back.

So let's bring you some big open skies dears, and some really good ice cream!