50 Reasons to be Cheerful – vlog 29

Posted On By JaM

Its been a while since i’ve written anything on here. A lot of that is down to a lack of confidence and some to do with a lack of content. It seems easier to make a video where John and I chat to the camera to discuss what we’ve been up to or future plans than it is to write it down. Which is really strange considering one of the things i’ve found lately to help me clear my head is writing stuff down. I have a lovely joural now to keep everything where it should be so hopefully back to the normal nonesense that runs around my head instead.

What a time though, we could never have anticipated that when we sold our house we’d have 3 months to travel then would literally be stuck in an occasionally unwelcoming carpark for a further 10 weeks. We were lucky that where we were had water and a sewage grid as we know people who have had it worse and we were in a lovely part of the country so again, we were lucky. There is now light at the end of this very long tunnel though and although we did manage a weekly “tester” of travelling when we had to go to Reading, we found the country is not quite prepared for people in vans to visit just yet and that at the very least, it reminded us why we chose this lifestyle in the first place. Pubs were closed but had welcoming car parks (with a quick call to the pub first) and lots of walks, changes to scenery and fresh air was had. Only one or two narrow minded people tried to spoil things which, although we tried not to let them bother us, it did make us think that we’d be best finding somewhere else to stay for a while longer.

We were incredibly lucky (again) to be contacted and offered the place where i’m writing this now. It’s slightly frustrating that we have to keep this place secret for the sake of the owners who are sticking their neck out for us but we’ll be back (if they’ll have us – haha) as I think we’ve fallen in love a little with the place.

We’ve been lucky enough to be able to extend that invite to a restricted few so have had the wonderful company of Darran, Jon and Tash initially and Mevi and Dave for John’s birthday which although socially distanced, was a comforting return to almost normality.

John’s birthday was a funny one though, who’d have thought that organising anything as a surprise when you both live in a motorhome would be so hard. John spent the lead up to the day itself saying things like “I do wonder what needed so much sellotape” or listening to me telling him that it’s not the sound of colouring that he can hear but the wind or strange animals outside or cooper farting – hahaha.. Yeah – making the decorations for the van was not a simple task!

I did figure out how to make simple stickers with sellotape and grease proof paper though – you stick lines of tape to the greaseproof paper, create your badge on paper or card then stick it over the top of the first layer with another layer – then cut around the “sticker” leaving enough tape to make sure the layers stay together – then peel off the greaseproof paper and stick away!!!

I’d also contacted our friends and family who we would have usually celebrated with to see if they would send over some short video clips which I could edit into a bigger birthday message for John. Thankfully everyone came through, even down to the last one that arrived after i’d exported and rendered (that’s what you get for having friends in Texas – haha) My first go at editing went a lot better than I thought it would have, thanks to one or two texts to friends to help – the one time John could have made it so much easier, I couldn’t ask him! Some of the clips sent to me were hilarious, all of them made me smile as they were just so lovely – all of them had John wondering why I was smiling at my phone so much and why i’d break into spontaneous laughter, literally bursting with it.. thankfully with the help of one wireless earphone and John’s inherent dislike of Friends (the TV show, not our actual friends) so when he did ask why I was chuckling away I just said it was Friends outtakes.. I don’t think he believed me entirely but we have an agreement that we get to be slightly cagey with our actions in the lead up to birthdays with any questions left till the day after – hahaha.. I think the finished video cleared up any and all of that..
John was made up with the messages, hindsight has left me wishing i’d added a few more people but my brain at the time was nearly bursting with keeping the ones I had in order and a secret because of course, people don’t just send a video – theres the initial “long time no speak” and “hows the family” then you know what they’ve been up to and because of the law of sod, it will obviously come up in a conversation between John and I and I can’t say I know anything about it.. one slip up was all it took to keep my lips sealed. I talk way too much to be able to keep any secrets really.. haha

When Dave and Mevi arrived so did the second part of the Pork Pie and Vanilla Custard Challenge – the first one being in a field in Doncaster last year with the Bug out Guys where it was Darran pitted against me. After seeing that, Mevi had been smack talking his way into a second challenge as of course he could beat me – he’s a lean mean eating machine as we’ve seen before. Social distancing was set up so we could choose our food from the table, Mevi chose a blue cheese and pickle topped pie and I chose what I thought was a goats cheese and cranberry topped one – that first bite told me i’d made a big mistake and it was sweet chilli and goats cheese – sweet chilli with a proper kick! and of course i’d set off with gousto and practically planted my face in there so the chilli sauce was all over my cheeks, chin and nose while I tried not to choke on the extra chilli sauce surrounding the pork inside the pastry. It was neck and neck between Mevi and I for the pie eating but this is about the whole game, not the halves so straight in to the Vanilla/toffee custards it was – this was a different split and had half cream and half custard with a toffee topping so I used the same method as the pie and stuck my face right into the wonderful cooling cream and custard and wore it like a protective face pack. Mevi had a different method and split the halves in two where I just ploughed along the middle to start. I did struggle when eating the toffee top as it stuck to the roof of my mouth and nearly scupperred me. I could see that Mevi was watching my progress so sped up a little to see if my speed would put him off any and when it got down to the final bite I could see some still in Mevi’s hand.. The fat Mandy had yet to sing though as the rules are no crumbs or leftovers and I was still wearing mine on my face – A quick look in the van mirror had me cleaned up as I could see the last bit being eaten by Mevi. A very quick lick of my plate and a “stick your tongue out to prove your finished” at Dave which would not have been a particulary nice thing to see i’m sure, crowned me winner once again – followed literally 2 seconds later by a very disapointed and rather green looking Mevi – we both had moments of “I hope this is going to stay down” and we managed to clear our plates, it was a brilliant and very close race indeed! What a laugh though.. love these guys.

We’ve had some lovely days here, we’ve used the bikes a few times. Tash and I used them to hit up the shops and to stretch our legs and minds and a 10 mile ride was had on Johns birthday. We’ve found a lovely 3 mile loop we can walk with Coop when it’s cool enough but the last few days have seen us chilling in the van, cooking up a storm and me spending too much time in the sunshine once again.. Coop hasn’t been on his lead for almost three weeks and I now have unofficially adopted my very own Kestrel named Kendra who I watch catch things to eat in a nearby field.

I’ve cut myself 3 or 4 times whittling wood or slicing pork rind, had one of the door shelves in the fridge snap and 4 bottles of beer and the entire contents of the shelf below land on my toe (and break a beer bottle into smithereens which took some clearing up) Learned that factor 30 is not enough for sun like this and now have to sit in the shade.. so it’s good to know i’m still me after all. I’ll always be super clumsy but I can’t describe how happy I am, how happy we are. The only thing that would be better would be for it to be eaiser to see family more but that’ll come eventually. When we hit our worst with lockdown and trolls on the internet and some a bit closer to home I thought I wouldn’t be able to say those words as it literally felt like the future we’d planned was going to change irrevocably. However we are so lucky to have so many people supporting us, some very closely, some from afar but all the kind that lifts your heart and makes the bad ones pale into insignificance. I’ve said it before and i’ll say it again.. we are so incrediby lucky.

We have some changes next week as we’ve a job installing solar and some other bits over in Essex and hopefully after that we’ll be able to start seeing some of the country again – via pubs and hopefully some smaller campsites too.

I hope everyone is looking forward to a little more freedom and that all the vans out there feeling neglected and abandoned will realise their potential once again and be full of family and laughter and hope for the future when we get to stay outdoors and view this wonderful world we live in once again.

Heres to safe and happy travels, I hope we meet on the road soon.

Take Care
Mandy

Thanks to everyone who sent in their birthday messages, and a special thanks to the following friends for their part in Mandy’s surprise video.

Links to products shown in the video…

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