The Countdown Begins

As of today we have 35 days until our wedding day - eek! So the past week has been a hive of activity trying to get things finished in time as we need her ready for the honeymoon where we shall be journeying along the west coast of Scotland hopefully right up the the top coast if we have the time. There's nothing quite like a deadline to get jobs done!

Ryan got some help from his Dad and got the rear leaf springs replaced as they were very tired and done some welding to the underneath. He's also began getting to work on the extensive rust on the cab, before and after pictures to follow...

Ryan is also in charge of our gas system which needs re-routing from the gas bottle in the rear locker to a new LPG tank under the body, and the wiring and electrics. He's put the batteries in to their final resting place under the sofa and is sorting out the charging systems so while the sofa's in pieces I'm getting it painted as it was looking very tatty. He's made a switch panel too which is positioned on the wall between the living area and kitchen for the lights & heating etc so that we can reach it from either side for convenience.

I finally got a nice piece of carpet fitted in the cab as for far too long the cab has been still housing the filthy grim grey-black carpet tiles so I tore them out with pleasure! Ryan's parents had an off-cut of a tough beige and brown carpet spare which was perfect.

If you've ever fitted carpet before in a car you'll know that's bad, but Waki was typically far more trouble due to the huge foot wells and contoured arches. The process took quite a long time involving me laying on my belly down the slope between the two seats struggling with my arms outstretched, bashing my head on the seats and dash many times and getting in a tangle with the pedals but I got there in the end! As with previous experience though using spray adhesive in such a small space will always put me in a happier place ;) Don't worry I did have the doors open, but it's still strong!

My next job is to tidy up and fit the old cover strips and also a new length to bridge the carpet-to-laminate join to the living area. I'm also in charge of fitting the cupboards and doors, modifying cupboards, painting (of course!), making panels and boxes, cleaning the old laminate section of floor from ground-in paint and any other fiddly things I can find that need attention.

Another bit of women's work for me is to edge the rug to stop it fraying from where I cut it down to size to fit in the living area. I'm using some recycled wool from an old cardigan of mine which has untwisted enough to be like sewing with multiple strands, and so far it seems to be working really well but it just takes a lot of force to pull the needle through so I'm having to do a little bit each day to avoid blisters. I guess my fingers will toughen up soon enough and I've found a piece of rubber grip mat to use as a thimble which helps a little. It also works out that the off cuts will make perfect mats for the step and should help absorb a lot of water and dirt before we get to the walkway, as it's quite annoying in wet weather to be at home with our shoes off and tread in a wet patch on our way to the kitchen or loo! I love being able to get a use for something instead of throwing it out and we save money too!

At this point I'm really not sure if I'll have time to do lots of Blog updates on our progress as we go, or whether it will have to be after the wedding but I'll try!

Beautiful Bathroom

Who says that you can't have a little luxury in a 1m square bathroom? I've been longing to have the bathroom finished and properly working and I got to use the shower for the first time on Saturday night - this girl knows how to party huh?

We had ripped the old shower tray out after a failed attempt at repairing it, and decided to make a new one from scratch. In a way it was best that we did as it worked out that the floor was more rotten than we had previously thought in there, so now it has a nice new and much more stable plywood floor.

Ryan done a fantastic job tiling it all using some mosaic sheets, and even included a swish little strip of tiles behind the toilet to finish it off :)

We have a little cream bathroom mat which is normally left in the shower tray to keep our feet warm and dry when we're not using the shower, and when we are it's simply popped outside the door so that we can step out onto something drying when we're done.

There was a bit of a gap left next to the toilet which needed to be covered with plastic sheeting, and not wanting to waste any precious storage space I discovered it was just about big enough to fit a toilet roll into! Ryan devised a platform inside and a little door on the front so we can get into it when we need to, it turns out that we can store perfectly 9 loo rolls in there - how lucky was that?!

My birthday present mirror is now in place on the wall and beams some colour into the room, along with the bamboo pattern shower curtain. As it was a full size curtain I had to cut it down to size and re-hem it but with plenty of fabric left I also made a small curtain for the window for some extra privacy. The bathroom window is very well frosted but I still wanted something else there just in case - we don't want to get into trouble for public indecency when we're on the road!

To top it all off we now also have a neat little corner sink in place, a wire rack to hold our shampoos etc, a shiny new shower set and beautiful mixer taps to run it all (big thanks to my Step-Dad Richard for gifting us those!). Ah luxury!

Paintwork

We had the good fortune of a few days of sunshine late in March and April so Ryan got to work on Waki's paintwork. She was literally peppered with holes and we have been gradually filling and protecting areas with duct tape which had left her looking very shabby indeed. So Ryan bought a compressor and smoothed the fillered areas down and applied several layers of white metal paint with a roller. He also managed to get another coat of paint on the roof so that's finally got a good weather seal on it.

This is really a base coat to protect the body and there is still much more smoothing work and dent removal to be done. The immediate result though was fantastic! No more grubby beige and brown flakiness but an expanse of clean fresh white!

We plan to use a nice white car paint for the final finish, and Ryan's already very handy with a spray gun what with his previous experience painting cars and aeroplanes :) We both agree that she needs some sort of coloured stripes or a design down the sides to break up the white a bit, but we can't yet agree on what yet...

Icicles!

This Winter really doesn't want to go, and so Waki has been adorned in an array of quite spectacular icicles again. The door was also frozen shut at the bottom the other morning and required a bit of a kick to get out, which proves that we still have some work to do regarding the rubber seal!

It's hard to believe just how well the insulation works though for a mere 25mm of foam + 4mm of foil/foam sandwich (and I'm very glad of it too!) considering that I sleep literally inches away from those icicles! :D

We bought a set of Milenco insulated covers for the cab windows and the windscreen before Winter really kicked in. Before these we'd just been using the previous owners' windscreen cover, which seemed to be sized for a tiny car, and some foam offcuts stuck up to the side windows with masking tape! The Milenco ones really are fantastic, they're a universal fit type but are at least actually designed for motorhomes/vans so do cover all of the glass and even overlap slightly, but we noticed a temperature difference immediately. They have the usual bubble wrap and foil combination but with a few extra layers of metal mesh and a smart fabric backing and come with suckers to hold them up. Hopefully they'll help us out in Summer too in keeping the interior cool, perhaps sunshine is wishful thinking though...

The cab in currently blocked off from the living area by a duvet for extra insulation and privacy as we still haven't done the curtains (despite having the fabric already, as usual the curtains are looking complicated to design as we want to block the cab windows but still use the seats) and there's quite a draught from the old door seals and probably a rusted hole or two!

Ryan had managed to get some protective paint on most of the bodywork before this wave of cold weather hit, I'll explain & get some pics up in another post, but for now it looks like we're back to inside work!

A Loo With A View

Ryan was tasked with cutting the hole in the bathroom wall for the toilet cartridge to go through - he’s been good at making holes in the wall so far, though not all required holes which is why I done most of the batten chiselling in the end! 

View from the loo of blue skies no less!

Our loo is a lovely little bench type with an electric flush and even has a little toilet roll holder built inside so the paper won't get wet when we have a shower. I know, simple things...

We also needed to make the roof vent hole in the shower room larger for the new vent we bought that won’t fit the old size holes that we have. The kitchen vent unfortunately got broken as the plastic was a bit brittle and we had to seal it closed with silicone as rain was dripping through at an annoyingly rapid rate! We've been waiting since summer to get this job done but just haven't had a day free without rain to do it!

So with the help of a much awaited sunny day the old bathroom vent has now been moved to the kitchen and the shiny new vent is now in place in the bathroom. We thought it would be nicer to have the new crystal clear vent in the bathroom where we need the best light anyway for applying make-up and shaving etc, and it will probably get the most use for letting the moisture out from showering and drying clothes. I'm very pleased with it, the first night it was in was a clear sky and I could actually see the stars and the moon from the er, yeah OK from sat on the loo! :)

We got a new shower head, two mixer taps and a nice little corner sink - thanks Richard! The old sink the fold down type and was far too big for the room and made from a brittle ugly orange-brown plastic so had to go! I also didn't like the fact that when brushing your teeth you essentially had to just spit in a bowl then tip it down the back.

We now need to find something to adapt into a corner pedestal to hide the pipes, and our attempts to fibre glass the old cracked shower tray failed somewhat so we've ripped it out altogether.

We've decided to make a new one from scratch with plywood and tile it as unfortunately, as with anything we do The Waki Way, we can't find a new purpose built shower tray to fit our custom loo room. A lot of this project is trial and error, but the end result will be a motorhome that fits us perfectly.

Every cupboard has a plastic lining…

Every cupboard has a plastic lining…

Well the kitchen ones do anyway! J

(This is a job that was done before I got ill, but I hadn't gotten round to taking any pics sorry!)

I like to have clean food storage cupboards, it stops smells and so discourages pests from finding and spoiling the food. Nearly everything has the storage advice ‘keep in a cool dark place’ written on it as well so for the best storage life I decided that our main food cupboard (the old wardrobe at the rear) needed to be kept as cool and clean as possible. The problem is that as the back wall was structurally ok compared to the rest of the walls which was a bonus for the refurb, but it meant that it hadn’t got the foil and extra foam lining that the rest has. Also the blown air heater is underneath that same cupboard and we have plans to have a generator in the locker which is also underneath which will generate its own heat as well!

So to stop any generator fumes from creeping into the cupboard and living area it has been thoroughly sealed with silicone, and then insulated with our magic foil and foam sandwich. That is now topped with a lovely white wipe clean plastic the same as for the spit and splash zone wall in the kitchen, with an extra bead of silicone to seal the edges of the plastic lining.

The shelves in the big cupboard are now in, though they need painting and an edge putting on the fronts to stop everything ending up at the bottom in a pile when we move!

We have two excellent spice racks on the inside of the door, bought from Amazon (see the bottom of this post for the link if you want some too!)  which stop them from rolling around the cupboard when we’re on the move. And also crammed cupboards are frankly irritating when you have to unload your entire food stock just to get to one can at the back which will probably be past it’s expiry date anyway as it’s been hidden for so long.

I also ordered another rack for the kitchen wall which we can keep our cooking oil in. They’re the type of item that happily live on the kitchen worktop in a regular house without mishap but definitely need to be secured on the road. Unfortunately I accidentally ordered the wrong size :/ but luckily it fits perfectly in the shower room for our shampoo, we're still yet to find another solution for the oil!

I came across a beautiful set of hooks on ebay which looks stunning up in front of the cupboard holding our utensils. Bargain at under £2! The spoons rattle a little when driving so we're likely to fit some form of securement for them up there - my mind's heading in the direction of some sort of elastic strap but you'll have to wait and see...

I've been trying to pretty things up where I possibly can as we won't be able to have big pictures hung up or ornaments etc to decorate like we would in a house. Little things like that matter to me and I think that's what makes a place feel like a home, it's gradually becoming our home. :)

The Camper Van Cook Book

I was given a brilliant book for my Birthday given to me by my good friend Becca (the author of ‘Does Becca Love?’ blog and the same person to inspire me to do the Day Zero project 101 list!), so thank you Becca even though you shouldn’t have! :) Despite feeling under the weather herself she is always doing things for other people which is why we love her so!

The book is The Camper Van Cookbook and is an excellent read, it’s actually so much more than a recipe book and actually gives you tips on owning and servicing a camper as well as places to stay and things to do! It’s really aimed at VW camper owners but then the same principles apply to any vehicle, and we sympathise with the issues of owing a ‘classic’ camper as Waki is now 27 years old herself!

The book shows you games to play and songs to sing when bored on the journey or if the weather is bad, it lists the authors (and friends’) favourite camp sites, ‘pick your own’ farms, tips for attending festivals or going surfing amongst so many other topics! Oh and of course there are some great looking recipes designed for easily cooking in a camper or outside.

Happy Halloween, The Night of Endings & Beginnings!

Halloween brings change, it is traditionally the end of the wheel of seasons and the beginning of another turn and that has certainly been the case this year. I use it as a time to analyse what has happened in the year, and to think what I am going to do next.

I also carve cooking apples instead of pumpkins! Well, we already know I'm a bit weird! :)
They're excellent for spookily-lighting small spaces.

I have now left my job as a salesperson (Hello to my loyal Rajapack followers! I do miss you already!), and am starting a new part time job picking plumbing parts! The intention is to use the extra time I'll have to go and make my crafts and create my artwork, and getting selling at some local fairs and markets. Ryan is also making the switch and will be putting his mechanical and crafty talents to use, and it will be great to spend the time with him again.

Our plan is that The Waki Way will be our chance to really enjoy life and do what we've always wanted which is to be ourselves, together, and to work for ourselves. This past year I have really come to understand that life is so short and we can't waste a second being unhappy or resenting anything at all! It's scary yes, but then it's a fun challenge and I'm stubborn enough to make it work!

So if there is anything that you resent doing or being, change it - FAST! Who knows if we will ever get a second chance at anything we let pass us by?

Another Weekend Away

Ryan got us free weekend tickets to see the Phoenix Derby Championships at Cadwell Park courtesy of Comma Oils' promotion, and it was a thoroughly enjoyable trip away!

We stopped at the same camp site as my parents near Skegness again on Friday night, I managed to forget to pack some towels (oops!) so we stopped at a Tesco on route and I bought us a pair of black bath towels. We needed some nicer towels anyway so it just prompted the purchase!

We spent a nice Saturday morning wandering the discount stores and markets in nearby Ingoldmells where we bought a lovely new stainless steel stove top whistling kettle (we'd so far still been using the small aluminium one from my camping set!) and also an excellent shagpile rug for the living area. No more cold feet in the mornings from stepping on the bare floor! :)



We also come across a stall selling some funny signs and my Mum bought this one for us, with the state that Waki is still unfortunately in it was too suitable to pass by! 



Cadwell park is fairly close to Skegness so we only had a little way to go to reach Cadwell Park, though we didn't quite expect the amount of really steep hills we'd have to struggle up to get there! Poor old Waki really got pushed on that journey, and there was only one hill where we got down to a rather embarrassing 25 mph! Sorry to the drivers behind us, luckily it wasn't too busy! :S

We had a minor issue on the journey in the form of a leak from our water tank where the pipe had come off, which was actually a relief as in the side mirror Ryan said it looked like smoke billowing out and our hearts sank for a moment! But we were soon back on our way though low on water, but we had plenty of bottled water on board and there were taps at Cadwell for the washing up water.

We were surprised to find on arrival that you are allowed to camp anywhere you like around the track, though I can imagine that it’s a lot more restricted during bigger events like British Superbikes.

We initially checked out the facilities in the main paddock area and took a wander down to Club Corner just in time to see the start of a race and some wheelie action over The Mountain. We then took a drive around the track and found a good level spot by the tree line with a good view of the track, it’s such a bizarre feeling looking out of your home window with such a view! We spent a little while on the roof as it gave us a better view of the track, though the wind was pretty cold so we retreated before too long.

Waki parked and level. The front of the over-cab section looks much neater
now without the leaky front window but she still needs a paint job!

The view from the cab window when we arrived

A very happy Ryan and the roof view. Motorbikes, cider & bacon
sandwiches - what more could a guy want?!

The new generator got a good run and worked a dream (a post will follow on this but it means persuading Ryan to write about something!), having that running outside was actually quieter than the gas heater is currently. It can handle running a surprising amount of electrical gadgets at once, although this time we just had the batteries charging and run the laptop and TV.

We watched the film ‘Closer to the Edge’ following Guy Martin and some of the other main riders for the Isle of Mann TT road race which seemed a fitting way to spend an evening next to a race track. I'd say I also had the most peaceful nights sleep I've had in a long while as we was so far away from the roads (or any other campers! :D), though I did wake up the the commentator 'testing-testing' the speaker system around the track but it meant we didn't miss anything!

The hardest part of the trip was making ourselves go home, (especially as we knew we had enough tinned food on board to last a week and plenty of fuel!) but I had to be back at work so we had to go.

The scenery around Louth is quite spectacular farmland, and for our journey the beautiful rolling hills were set off nicely by the setting sun. I managed to get some photos on my phone but the phone can never do a scene like that real justice so I allowed myself to purely enjoy the views instead. Sometimes you just need to look around and smile at what you see :)


By being out and about we've come up with more ideas and of course found more things that need attention – like the knackered battery that was in charge of running the thermostat for our gas heater which needed swapping with the lighting one halfway through the night when we woke up cold! And we now also have the supplies to begin installing our wiring system (an early birthday present for Ryan from my Stepdad!) which will allow us to actually use mains hook-up when on site in future.

Introducing Kaa

I’d like to introduce Kaa to all of you who have not met him yet, the charming and quite oblivious passenger to The Waki Way of life. He is a Californian Corn Snake approx. 12 years old, (named after the Jungle Book character) and almost 5ft in length though trust me that makes him sound bigger than he really is! Sorry Kaa! He’s been a bit of an ambassador for snakes throughout his life and converted many ‘haters’ to admirers with his charm and hypnotising ways and I'm sure he will continue to do so on our travels.

He’s such a cutie and very friendly, and yes of course reptiles can be cute – look at him! He started life at the Japanese Koi centre near Henlow and was the ‘resident’ snake that they would bring out to show prospective customers so when I got him he was already around 4 feet and about a year old. I think all of the handling he got there is what has made him so relaxed around people, and he’s even been to visit the cadets at our St John Ambulance headquarters who were equally charmed!

He is still settling into his new vivarium in the house for the time being but will be transferred to the motorhome when the cupboard/sideboard area is built for him. I don’t want him to get stressed out by us building things next to him as well as being in a new vivarium with odd smells etc so we’re trying to get him gradually acclimatised to all of the changes.

Kaa’s new vivarium is a flat packed one by Vivexotic I bought it from a company called Seapets for a very reasonable price which arrived in good time and condition too, I actually wish I'd found them before I hand built his last viv as it probably cost me double the price in materials alone! They do seem to be the cheapest around for a great many pet supplies so I’ll definitely keep them bookmarked for our future requirements.

It went together well and actually comes with surprisingly strong good quality fixings, though it is only a chipboard unit so needs careful handling. I ran a seal of silicone over all of the internal joins to stop the damp getting through to the chipboard itself and also had to glue the back vents into place as Kaa would have been out of those it a heartbeat if left just pushed into place!

He actually managed to escape my homemade viv by pushing the glass and its runners apart and squeezing between the panes – luckily we were still sleeping in the house at that point and was just getting into bed when I heard him slithering across the bedroom floor! The runners on this viv are moulded from the same piece of plastic so can’t be forced apart, although the glass itself moves a little too freely along the runners for my liking so I’ll install a lock to stop him opening the doors. He is really inquisitive and surprisingly strong and likes digging, climbing and poking his nose into anything that's not his business so for now the doors just have a tab of tape of each end to stop him making another break for it!

Amazing - Eco-fi Fabric

We recently recovered the fabric ceiling of the cab as it was very grotty, and also decided to recover the curved edging covers on which the original fabric had begun to rot away! To keep it light and bright we went with cream felt for the ceiling, bought from Milton Keynes market, which took a massive amount of spray adhesive and awkward pushing and pulling to get into all of the dips and bumps. 

The light colour is a risk with Ryan around and his dirty mechanic hands but it really does lift the space so is a risk worth taking!

We wanted to keep to the brown colour for the edging but couldn't find the right shade at the market so went back to trusty e-bay. I came across some well priced felt material called Eco-fi, which also happens to be made entirely out of recycled plastic bottles made by a company in America! See below pdf about how it's made it really is amazing! I know, simple things...

http://www.kuningroup.com/dfiles/ecofi_SS.pdf

I've been showing it to everybody and no-one else can believe its plastic either so we have some good eco-karma in the project already without a compromise which is a rare thing!

I had to do some cutting and sewing to get it to fit the internal angles which I done by hand as I never have liked using a sewing machine, and it's a good way to practice my needlework. I intend on doing a lot more fabric craft work in the future and we don't have room for a machine anyway. The Waki Way is about doing things the simplest way possible, although we do joke that it's possibly about being the most awkward and inconvenient way possible which is how it's felt with the multitude of obstacles we've encountered so far but we persevere for a simpler way of life!

I can’t bring myself to throw away any fabric offcuts, especially with all of the crafty things that could be made with them so I needed a way to store them. I could just leave them in a plastic bag in a cupboard somewhere or I could have them to hand in a nice attractive bag so decided to make a cushion cover out of the ecofi fabric to hold it, and of course added a few embellishments that would complement our decor. 

I must own up to the fact that it wasn’t my original idea, I was actually inspired by someone on a YouTube video who uses her pillows for storing fabric! 

Click on the link below to view her video, she really is an amazing woman who in a similar situation to us decided to buy a trailer chassis and literally built herself a tiny house on top of it from recycled and salvaged materials!

Introducing Waki

I know most people think that naming a vehicle is ridiculous, and I certainly don't name all of my vehicles but I figured this one needed a name, like a boat does. As we plan on getting rid of the rust that nickname had to go, so we decided on Waki which is native American for 'shelter' and lets face it we're both very wacky to be doing this in the first place! You gotta love a good pun ;)

So here she is on the day we got her home, Waki the 20ft long 1985 Dreamliner Vogue with a Fiat cab. It's funny how we vowed we would NOT get a Fiat one (Fix It Again Tomorrow!) but I suppose it's not so bad as actually has a different engine. Most of the Dreamliner's have a 2.0L Petrol engine but this has been changed to a 2.5L Diesel with Citroen badges on it - we don't actually know what the engine is from which will make finding parts interesting. 

She has plenty of rust around the cab and doors, but that can be easily remedied and was to be expected with a van of her age. Ryan seems to feel a certain attachment as he is the same age! The body is good with just a few dents and dings, and needs a re-spray but that's another of Ryans talents so no problem there either.

The layout is pretty much as this one below, with just a slightly smaller shower room which we need to buy a toilet for and so one less cupboard than shown in front of the rear bunks.

The kitchen (below left) is in good condition and has everything we need to start with, but we may yet switch things around. The shower room (below right) is nicely finished with a fold down sink and an old vanity unit that will come down in favour of the suction corner shelves for our shampoo etc.

Below is the view to the rear from the living room showing the rear bunks and the kitchen area.






Below left is the L-Shaped sofa which we will leave as it is, there is a table that can be fixed into the floor on a single pole to create a very handy dinette/crafting desk.

Opposite the sofa there is another small seat for two which can be made up with the sofa to become another double bed, but it will instead be another storage area and home to my Corn Snake 'Kaa' to add yet another mad twist to our plans! The passenger seat also swings round to face the living area and we plan to get the boss-kit to do the same with the drivers side so we don't lose too much spare seating.








And finally below is the fixed bed platform that we will use as we don't fancy making our bed up every single day to a sofa and then back again. After the night spent at the Services where Ryan spent the entire time crushed up against the window we decided we definitely need a proper mattress, preferably a few inches wider but I think most of the problem was that I was subconsciously terrified of falling off out of bed so didn't use the full space! I figure that's just something you get used to, after all I don't fall out of my regular bed at the moment so this one shouldn't be any different...

Wales and Butterflies

We moved in with Ryan's parents when our tenancy run out so that we could save up as much cash as possible including the deposit from our old house and the proceeds from selling as much of our furniture and things as we could! It's strange how selling your things becomes almost addictive (I love e-bay!), and the more we threw out or sold the better we felt - maybe there is something to be learned from Feng Shui as the de-cluttering certainly lifted our spirits. Everything we wished to keep was boxed up safe and we began the search.

Our many hours of searching e-bay and Auto-trader and anywhere else that might possibly be hiding a cheap motorhome unearthed a slightly tatty looking 6 berth Dreamliner Vogue in Wales, 'first £3000 offer and it's yours' the listing said, so we were amazed that it was still there when we rang. So on the 10th November 2011 off we drove to Wales, with butterflies in our bellies.

Several hours later we arrived in the dark with a full moon in the sky and whilst Ryan checked her over with a torch for any structural or mechanical issues, the owner was very friendly and chatted to us about where they'd been as a family with 'Old Rusty' as they'd nicknamed her and happy enough we paid up and began the journey home. Ryan drove the motorhome and I followed in my little Clio with the biggest, maddest grin on my face the entire time! As it was so late already we stopped at some rather noisy motorway Services for the night, enjoyed some fish and chips at the dining table and slept (well for a couple of hours in total I think! :S) in our new home. We continued on the next day, and the butterflies and the smile stayed with me all the way! Dreams aren't so scary when they're still dreams, but ours was suddenly reality...

The very scary and strangely exciting process of jumping into your life dreams with both feet!

It’s a long title I know but the only one I could think of that begins to explain how we feel right now! My name is Sarah Hamer and I am an Artist and crafty person (though am currently a salesperson to pay the bills!), and my partner Ryan Clack is a mechanic (among many talents) with a crafty side too. 

We are in the process of completely changing our lives to live permanently in a motorhome in the UK, something that probably sounds awful to most people but that suits me and Ryan down to the ground. We are both enthusiastic bush-crafters and love camping, hiking, woodworking and pretty much anything that allows us to enjoy being in contact with dear old Mother Nature for an extended period.

We have been together for over 10 years already, but only 2 years in came the realisation that we would never afford to save up a deposit for a house whilst renting, and as we have always been horrified at the thought of spending at least 25 years after that owing money to someone else for a pile of bricks we started looking at alternative housing options. Our friends introduced us to the world of Narrowboats and that became the dream for a long while, though life’s twists and turns wouldn’t let us get there either. We then came to realise that a motorhome is by far the cheapest option and gives us the freedom we want, and that you don’t necessarily need to be sleeping in a layby somewhere with the multitude of cheap campsites and quiet hidden car parks throughout the country.

We had been renting a particular house for only a year when the owner decided that we were not able to renew our tenancy for the next year and so we were faced with either using up the little amount we'd managed to save up so far on credit checks for another rental house or jumping into the dream NOW! And what's wrong with now anyway? So we began searching for that one vehicle we will want to call home, on a budget of only £3000!