We’ve left the house and are on our way, off to visit some friends and family to help slide into this winter van life. The van is packed up with all of our stuff and all the leftover food from the kitchen (so now have all the herbs, spices, flour and tinned food but not much else) so thought we’d have a nice gentle meander down Hereford way with a stop at a shop on the way. We left a little later than we thought so only got as far as Crewe before we decided to stop for the night. We found a good ole Chef and Brewer pub that didn’t mind us staying for the night and treated ourselves to tea out after an emotional day.
The food was lovely and the bar was very relaxing to sit in and while way a few hours, lots of dogs and a big log fire and as it was a Sunday I sneaked in a 3 meat roast which was EPIC! The night was peaceful in the car park but we were rudely awakened in the morning by the garden maintenance guys and their leaf blowers – we had a good giggle about that one, especially as it sounded like most of the leaves were under our van! Haha..
We fed Cooper and walked him around then set off to be closer to Kev (Wondering Womble) as we planned to crash his live feed on the Tuesday. We had to find a food shop and post some last minute things off on the way but the sun was shining and we were nice and chilled so sorted all the bits out and decided to stop at a lovely little lake just outside of Nantwich for some lunch and a nice long walk for Coop.
It looked like it would make a nice little park up as there were a few areas nice and level, don’t know how noisy it would be – might be quackers in the morning 🙂
We decided another car park park up was in order (we really don’t mind these if we have to use them, we do try and choose the bigger ones but find a nice quiet corner) So stayed in a city centre car park not too far away from Kevs. It was only 2.50 for the night ad there were toilets as well as a nice walk and a church that chimed very tunefully every 15 minutes. We slept surprisingly well which for once did not help us as we hadn’t set an alarm! We woke with 30 mins to get where we needed to be but luckily I knew Kev had coffee (yay!) so that was fab!
We were welcomed with big ole hugs from Kev when we got there which was lovely, seems ages since we’d seen him. We were fed drinks and biscuits and we chose our seats for my very first live auction!!! Kev was brill and explained everything to me as it has it’s own little language going on but it was brilliant! We didn’t buy another van (thankfully – haha) as we’d had some good natured ribbing that we might so I could fit all my jumpers in 🙂
We said our goodbyes and were sent away with more biscuits as Kev knew we were meeting up with some “others” later on and we headed down to Tewkesbury to see my Dad and Step Mum. It wasn’t a long journey so we took it nice and easy and arrived and parked up down by the riverside picnic area to grab some lunch. That particular spot is where the Avon and the Servern merge (and another little stream of apparently) and it was like raging rapids – i’ve Never seen 2 foot waves on either river before, it was madness!! I cranked up the instant pot and made some “crack chicken” the Americans named it not me! Then decided which park up we’d use for the nice and chose the Gardners Arms in Alderton. This little village is amazing, It’s all the good things you find with these types of villages though, friendly people stopping to say hi, all the houses tastefully decorated with Christmas lights, gorgeous village store, thatched cottages and peace and quiet. We booked a table for all 4 of us and the 2 dogs and took Cooper for a walk around while we waited. The food I the pub is all locally sourced and lovely (a tad pricey but the quality is worth it) and we all had a lovely meal, including the dogs as this pub even has a specific doggy menu, it has dog blankets and towels and water bowls too – coop had the sausage, rice, veg and gravy and wolfed the lot down and I had a nice big Gin and tonic, we then headed back to the van with a promise to see them again on Thursday as it was my Step Mum’s birthday then. The pub were amazing and said we didn’t need to rush off the next day and that we could top up our water before we left so I had a run and a bit of a weights session hidden behind the van in the car park which felt good, a shower after (a we were getting water!) and then had a quick lunch to say thank you and headed off to try and find a park up in the Malvern Hills as we love it there.
Sadly that was not to be – we will get better at park ups as we get going i’m sure but this time we’d parked up in these hills loads of times to walk Coop but not stayed overnight so it was disappointing to see that all the trust car parks had no overnight stops signs at them, it would bring in so much extra revenue for them if they charged a nominal fee and let people use them.
We headed back into Tewkesbury to go to our tried and tested town centre car park and walked Coop around, having a peek a the motor home sales place behind the car park, there were some with doors in funny places so we decided to go back and look at them when it was open – I know I know, first week out living in the van and we’d already watched an auction and walked around a MH sales place – we do love this van, we really really do!!
We had a lovely sleep and a nice lie in – this car park is brill as you can pre buy your parking ticket for the next day (turns out Tewkesbury remove parking charges in the lead up to Christmas but we didn’t know this at the time) so we paid so we’d have all day to look around and plenty of time to have a nice birthday lunch. Rosado Lounge in the centre is brilliant! It’s so utterly dog friendly it’s untrue! Dog biscuits and water bowls a plenty. Parents had to leave before dessert so we decided t head back to the van then hit up the local Morrison’s to do some laundry. We did pop back to the MH sales place as we got to the van and checked out a few layouts and whatnot but nothing was as good as ours for its size.
Thankfully when we got to the outdoor laundrette it was not being used and was nice and clean so we stuck a load in and waited by the van. We’d heard stories about not being notified that the machine had run out of detergent so we stuck the Eco Egg in at the same time to be sure. An hour and 15 mins later it was all washed and dried and put away. First washing on the road – DONE!
We popped into my dads for a brew before we headed to our next stop, of course it was dark by this time so we decided to head straight to meet up with Ash, Marie, CJ and Simon rather than try and find somewhere in the dark – they said there wasn’t much choice round that way anyway.
We were driving down the back country lanes, not single lane roads but narrow, dark and wet ones with a decent amount of traffic. We’d just had a few cars drive past us in the opposite direction when the last car caught our attention as it was smoking from the back – as soon as that thought left our minds we were hitting a 2 foot deep flooded part of the road at 50 miles an hour. To say it scared the living daylights out of us would be a massive understatement, there was screaming and swearing and arms flailing and that was just me! After about 5 seconds when we could think again we found a place to pull over and check out the van, everyone and everything inside the van was OK but outside didn’t fair quite so well. We lost both the drain tubes from the underslung tanks, a fair bit of insulation was ripped and flapping around and the facia panel off the Gasit tank had gone too. We climbed back in and turned the van around – thankfully no oncoming cars this time so we could have the light bar on the roof to help us find things – we found the waste drain first in the middle of the road so I jumped out and grabbed that and jumped back in to drive the extra 200 yards to the flooded section – this side of the road had a SIGN! That would have been very helpful on the other side..! We reached the massive swirling muddy puddle and thankfully could see the fresh water drain floating in it (without that – no more fresh water till we could replace it!) John drove the van into the water and we used one of our litter pickers to grab it as there was no wading in that in the dark. We couldn’t see the gasit tank facia but that is made of something like die cast aluminium so wasn’t going to be helpful and float like the others. We drover further along and turned around to continue our journey and find somewhere well lit so we could replace the bits we’d found – we did confirm again that there was no flood sign and managed to flash at a couple of oncoming cars which made them take the water a little slower. We found a Gulf petrol station just down the road and managed to crawl under the van to reattach the pipes and stick as much of the insulation back into place as we could with limited space and cold wet hands – thankfully the heater pads on the tanks were not exposed so that was very lucky (and obviously down to my awesome insulation gaffer tape skills!) the lovely lady in the petrol station showed us where the outside tap was so we could first flush the fresh water tank out then once we were happy, fill it up again with fresh water. We were now heading towards 10pm, hadn’t eaten since lunch, were cold and wet and feeling a little miffed and a lot lucky. We found the park up and the others shortly after. We grabbed some snacks and some booze and headed into Si’s van for the night and sat with some very good people and happily forgot our lucky escape while playing Cards Against Humanity and drinking half a bottle of Gin (well.. the Gin was just me!). We rolled into bed at about 3am after sharing lot of other near miss stories which did make us feel part of an exclusive lucky club and boy did we sleep well!!.
I didn’t wake up well though, think I might have still been a little drunk! I had the shakes and everything and was feeling very sorry for myself. John was lovely and left me in bed – which is a lot better in a van as I was still within pouty face distance when I needed attention (I don’t do hangovers very well..!) Managed to get going about midday and had to make some sausage and cheese sammiches before I could talk to anyone but couldn’t quite eat them all, 2 coffees and 2 pints of water didn’t really help either but I managed to rally later in the day for my introduction to wordpress lesson that was scheduled in CJ’s van for us all (I’m actually writing this directly in WordPress at the mo rather than writing in google docs and sharing it with John – whoooop go me!!)
Marie had to leave for a while so I didn’t feel quite so bad for offering the lads some beef chilli for tea – we usually have the Naked Glory Plant based mince in the chilli as it is just epic stuff but I couldn’t find any “Dahn Sahf” – Si popped a spatchcock chicken in his over which we were complete children about “Si, have you checked our cock recently?” “Si, did you baste your cock yet?” Hahaha.. we did invite the lady in the van next door over for a bit so she came and sat around the fire for a bit before she had to go to work. We didn’t last long sat outside so all squished into Si’s van again and once Marie arrived we cracked open the Cards against humanity again as my set looked to have some different cards in it and giggled our way into Saturday.
A wonderful lie in was had again and we all stood around and had a lovely chat before heading off back to our respective “bases” to get some things done.
A fab first week in the van I must say – would it have been better if there was less mud and rain, of course. Would it have been different if it had just been John and I, of course. Would I change it (apart from he scary log flume incident as it was referred to on Saturday Morning) not at all..
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Welcome to Winter Vanlife, Gadgets!
