The Camper Van Life

During the week I have been living the camper van life.

It is not glamorous in any way.  Here would be my typical weekly activities

Sunday - Check oil, water level and tyre pressures on van.  Leave at midday and travel up the motorways for between five and eight hours to a campsite near Huddersfield.  Stop along the way for food and any other requirements.  Check in at campsite.  Spend sixty minutes hiking the Pennines.  Read a book or listen to the radio, then go to bed.

Monday-Thursday.  Wake up at 6.00.  Make a coffee.  Run to wash house for shower and shave.  Have breakfast (usually only a piece of fruit since I am on a diet).  Drive to work location.  Work nine hours.  Drive back to the camp site.  Go for a 60 minute hike, whether it is raining or not.  Go to the onsite restaurant and order soup and a glass of orange juice.  Return to camper van.  Read for a while.  Microwave my evening meal.  Listen to the radio or surf the internet.  Go to bed.

Friday.  I finish work at midday since I do an extra hour or two at work from Monday to Thursday.  This allows me to miss most of the frenetic traffic.  Arrive home to my caravan six hours or so later.  I am normally pretty tired at this point.  I order or cook a meal and go to sleep.

Saturday.  Pick children up from their Mother.  Try and entertain them while getting ready for repeating the regime in the next week.

It is not exciting at all, but the weeks fly by rather quickly.  This new contract was only to last ten days but it keeps getting extended.  Ten days at a time.  It is looking as if the next ten days will be the last - which has worked out ideal because I had reserved three weeks at this time to holiday with the kids.  We are not sure, yet, where we will be going - but it looks like Italy will win the vote.  The hassle for me is getting my new passport.  I have to sign for it and this is all a bit complicated, but hopefully this will be sorted next week.

There is a steep hill/small mountain behind the campsite.  When the weather is clear and the winds light but not dull, the para-gliders will carry their silk and string chutes up the hill.  I will enjoy spending some time watching them indulge in this graceful, if dangerous, sport of theirs.  I too am a friend of the heavens, having learnt many years ago how to fly a little cessna.  But to trust my life to silk and string!!! No thanks.  But each to their own.

To buy a twenty three year old van and expect it to do over six hundred miles a week would seem a bit crazy.  But I am getting away with it.  No break downs yet.  But then again, its engine, the Pinto - which happens to be Ford's first engine designed to metric measurment, has a reputation for great reliability.  For me it has been quite an investment.  Being self employed and nomadic means I have to pay for my own boarding wherever I stay.  And ofcourse hiring a camping pitch is a tenth the cost of hiring a hotel room for the week.  

Nothing exciting - just the usual nomadic sort of life.

Peace.