Adventures: Change of idea: I love driving my van and it works perfectly!

Adventures: Change of idea: I love driving my van and it works perfectly! It's easy and fun to drive and nothing is wrong with it...

I had a bit of an annoying two days. I feel a bit like Huck Finn after he touched a snake skin, although I don't really believe in bad luck. And I should add I have not found any dead blokes or silver dollars.

Yesterday someone scratched a word on my van and all down the sides too, but the lovely man next door got it off with some tcut. Then today I was driving Jasmine to her friends house when there was a massive bang and my driver side window smashed itself to tiny bits and showered glass all over me. I admit, I literally screamed! Like a stupid blond in a B Horror film. Then I pulled over, talked calmly to my daughter, brushed off the glass and drove my daughter to her destination, drove home and cried from delayed shock! So I guess I messed up when I told my friends, "can I stop driving now?" Please wish me lots of safe successful driving to fun places I intended to be! Thank you!

The window is all fixed now and it's looking better inside. I've been working.

In five days it's my birthday, I will be 41, and I'm ether "sleeping on my stepdad's floor at 41 with all my family and a total wash out in life" or  "shedding all the complexity and going after the truly worthwhile" depending on how you spin it and if I've had my coffee or not! You can make up your own mind. 😂🚐

Goodbye Spain, hello squalor!

So nearly six months ago we set off in a classic Chevy to road trip around France, Spain and Portugal. It didn't go anything like the plan but it did go brilliantly! We set off too late in the year and were worried that ice and snow would make the driving dangerous and the living miserable, but two days in we broke down and were told the can was scrap. After expecting to go home a friend of mine offered me her flat in Spain for winter and we flew to Javea, via the train to Paris. Shipping the broken can home, three nights in hotels and flights to Spain were all covered by my Europe wide breakdown cover for £90 a year! It totally saved us and is my top road trip tip. Also my only road trip tip, as we didn't actually go on a road trip!

In the end the Chevy was not scrap. It needed an expensive repair and we sold it for £1,800 to a lady in rural France who is very happy with it.
So it was off to Javea. We had never seen the place, I hadn't been in Spain since I was 16. We promised to stay all winter and hoped we would get on ok! I think I knew I'd love it within 10 minutes of landing. Javea felt like we had walked off the edge of the world and got Spain to ourselves. It's filling up now. In the next three months its population goes up 10x! It's shops are all open and it's getting the feel of a busy holliday town. It has a different buzz like this.

We have learned a lot, we have relied on each-other, with no one else we know around. We have played on the beach till my kids are fed up with it! Who knew that was possible?? Now we are for home. First week in May.

We have bought a van to convert into a basic camper. As we are going to live in it while we do this we will be starting out with mattresses on the van floor - living in squalor! Hopefully we can start to turn it into a cosy home quite quickly.

We could of course sell the van, use it as the deposit on a flat and resume being responsible, normal grown ups. But I don't want to. I've got my heart set on coming back here next winter. I want to learn more Spanish, see more cities, see Portugal too. But I've learned from my late-in-the-year dash across France in an unusual van. We will leave in September, we will bypass France and take the ferry straight to Spain, we will make no promises to be anywhere specific but potter south at our own pace.

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone. I'm also going to be able to solve all the problems of living in a van bit by bit in a familiar country, hopefully get a little tour of Scotland and see my dad, then by September we will be old hands at living in a van and I will be used to driving it. Then we can face the new country problems having solved the first set. It will be a more manageable adventure.

Though Javea is warming up for the season we are all willing and happy to wish her goodbye as we want to see our families and friends.

Here are what will hopefully be before pictures on a wonderful before and after project! Our new home!

Living in Spain: You will think I made this one up!

Living in Spain: You will think I made this up to entertain you, but it's true!!!

One of life's great pleasures for me, and a very rare pleasure, is the fun I get from getting to be gracious about something done to me, that others have been horrible to me for doing to them! To literally be better, and know it! It sometimes happens with ex-boyfriends! It's like Oscar Wild said, "The best revenge is living well." Perhaps mine is a smug, impure pleasure, but if it pans out to being nice in practice - does it matter if I gloat a bit to myself?

Well those of you who have been following my adventure will remember that I had a campervan that I realised was not right for us and sold. It then broke and the buyer went ballistic- threatening to take me to court and forging my signature on a document to try to make the van legally mine again.

This evening I was strolling down the front with my daughter taking selfies with the palm trees wrapped in fairy lights, when who should I meet but the bloke I bought my van from! The Chevy! He was surprised and delighted to see me and said "You made it then!" So I gave him a short version of the breakdown, shipped the van to England, getting quotes to fix it... He was gutted for us and gave me the name of a garage that rebuild classic gearboxes. He kept saying "But I just drove it here and back no problems." I kept saying it's not your fault, it's old and it could have done another 50,000 miles or more, no one knew. He's a nice bloke and it's not his fault! But I got to walk away from treating him with respect and decency thinking "See! That's how that is done, I knew I wouldn't have behaved like those people who bought my previous camper and I just got to prove it!"

I'm also blown away by the coincidence!!! We talked about my trip and his lifestyle so we knew we were both heading to Spain, but it's a big-ish place, I had no idea where in Spain, I was not expecting to meet him on my pre dinner walk!!!

In other news I have failed to stop myself from planning the next van, to take up around this peninsula (France, Spain and Portugal) one day when I get together another shot at it. Here are the plans, and some photos of similar van, and other similar things to help give the idea. Feel free to comment your advice - I only ever listen to advice I like the sound of anyway - sorry, just a personality trait I guess!

Living in Spain: pirates, salvage and ice-cream!

Living in Spain: What Can we salvage from our Chevy? And history with ice cream!

So the broken Chevy arrived in England today. Dumped outside my mum and stepdad's house by a huge truck. My mum was quick thinking enough to film the unloading so at least my two year old was happy!

The classic car garage in Rouen quoted £4,000 to replace the transmission unit but you can get them reconditioned on eBay for £400. There may also be something wrong with a piston but even that could be fixed according to our mechanic friend in Spain (who we made two days too late to ship the van here!). We need to catch a break with this van as it is ALL our savings.

It has lots of good points. Low milage, undersealed against rust, five new tyres and two new batteries (normal one and one to run laptops, kettle etc.) clearly a huge part of the quote is labour. So if someone wanted to fix it themselves, (not us we don't have the skill set) they could get a great van cheap. Do any of my friends know anyone interested? Or even know what I can charge for it broken? Any advice is welcome?

On another topic, back in Javea, I keep thinking about the fact people have lived here since pre-history. All the beautiful greenery around here is kept alive by black water pipes that loop round every tree. The palms don't grow in the sand like that without them. So when people first came here it must have been a brutal, baked place. Broken red earth and caucus plants, scraping salty rocks to find something alive to live on. Today it is raining. Those people from pre-history would have willingly handed over the last of the dried lizard meat to the gods for such a gift! English kids will be familiar with a day off for snow, Scottish kids will be familiar with wishing they got one, some kids here got a day off for rain! (I have been corrected, power cuts as a result of rain).

Even when the people here developed farming and irrigation their existence was still tough, pirates so molested the town by the sea, that the townspeople got together and had a meeting, where they all sounded like the villagers in computer games; "hrmm! humph! hrmm" as a result of the meeting they packed up the whole town and moved it two miles up hill, and inland, and built a wall around it! Me and my kids have done the "attacking pirate walk" up the hill to the old town and my nine year old will tell you, the last thing you want to do when you make it to the top is fight anyone, even if they are not behind a meter thick wall, ice cream is in fact the only way to recover! Please note: you may want to check a few dates and such if you are planning to repeat my history lesson in an exam - also don't say anything about computer games!

I have been teaching my kids to make rubbings and have included a rubbing of the city's coat of arms. We got it off a drain cover! Although it can also be seen on the court house wall. Also a shot of part of the wall that still remains in the old town and the face my daughter makes to any pirates that might survive the climb! Towns people 10, pirates 0!

What are you doing still here? Europe in a campervan.

I'm taking my family to France, Spain and Portugal this winter in a classic Chevy van. For adventure, to break out of suburban middle class thinking, to learn languages, to experience culture, and to escape the rain - mostly the last bit!

I'm still here, however, getting rained on! We are becoming professional at waiting for garages to do work! All British people are already professional at getting rained on! We finally got a service and an oil change but the breaks need work, I'm thinking we might need them! We might leave on the the 1st or we might not!

I keep meeting friends who greet me with “What are you still doing here?” “I thought you had gone?” And even “I can't wait for you to go!” Then they realise what they have said and frantically try to dig themselves back out, “Oh! I do like you of course…” it's ok, I understand.

The people who bought our previous camper and then said it's not their van, when it broke down, have reached an all time high on their reaction, they actually lied to the DVLA and forged my signature on a government document!! Fortunately the DVLA were on the ball and sent me a form asking if I really did want to transfer ownership back to me! They (the DVLA) won't discuss if they are taking action but they will keep all evidence. The police gave me a leaflet to report fraud. Tim also got a nasty letter from the buyers, and some calls to go on a lurid TV program and fight about it in public! We said no!!! If they do anything else I'm going to open a fraud investigation and perhaps even press charges! I'm not a vindictive person, but the threats have been horrible, so It's quite comforting to know I now have them by the private parts if they give us more abuse! I wonder if they will Google me and read my blog!!? It sort of cramps my writing style so I try to assume they won't.

I've discovered that the little Chevy cars you see everywhere are called a Chevrolet Spark!! Can you believe my daughter called our big Chevy Van “Sparkle” without knowing that? It all makes sense to me now. I've been showing her the A team van and theme on u tube, hopefully she won't now think I can jump six police cars at a time in our van!

We have got rid of all our stuff except a plastic set of drawers each. Each of my kids has two drawers of clothes and two of toys. Three pairs of shoes each…

Today I put everything in the van and it does fit, just!!! It's going to be like living in one of my daughter's dolls houses (now given to friends) without being doll sized! However if we can cope with so little space, we gain all the space, if we can cope with owning so little, we can “own” Europe...  We have been getting rid of stuff for weeks then sudden shopping spree; all week I've been getting boxes, they contain things like the extra car battery (now fitted and ready to run all our devices without flattening the main battery), a cool box, a roof bag and a potty. For the first time in my life I have a pot to piss in!

We are really, really, really, nearly ready. If you see me you can say “I know why you are still here!” I think it sounds sinister, perfect for Halloween!!!

The pictures are us “test camping” at a Brit stop; a campervan only free stopover that you can sign up for and get a book of. It's about £35 for the book, which is your membership, then you can park safely and free all over the country in pub car parks, vineyards, Mannie houses… it's a brilliant idea. You can't bring caravans, or tents and you can't set up furniture or awnings, just sleep and perhaps have wifi, fresh water or some facilities.

On our test camping we learned; don't set off when it's already dark and be looking for turn offs to some tiny country manor house in pitch black except for the angry local driver up your bum because he knows all the bends and wants to go fast!! But on the upside the view was a complete morning surprise!

Also a picture of our “Pot to piss in!” and trying to fit everything in! Heaven help me on that!

Little red fish and campervans

I'm creating a drawing a day, just for the art of it.
Today's, yesterday's and the day before.
#drawingadayclub

#createadrawingadayforhumanrights
http://www.youthforhumanrights.org

Campervan and boat

I'm creating a drawing a day, or two years, just for the art of it.
This is yesterday's and the day before.
Some of my drawing has been real works of art, these are just the doodles on my planner, where I'm trying to work out how soon we can leave to go traveling.

#drawingadayclub

#createadrawingadayforhumanrights
http://www.youthforhumanrights.org

Europe in a campervan, "I love it when a plan comes together?...I'm...ish!"

So selling my camper took a turn for the worse. I planned to blog about the whole adventure honestly (while trying to be entertaining) for my friends to enjoy, but I seriously considered leaving this out. I'll leave out the names instead. I usually have a strict policy of not sharing any bad news in the public domain but somehow it seems to me that I should share my complete adventure, ups and downs, and hopefully, over all, you will judge it good news.

We sold "Winter" I walked round her and pointed out all the little old vehicle eccentricities, we had talked already about how she needed her radiator fixed pronto, and that had been taken off the price. We smiled, shook hands, they drove off happy with Winter purring along.

On the way to her new home she overheated and produced smoke. The buyer went ballistic, he wanted his money back now, saying : "it was not his van, he was going to call the police and say there was a van outside the house with no tax and insurance, he was going to take us to court..." You've never seen so many CAPITAL LETTERS and exclamation points in an email!!! It was very upsetting, and I'm a bit pathetic when it comes to being threatened, reading it made my hands shake.

Tim is a bit braver than me, he did the  gentleman's thing and took my phone for a while! They probably don't have a legal leg to stand on as we put all the faults in the listing or told them, but it's hard to know what they would try to prove as they will give no specifics, just a list of faults I showed them and threats. We call ebay and the police, (to find out what happens if they carry that threat out) they both say they are not interested, we sold the van, they took the vehicle, end of story. We discuss blocking the calls and leaving them to cool down and ether fix or re-sell Winter. Tim feels he should help them.

We called the lady who had offered the asking price if I would let psyco-buyer down. (I wish I had not been so high on my integrity.) She still wanted "Winter" yes, she fully understood it needs the radiator fixed and can overheat till its fixed. More could be wrong too, we don't know as the new owners have not taken it to a garage, just left it in the street and attacked us (turns out they left it in their street 100 yards from a garage).

Tim found out where Winter was and met the lady who still wants to buy her there to view it. She had to bring her two pugs and there five puppies, which were too little to leave all day! They dropped Tim home and we all got to see the puppies! :)

Other people from the list of people interested would all still like it. Her new owner calms down and is ok. All the people interested need to know what it will cost to fix her, Tim books her into the nearest garage. He spends a whole day helping them to re-sell Winter.

I now feel so threatened and cowed that I just want to stay home and hide from the world forever, preferably in bed, but I think we would all regret that. Also I keep wondering if I did something to merit all the furious threats, I know she needed fixing and I had a long chat with him on the phone about that, he told me confidently he had the friends and skills to do it. I told him I was no mechanic.

I decide I have to continue as if my heart was in it and wait for my courage to catch up. So Jasmine, my mum and I go for "Sparkle" the very non-sparkeling van which is more right for us because it has four seatbelts and is ready to go. We take five trains to get there and my mum and I take turns to drive her back. My daughter was traveling 12 hours without complaint, bodes well for taking her all over Europe. Sparkles seller is a brilliant chilled out, alternative sort of accountant! Have you ever even thought of a hippy-accountant! You should meet one, they are awesome! He really likes our plan I tell him "If my kids grow up and want to be like everyone else that's fine with me, but I want it to be an informed choice, not just something that happened to them, that's the backbone of my travel plans." 

Sparkle runs just as well as Winter always did for me. But she's not got the above cab bed, so she's much less rocky and wind resist-ish to drive. Oh! And the power! I'm in love with having a 5L engine, hang the petrol costs, it's so nice to have so much, get-out-of-trouble extra there if you want it. Frankly, sitting on the left and driving on right hand side roads sucks!!! I'm going to prefer driving her in Europe for sure. Sparkle has nothing inside but a bed seat and lights, and one 12v socket (that's the cigarette lighter sort) We are going to fit a second battery and an awning. Then we will get all plug in separate things, plug in cool box, plug in kettle... You get the idea. It's going to be more camping-ish, less little-home-on-wheels. We will be able to park and drive her closer in to cities and use her more like a car. We will not have running water, it's a trade off.

The next day Winter's buyer is back to making threats. We are going to have to tell him, "It's your van, you bought it, drove it off and we told the DVLA, we are helping you because we feel sorry for your bad luck, we sold her in good faith, running fine with an oil leak and a radiator leak both in the listing and discussed with you, if you don't stop sending threats we will have to stop helping you find a new buyer."

In the meantime I'm trying not to let all the hate and threats stop me feeling pleased with Sparkle (I'm going to have to put something that sparkles on it to make sense out of my daughter's name for it).

Hopefully these people will calm down if they get a new offer for Winter once we know what she will cost to fix.

I'm so wishing I'd said yes when I was offered the asking price and pick it up today, if only I'd known how vindictive the person I was keeping my promise to would turn out to be.

I had planned to say "I love it when a plan comes together" because Sparkle is the van used in the new A Team movie but it's not really where I'm at right now. I am pleased with my classic American campervan.

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.