Category Archives: England

England, The Big Trip - Getting Ready

And we’re finally on the road

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Gorgeous photo album from Ciara and the holy grail – our MOT cert

The van has passed her MOT! She went in this morning at 8.30 am. Stuart paced the corridor outside, chain smoking furiously, beads of sweat glistening on his furrowed brow as he waited for news..eh, no he didn’t. I just made that up.

He was as calm as any man would be when you’ve already replaced virtually every part of the van and the pre-MOT check two weeks ago carried out by our nice local garage (hello M&D Motors) revealed nothing more sinister than a teeny hole in the floor and leaky drive shaft seals – all easily fixable.

And so we have started our journey and are now staying the night on a pretty soulless campsite 20 minutes from Portsmouth. The last few days have been hectic –  seeing family and friends, some seriously enthusiastic partying on Saturday which meant a slower than required pace on Sunday, leading to an even more manic Monday of house clearing and packing.

 

Thanks Susan and Steve Watson for the brilliant mugs xx
Thank you Susan and Steve Watson for our brilliant pink and blue mugs xx

But by 11 am this morning, we were pulling out of our road after one final check that Stuart hadn’t substituted his passport for a bag of apples. And yes that did happen to us a few years back – he unaccountably swapped the bag holding all our passports for  6 Braeburns. This resulted in a tense wait at Gatwick at 4 am while he did the eye wateringly expensive round trip taxi journey home to retrieve them.

But no such drama today. It will be a quiet night in, with good memories of the fond farewells with our much loved family and friends and much to look forward to – all starting tomorrow.

Very apt quote - thanks Karen Venn!
Very apt quote – thanks Karen Venn!
England, The Big Trip - Getting Ready

The capsule wardrobe challenge is looming

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I’ve never quite managed the art of the ‘capsule’ holiday wardrobe – you know the sort of packing advice you get in women’s mags where you are assured that with a few carefully co-ordinated pieces you can glide from beach to poolside cocktail party with one artful twist of a sarong and an accent colour cardi. But the big trip is getting closer and the challenge involved in packing enough clothes for a year on the road with no space is clear. So how do I get this….
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..into this?
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With all the other stuff we’ve got to carry inside the van, it is looking like my clothes storage is going to consist of one and possibly half of another of these plastic boxes. That ain’t much. Apparently the secret is to squash everything into these Tardis-like Eagle Creek zip up holders. We’ll see.