One word? When seven would do…

Yesterday we walked along the canal path to Tesco for two days food supplies. It’s a good hours walk at a fairly good pace so I reckon it must be about 5 miles there and back. We took some self timers today and one of them was dreadfully unflattering catching me at my worst angle I reckon – I look pregnant with several chins.

I’m putting it here as I am very hopeful this year will have an added side bonus of fulfilling the two rules of weight loss; eat less and move around more. Certainly this week I’ve been doing lots of both!

I prefer this one 🙂
” alt=”” />
(fleece undone – I was wearing three layers – and child positioned infront of me 😉 )

We got stuff for dinner last night (we all had pasta – Davies with secret butter (he likes to not be able to see evidence of the butter on it so calls it secret butter although he does obviously know it is on there), Scarlett with pesto and pinenuts, Ady and I with beef bolognaise and all with garlic bread), breakfast today and dinner tonight and then walked home again. There are two routes home, when the path splits – one is along the canal path the rest of the way; longer and with a couple of very muddy and slippy bits, the other by road; shorter but involves walking along with no pavement. I was worried about slipping as my ankle has been slightly protesting at all the walking and I *really* don’t want to put myself out of action before we even begin the year properly, so Davies and I took the road path while Ady and Scarlett took the canal path. We beat them back by about 15 minutes which was enough time to get some scones in the oven and the washing up done so we could all have cream tea with scones, jam (home made, brought from home) and local clotted cream. Very delicious 🙂

We watched Christian, the lion at Worlds End that we’d picked up in a charity shop earlier in the week. Funnily enough I’d tried to get it before when we watched Born Free last year and failed to find a copy so was really pleased to pick it up for a couple of quid. It was a good watch, brought up lots of discussion.

Dinner was nice, eaten all together, we’re doing lots of that and it’s enjoyable. A late night with all of us going to sleep around the same time although the kids had been in their bunk for about an hour before we actually turned the lights out and got into our sleeping bags.

Today was a very late start – I think it was nearly 10am before we actually all got properly out of bed. The kids have taken to coming onto our bed area for cuddles and chats which is lovely. Ady did some van checking and bought a new gas bottle for our spare as they sell them at this campsite while I cooked breakfast for us and then the kids did the washing and drying up under Ady’s supervision.

We then went out for a final walk, there has been a path we have not taken yet as we were always on our way to Tescos so we went that way today and it leads to a section of the River Teign. It was gorgeous, really fast flowing with steep banks and plenty to look at. We must have met about 50 people walking dogs which almost had me feeling we were missing a furry companion of our own. I can see us ending up getting a dog at the end of this year but always knew that was a strong possibility.

We walked for about 90 minutes at a fairly leisurely pace, talking, stopping to look at the river and enjoying the sunshine. At the very end of the walk as we had slowed down to fall in step behind a herd of young bulls who were all moving towards one corner of the field and then had stopped completely to watch a flock of crows all coming in to roost for the night at the top of a tall elm tree when I suddenly caught a glimpse of something on the opposite river bank and realised it was an otter. We stood and watched as it went down the riverbank into the water, swam for a while, then clambered back out and up and down the riverbank again, back in the water, back out and finally back in again. It was very magical, walking alongside it on the other side of the river and we were all so taken in by the moment that it was a while before we even thought to take a camera out and try and capture it, so the couple of pictures we have are of very poor, ‘you’ll just have to believe us that brown thing is an otter, honestly’ quality, but better to have watched with eyes rather than through a camera lens anyway I reckon.

Davies asked if we could ring Granny and Grandad to tell them, so he did that and we all talked to them. We’d had a long phonecall with them last night but it was nice to feel we were sharing the moment with them. The only time I have felt teary at all this week was a brief moment on Friday when Davies said to me ‘you sound just like Grandad’ when I said something silly and I was hit with a wave of missing him :(, getting teary again thinking of it so need to change the subject…. ahem.

Back at the van Ady got cracking at dinner, an attempt at a campervan roast. It was lovely, but took ages – I suspect dinners that require 2 hours of oven use are not really that practical but we do love our Sunday roast so it was nice to have a last one before we start living with other people for many Sundays to come.

We’re all feeling quite mixed emotions today, nervous about sleeping in a tent for two weeks, meeting a whole load of new people tomorrow, what will actually be expected of us and it being our first hosting too, but very excited and ready to be active, busy, useful and properly get going. It’s been a long time in the planning and tomorrow it really, properly starts. 🙂

We’ve done lots of walking these last two days. Walking seems to be the new driving and in the same way we often had our most interesting questions from the kids and general conversations while driving we are doing plenty of talking too.

The walking is a mix of death defying walks along roads with no pavements – single file all the way with Ady and the front and me at the back on the basis cars will swing right out to get round me 😉 and a gorgeous path which runs with a railtrack on one side and a canal on the other. Yesterday we did start Willow up (I get nervous about leaving her sitting unstarted for more than a couple of days) and drove a couple of miles to a nearby Co Op to stock up on food for a couple of days. Getting our heads round the fact we have a fridge and an oven, hob and grill for storing and cooking food and so can graduate from our usual camping fayre while still being limited by the smaller space, less utensils and more cramped prep area than at home in a kitchen is meaning we need to meal plan. Ady has been cooking so far so I offered to cook for us and made tortillas and tacos which is one of our favourite meals at home. We’d decided to buy burgers from the campsite (it’s a beef cattle farm) for dinner tonight and eggs (they also have a large flock of hens) for breakfast so got the rest of the bits we needed for those meals.

We came back to the campsite – Willow was running fine – and then headed off again on a walk. The campsite owner had told us a walkable route into Newton Abbot so we did that to post a couple of letters I’d been carrying around for days and failed to post, and checked out the Tescos for reduced to clear bargains so walked back to the campsite eating cheap fruit and Scarlett had a large portion of sushi as a starter for her dinner. We got back and I decided to tackle the pile of dirty washing so took the kindle and a supply of change and went and sat in the laundry room while Ady sorted the kids tea. It took way longer than expected as they were just domestic machines and I had two loads which then took bloody ages to dry. I did hang towels over the radiators in the toilets and we left Ady’s sweatshirt on one overnight. Felt quite cross with how much money I spent compared to the industrial dryer at the previous campsite which had everything dry in one go.

Davies rang to say he was missing me so then I popped back to Willow inbetween feeding the tumble drier. We watched Flushed Away on the laptop and the kids went to bed when the washing was finally dry, then I finished Ady and my dinner. We had quite a late night (by campervan standards 😉 )- and set the bed up about midnight.

Today was a slower start, listening to the radio and all cuddled up together on our bed before packing everything up and setting the table and chairs up. We waited ages for the little office on site to open so we could buy eggs and burgers, finally ringing and getting the farmer to come to us, which he did, hanging out at Willow for about half an hour hearing all about our WWOOFing adventure. He veered between being very ‘seize the day’ and very ‘but not for me’ :).

I cooked a lovely brunch of sausage, bacon, eggs and toast which filled us all up enough to keep us going on another long walk. We’d found some wild garlic yesterday and today we found all sorts of fungi but were not able to id any of it. We came up with a list of things we *really* must bring with us on walks including our Food for Free book. We saw a poster showing various wild life living along the path which included otters and herons. Scarlett and I looked out for otter signs, I’ve just finished reading Phillipa Forrester’s book ‘The River’ which talks lots about otter spotting so was able to tell Scarlett about spraints and other signs (thanks Kirsty, enjoyed that read 🙂 ) but didn’t see any. We did spot a heron though which almost made up for the lack of otters.

We had a sit down and chat midway along the walk at a pretty point with a handy stone for sitting on and just talked about what wobbles we were having and how we were all feeling. I’m so proud of Davies and Scarlett and how they are dealing with everything, helping each other through tricky moments, being articulate about what they are struggling with, enjoying, dreading, excited about. We got to talking about retrospective perspective and how I kept comprehensive diaries as a teenager and now look back at them and see how I did get over that love I swore I never would recover from, those worries that kept me awake and night and had me crying into my pillow never came to anything. Everyone is really benefitting from having three other people living the same experiences on hand to talk stuff through with and the kids are both citing having Ady around all the time as a great thing.

Back at the campsite we had tea and biscuits and sat chatting and catching up with screens before dinner. Dinner is later than planned thanks to the gas bottle running out mid-cooking but we’re about to set up a film and all eat together tonight.

We had showers this morning and a fairly lazy start to the day. It was freezing cold and the van was cosy so no one felt particularly inclined to leave it. But we had things to do and didn’t want to just let the day drift by too much. So we listened to Popmaster and I paid for the campsite for the week and got directions to the nearest bus stop as Ady had said he didn’t want to drive into a town he didn’t know and struggle to find parking etc. Plus we want to get used to walking / planning journeys and ensuring we are being as frugal with our travelling as possible.

We seem to be fairly inbetween Newton Abbot and Bovey Tracy so we decided to go for Newton Abbot. Layla did warn us it was ‘shit’ and maybe we should have listened – certainly the kids hanging around the bus stop didn’t do a great PR job for the town :(. We set off walking and after about 2 miles hit a bus stop so waited. It was only about 10 minutes before a bus arrived so we asked for the town centre and jumped on. I always want to use public transport but bus travel is just so pricey (nearly a tenner for the four of us return) and it seems to be some sort of quest worthy of unlocking the secrets of the pyramids to get information about times and places to catch one back again. I guess for one or two of us it is probably the same price as parking and petrol in the van but for all four of us it just costs too much.

Even more annoying was that having no idea how far from the town we were it was only another mile or two before we were there, so entirely walkable, although it was scary, no pavement roads so for safety’s sake it was probably better to be on the bus. We did enjoy the walk though, swapping to walk in different combinations along the way. I really enjoyed a chat with Scarlett about bodies, weight, plastic surgery and appearance linked to happiness and feelings of self worth. Interesting to hear her take on stuff, what she has heard and picked up from other kids and, I guess, the media too.

Newton Abbot is charity-shop-tastic, there must be about 15 charity shops there so we had a very enjoyable time walking round those and picked up a couple of dvds including some of the ones you get free with newspapers and charity shops just ask for a few pence donation for. I needed to go to the post office to send an ebay package that I’ve been carting around with me as it was paid for after we left the house and we needed some bits for dinner tonight. We have still not quite perfected food in the van but have been talking about ideas for meals this evening so will hopefully improve from now on. We have discovered that the kids like pepperoni on their pizzas though so that was dinner tonight for everyone.

We were all starving by about 2pm and having promised fast food junk at some point this week we decided today was the day and headed to the nearby KFC. We all enjoyed it 😳 and it triggered a really interesting conversation about what is bad about it; health implications, non-ethical food (battery chickens, probably cheap and non-fair trade other stuff), massive amounts of packaging and what we could do to offset the occassional lapse. We came up with our walking and using the bus rather than the car and using charity shops for the few bits we’d been wanting rather than buying them new. We did talk about the fact we’d still been in a town, buying at all too. For me this year is about consuming less and having a bigger conscience about stuff but it is not an endurance test and I have no desire (yet!) to opt out of society generally and live totally without comforts or treats. It will be interesting to see how what we learn, people we meet and experiences we have change us over the course of the year.

We also picked up various things to help with travel sickness – aromatherapy roll-on stuff for pulse points, those pressure bands for wrists and the more conventional pills. Hoping to find something that works even if it is all snake oil ;).

We then waited ages for a return bus, asking two different drivers on other busses for information and gaining none, the information office was closed so we decided to wait for the same number bus as we’d come in on and do a circuitous route if needs be. As it happened it did the same route in reverse and the driver was lovely and let us off closer to the campsite than we’d got on so less walking on scary pavement-less roads, although the walking was mostly now uphill and carrying shopping so certainly still good exercise.

Back at the van we had tea / coffee / biscuits, I went off to do the washing up from earlier and Ady cooked the kids some tea which they ate watching a dvd then we went for a star gazing wander in the field next to the campsite. A really clear (if cold) night and loads of stars were out twinkling at us and making us all wish we knew more about astromony. We do have a ‘night sky’ book so if tomorrow is a clear night we’ll go out again and try and identify some of the constellations. We did spot Orion’s belt and the plough but that ended our knowledge, and there was no moon.

Back at Willow the kids watched the end of their dvd and ate loads of apples as they claimed to still be hungry. We had a loose wire or tripped switch on the lights but Ady sorted it and was most proud of himself :).

We did Bad, Good, Learnt and the kids finally went up to their bunk.

Davies
Bad – it was a bugger to get to KFC – he seems to be experimenting with bad language. Sadly we are far too slack to stop him and instead find it very amusing 😆 We tramped back and forth on the street it was on having asked for directions from two different people and got conflicting advice (bit like the busses!)
Good – Lots of time with Daddy today, really enjoyed chatting to him while out walking
Learnt – how to identify a squirrels drey

Scarlett
Bad – Felt sick on the bus
Good – feeling better generally (not been sick yesterday or today)
Learnt – about plastic surgery

Ady
Bad – we still bought stuff today
Good – Time with the kids
Learnt – public transport is pretty rubbish!

Nic
Bad – it is cold! I’m super twitchy about our planned two weeks in a tent from Monday onwards
Good – settling in to our new life, it already is starting to feel like real life rather than a holiday
Learnt – a fact about how tiny squirrel poo is from Tarly.

let me see how much I can remember:

Thursday we had a really nice evening with Caz and Bid. Davies and Scarlett slept in the house while Ady and I slept in the van.

Friday Ady, Bid and Scarlett took the dogs for a long walk in the morning and spent time looking at nesting herons and deer, which pretty much made her morning :). I hung out with Caz chatting, drinking tea and donating the bantam eggs we’d brought along with us to the cake Caz was cooking. We had a bit of a taste of WWOOFing by helping out at Caz & Bid’s Friday volunteer day. The jobs for the day included moving a load of mypex (black plastic sheeting used for weed suppressing / warming the ground) from one area to another. It was heavy, smelly (had been covering ground and had stagnant water sitting on top in puddles) and had been weighed down with various things including metal guttering, a polytunnel frame and lumps of hardcore. So we moved stuff off, rolled the stinky mypex up and then carried it across to it’s new location, then carried all the weighing it down stuff over and weighed it down in it’s new location. We broke for lunch (home made soup, selection of home made cakes) and then I spent some time really sorting the van out getting belongings tidied into various cupboards and cubby holes. Ady and I walked into town to buy various things for dinner and some work gloves and I had a phonecall from the letting agent to say the tenants were not going in as planned. 🙁

I did some paperwork, made some phonecalls and booked a mid-point campsite for Sunday night and we helped cart pallets about to construct a pig ark for the pigs they have arriving in the next couple of weeks. Harry had a look over the van with us and combined with the help James gave us identifying what is under the bonnet we now feel comfortable we are able to do weekly maintenance checks on oil, water and various other fluids. Then we had a really nice evening communally cooking curry, rice, breads, potatoes and drinking beer and wine with Bid and Harry (who also lives on site). The kids slept back in the van with us again.

Saturday We waved goodbye to everyone and had a comedy moment when everyone cheered when Willow started and no one realised my car (which was infront) hadn’t started and was refusing to do so. It did eventually so we got a second cheer and headed off in convoy to say a final farewell to Julie & co. Then Ady and the kids took Willow to my parents while I drove to meet my Dad at the garage where my car is being stored for the year. Comedy moments a-go-go when I managed to reverse it in but couldn’t actually get out of the car myself. I tried ducking under the wing mirror but realised I was likely to get wedged there so struggled round behind the car and down the passenger side. I considered clambering on the roof and rolling down the bonnet but Dad was already laughing at me.

Back home Ady and I nipped to the supermarket to pick up some stuff for lunch and came back to spend the afternoon with Dad and Frazer. I realised I’d forgotten to grab the car tax out of my car so Dad said he’d call over and get it in the morning. Mum came home and we went out for fish and chips and had a nice evening with them. The kids slept in the house again and Ady and I went out to the van.

Sunday morning we’d realised we’d also forgotten the tent from the car but had been too late to catch Dad before he left to go over to the car so Mum and I went over to get it and I repositioned the car a bit better in the garage so it was just a slightly tight gap to squeeze out. Hopefully it won’t even be that by the time we come home and I’ll just slip down the side of the car ;).

Back to Mum & Dad’s for lunch with Frazer and Granny who had also come up to say goodbye. It felt quite hard finally saying goodbye and Mum cried. I didn’t make eye contact with Dad but suspect he was also a little misty-eyed. I know I was. It did feel good to be driving away at last though, it has been far too prolonged a goodbye in many ways and I know I was really ready to get going. I enjoyed staying with Chris & Julie and Caz & Bid but I was just keen to actually get started with being on the road and starting the adventure properly.

The drive along to Dorset was lovely, waving at all the other campervans along the way (it’s a bit like the early days of motoring when people with same make of vehicle waved to each other) and there were plenty of them it being the end of half term. We passed the New Forest at sunset which was just gorgeous. Scarlett was feeling a bit car sick so she swapped places with me and sat in the front and was pony spotting against a gorgeous orange and pink streaked sky.

We found the campsite at the end of a rather hole-ridden track and got a warm welcome from the campsite owner and his collection of ducks and hens. He had told me when I rang that the showers were not working so he would not charge me for the kids staying and he then told us there was no running water either but the toilet cisterns had been filled up so would flush and he could fill any container we wanted with water, so he’d just charge us a tenner for the night (pretty good considering we had hook up).

It was already dark so we snuggled into the van and had some food. Unfortunately Scarlett’s earlier travel sickness hadn’t quite gone away so within minutes of eating she was being sick into the portapotty 🙁 She seemed fine afterwards and they snuggled up in their bunk while I read a couple of chapters of How To Train Your Dragon. The Mifi wasn’t getting a signal so I made use of the wonderful kindle instead and we all had an early night.

Monday morning was just lovely. Even after years of not working on Mondays and the kids never having gone to school it is still a Monday morning that I feel the most free and of course now we really are free with Ady there too. We all sat eating breakfast looking out the window at a buzzard giving us a spectacular fly-by display over the camping field. It was one of those perfect moments, sitting in our van, drinking tea and all laughing and wow-ing together. Hopefully the first of many :).

We’d decided to split the journey again – Willow sits comfortably at about 50mph and we reckon 90 minutes is about right for an installment of journey with a good half hour rest time between installments. It is one of the first lessons we have learnt – slow and steady and enjoy the view rather than speedy and whizzy and look at the blur! I calculated that would mean our 90 minutes in stop would be at ‘our’ Morrisons in Bridport. We got there, bought lunch provisions and ate in the van before filling up with fuel and heading off. The campsite I booked weeks ago and found on Cool Camping, I’d spoken to the owner on the phone and it all sounded fine, he’d mentioned a couple of places he could site us. Again it was down country lanes and a slightly hairy drive but we pulled up and were warmly welcomed. He took Ady and I on foot to show us the two choices of pitch – one in their garden next to a swing and the other lower down next to a stream. Both utterly beautiful but both very muddy and very tight to navigate in to. I fell over while walking through the garden as it was pretty muddy so was already covered in mud. We had a very tense 15 minutes trying to get into the first space which involved reversing down a very tight lane on a curve, holding up several cars. The owner was trying to direct us which mostly seemed to involve shouting ‘whoa, whoa’ at us and failing to understand we don’t have power steering or the ability to rev the engine much, while poor Willow got hotter and hotter and more splattered with mud, the kids were getting battered by things flying around the van and it was all very stressy. Eventually we decided it wouldn’t work and then had to try and get back out of the gap we’d slid into. We let the cars go past and then had a brief attempt at getting in the second space but quickly realised that was going to be equally unsuitable and so with regret on both parts we said goodbye to the owner and coaxed poor, protesting Willow back up and down scary hills. It was nearly 4pm, Willow was really not happy and we had nowhere to sleep even if we could get there. We found a layby and put the kettle on which seemed to be the most sensible thing to do under the circumstances. I got the Camping and Caravanning Club book out and started looking for sites nearby open all year. I found one about 10 miles away but got no reply, then another also about 10 miles away and got a reply and was told we could camp if we could be there by 5pm. Scarlett was in the loo feeling sick again so she stayed there for the drive, I drank my tea as we went along and with fingers firmly crossed and prayers to god of campervans and crazy adventures we got Willow started, plugged the post code into the satnav and headed off to the campsite, arriving just in time.

It was expensive, poncy and with no view at all other than other campervans and statics BUT it had showers, hook up, water and a laundry room :). Scarlett was indeed sick again 🙁 but perked up afterwards. Ady and I had showers and then he headed back to the van and set up a laptop to watch a dvd with the kids while I took the huge bag of dirty washing and the kindle and sat in the laundry room for a washing machine and two tumble dryer cycles emerging with a nice big pile of clean dry washing and a far more chilled out attitude thanks to the warm dry laundry room and the comfort of losing myself in a book. The only blip was the light in the room was motion activated and went off every four minutes (yes, I timed it) so I had to get up and wave my arms around every four minutes doing the security light motion trigger dance. Fortunately that amused rather than annoyed me 😆

Back at the van all was calm and I was able to blog and check emails etc. The kids snuggled in their bunk and watched the end of their film from up there, then we snuggled up too. Ady had a bad nights sleep reliving some of the stress of the day but we’re doing plenty of talking through the challenging stuff and he is trying really hard to let go of stress after the event and learning to live in the moment. Worrying about the future I can understand, fretting about things that have already happened, particularly if nothing actually went wrong is something I rather struggle to empathise with!

Today I’d found another campsite online last night and booked us in. It is cheaper at £16 a night with hook up and although it still has not much in the way of a view and we can see lots of caravans parked up on out of season storage (a bit like a caravan graveyard) but it is a farm with loads of chickens and a huge herd of cattle who we can hear mooing so it is far more our sort of place.

We did have a wobble this morning when we checked under the van and found a huge puddle under the radiator with a constant drip still feeding it. Ady and the kids walked to a nearby garage to see if they sold radweld (they didn’t) but bought consolatory chocolate instead :). We found a postcode for the nearest Halfords, put water in the rad and headed off. Willow took a bit of starting but got there and has been fine with the temp gauge staying in the safe zone.

The kids stayed in the van while Ady and I got radweld from Halfords and lunch from the big Tesco next door and we ate in the van. The water had totally stopped dripping and all seemed well with Willow. We arrived at the new campsite and have spent the afternoon mostly in the van as it is *freezing* cold. I’ve been catching up online, reorganised the cupboards and just enjoyed sitting and chatting. Ady has been cannoning off the narrow walls trying to find things to tidy and the kids have been DSing / PSPing. Tomorrow we’re planning some walking and exploring very nearby stuff, we are just down the road from House of Marbles so may have to do a visit there sometime this week.

The very best news of the day though is that the tenants have finally moved in – what a bloody relief! No need to worry now until they are due to pay next months rent I guess!

Finally, in honour of getting to my blog and brought to you from our confined space in the van we did a quick bad, good, learnt since we left the house (blimey that feels both 100 years ago and just yesterday):
Ady:
Bad: Trying to get into Sweet Meadows camping pitch
Good: We are getting through the challenges, feels like fortune is on our side.
Learnt: how to start Willow 🙂

Davies:
Bad: Scarlett has been sick a couple of times
Good: Still enjoying it, lots of laughter and lots of exciting stuff.
Learnt most of the ingredients for a pizza are grown from crops.

Scarlett:
Bad: been ill a couple of times
Good: loved seeing herons, deer and buzzards
Learnt: the legend of Lady Godiva (reading a childrens road atlas of the UK with lots of pictures of things in various places and Lady Godiva is in Coventry so we did a proper google and found out about her.

Nic:
Bad: transition phase means everyone is wobbling which is hard to witness, particularly as I feel mostly responsible
Good: Loving the family time, the laughs and camaraderie of shared experiences, highs and lows and feeling like we’re really, really living
Learnt: bloody loads! Mostly about campervan living, handy tips for being all bijou and compact and that.