Explore europe in a campervan

Overdue for an update so I’ll try to briefly catch up 6 months in a few paragraphs…

When I asked my sister very nicely if she and her family would mind us occupying a space in their back garden when we returned from the Alps I did NOT expect to be here for 6 months.  Living here has been great - the van is hooked up and we can get wifi in the garden - and I don’t think having live-in babysitters has gone amiss for my sister and brother-in-law either!  Although the summer seems like a long time ago now it was lovely to have a big cottage garden at our disposal in the warm weather and we managed some sunbathing and a bit of swingball too!

On our first weekend back in the UK I got on the train to London for my friend Sarah’s hen weekend.  Then, a couple of weeks later was Sarah and Dave’s wedding in a lovely hotel in Winchester.  It was a great, really happy day with cupcakes, chips and bacon butties as well as the more regular wedding food.  And we did stay in luxury in the hotel rather than the Winchester park and ride car park!  We also had a day out for Simon’s 30th birthday, when we were treated to a fantastic lunch at the Moathouse in Acton Trussell.

Simon’s daughter Shannon visited for a week in the summer holidays, when we took trips to Bournemouth, Swanage and London - all by van of course.  Shannon’s a seasoned campervan traveller now having been on trips to Spain, the Midlands and now Dorset too.  The only place she hasn’t stayed with us is when we park for the night on a road somewhere - the slim possibility of being moved on by the police is a bit tough for a 10 year old.

We feared we wouldn’t be able to get out and about much during the summer as we lived on a rather moderate income, but the answer seemed to come in the form of an advert on Gumtree for techie/music people to work on an internet cafe at festivals.  Was this job MADE for us?!  After a trial run  at BeachBreak Live student festival in Kent we agreed to look after the business, along with a third person, Rachael.  We were booked up for around 8 festivals throughout the summer and working hard on finding more that we book.

The perfect job turned out to be less than perfect.  Over the next two festivals we had to deal with the big marquee almost blowing away, drunk and deserting volunteer workers, running out of stock, pitches being cancelled and changed, a big heavy trailer that didn’t want to go anywhere muddy and very long hours - which would have been fine, but we weren’t having any fun at all despite being at music festivals.  The final nail in the coffin came when we were expected to take on the driving of the trailer to each festival.  From a job that fitted in with our van-based lifestyle it was becoming a more-than full-time commitment where we couldn’t even head straight off to visit our far-flung family after a 5-day weekend of work.  We felt we couldn’t continue and fulfill our family commitments and keep our sanity so our festival-work ended after a hectic weekend at Camp Bestival in Lulworth - we didn’t even get to listen to Goldie Lookin’ Chain!

But there was to be one more festival for us which was a lot more enjoyable.   Simon won free tickets to Leeds Festival in August.  Leeds?!! I thought - that’s not very local!  However, my Dad was returning home after a stay in hospital so it worked out perfectly that we drove straight down to Sheffield after the festival to help him out for a few days - a BIG advantage of being van-dwellers as we sleep in a nearby car park.  The festival was particularly enjoyable with no work to do and not having paid hundred of pounds for tickets.  But I can’t leave it without mentioning that, in general, the crowd seemed to be there for riot and mischief more than enjoying the bands.  We had a great time anyway - played lots of Guitar Hero!

Now winter is closing in and the sunny garden is a bit soggy.  We spend most days working in luxury in the house - working on what?  I’ll come to that in my next post which will be sooner than 6 months!  And we’re making (loose) plans….

This entry was posted on Friday, November 13th, 2009 at 11:10 am and is filed under Diary, Money making, Campervan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.