a series of mid life crices

I often forgot to press send on text  messages and last week I thought I had  organised my work for this morning.  I thought it was a little strange that she didn’t reply but didn’t bother to look until nine a.m. when I realised that the message hadn’t been sent which meant I didn’t work today.

The sun was out and my mother needed an airing having been confined to quarters for a month, so on a whim I bundled her into the car, packed up the dogs and dragged them all to the seaside.  Where else do you take someone with a newly constructed hip other than to trot across sand dunes in the blazing heat?  She managed remarkably well considering.

I thought it would be good to get the little ferry across from Mudeford Quay  where we parked on double yellow lines because the place was packed and were the only people without a picnic.  We had managed to leave the water and sausages we bought for the dogs (at a garage on the way) in the car and totally unprepared we made it up and down the dunes and even managed to get an ice cream.  Sunny still won’t swim, I know he should so I’m going to get him a life jacket and teach him properly.

We had a lovely day without a parking fine and I didn’t moan about Kurt’s delay once!

 

So all was going swimmingly, diet is fine, mother recovering nicely, walking dogs with step tracker, managing to work and even coping with us all living in separate places.

Until today; Kurt will probably not be ready until NOVEMBER! What do we do?  We are supposed to be leaving in September, taking a couple of months travelling across Europe finally arriving in Corfu in time for the winter.  We aren’t supposed to be sitting on our arses waiting for some geriatric gnome in Germany to put Kurt together single handedly, I thought they had a factory, a well oiled and efficient machine of a factory, how can it take SIX months to make a van?

What do we do, we have no house, no contingency plan and I, at least, have to be in the UK on the 20th December, I won’t even have unpacked before I have to come home.  I’m pretty sure it won’t be as easy to camp in the winter and there won’t be any direct ferries to Greece, Santander or even Bilbao.

I’m sitting looking at the ever increasing pile of things we have for the van and now I’m planning to cancel him and drive there in three days in the truck.

Why can’t things be easy?  Here’s hoping the nice man at the shop can persuade them to hurry up…

Today was a day of arrivals, R bought a new barbecue, it is very small and comes in a very fetching bag, it only takes four minutes to light and be ready to cook on.  We needed this tool because although Kurt has a lovely hob with two shiny burners, I don’t want to get him dirty, he’s far too posh for me to cook in, the leather seats will end up smelling of onions and I’d have to clean them.  He also bought me a new computer, so now I can type to my hearts content and when I’ve learned how I can put pictures of Kurt and where we are so I don’t forget.

The solicitor called today and we may or may not have a date for an exchange! Six months since we agreed the sale and it still hasn’t happened,  I think that we may know next week.  As soon as we exchange we can start planning our trip and deciding how many pairs of pants we need.

I got a collapsable bucket which I found inordinately exciting as usual.

Mother is recovering nicely and able to hobble about for a few steps without her crutch, she helped hang out the washing today, we were very proud until she dropped a cloth and just stood there staring at it.  I thought, ‘lazy cow pick it up’.  Luckily I didn’t say anything, I had forgotten she can’t bend down!

 

It’s very traditional to spend a bank holiday shopping. I have, until now, managed to avoid such an exercise, rather preferring to spend the day ironing or cleaning out the larder than buying stuff.

That was before Kurt the camper and today I practically skipped to the big camping shop desperate to find some  special something to make him our own.

Nothing, there was nothing we liked, we considered a head torch and a rucksack for Sunny but there was nothing else and it was an enormous shop.   We ended up at John Lewis, where I promptly knocked over a display of glasses and broke them.

We managed to fill an enormous trolly with lovely things like mixing bowls and jugs, wine chillers and pepper mills, only to realise that everything was too big for the drawers and we don’t actually need a salad spinner.  So we bought a miniature potato masher, some baby chopping boards took a tape measure and went to measure Kurt’s drawers.

We are going to have to make a list.

We are still all over the place with me staying at my mother’s, (she is getting stronger every day) R and Lucky at the FG’s and thing two on a sofa but we are managing and it is not for ever.    It’s a bit of a faff though having to get in a car to see each other – maybe we will think fondly of these days when we are stuck in a traffic jam in 30 degree heat with a smelly dog and neither of us remembered to fill the water tank.

It’s the FG’s birthday tomorrow so we are having a bbq which will be excellent fun in the storms and rain forecast but she is actually magic so it will be fine.

Still waiting for an arrival date for Kurt and for my friend Ema who should have had her baby by now!

One day into the adventure that is accessorising Kurt.

I feel that it is very important to decide what sort of campers we are; part of me wants to buy matching M&S anoraks, a tartan flask and sit in lay-bys watching the traffic on the A34 but I’m sure the novelty would wear off quite quickly.  We shall fill the cupboards with gin and wend our way through Europe sans flasks or anoraks and let Kurt decide for himself what we are.

I need to be sensible about what we can take so I’m choosing fairy lights and getting over excited about the delivery of my collapsible washing up drainer which is blue and purple, I didn’t realise I’d actually bought it, I must have hit the buy with one click button on Amazon.  R is a bit concerned about whether we can fit an ice maker and the thermomix in.

The van is so very  posh I’m saving up for a fancy collar for Sunny and maybe a bow tie.

We have ordered a cream leather interior – to go to the seaside with a dog……..

Today is our 32nd wedding anniversary, we forgot, as usual but were reminded quite late in the day by the good wishes/commiserations of family members.

R has been spending his time at work planning our route to Corfu, he has maps, atlases and notes everywhere, during one of his thinking moments he had a revelation; being quite concerned about how comfy the dog would be travelling all that way he decided to check out more suitable cars, this was on Thursday last week.

Explaining to me how worried he was about the dog I was persuaded (it didn’t take much) and today we bought a camper van; not the kind of van you’d expect me to have, a 1968, rusty and romantic VW but a brand new sleek and soulless Mercedes. It won’t be ready until September but that’s fine because nor will we. Our 3 day drive across Europe will now be a couple of months of exploring.  I am beside myself with excitement!

The van is called Marco Polo but as it’s a German van I’m going to call him Kurt, knit him some bunting and get him a soul.  He is our first ever Anniversary present!

I’m still at my mother’s, she is recovering, slowly, which is frustrating for her. I’m being quite firm with her and I hope that I don’t turn into Nurse Rached.

I’m only just staying sane waiting for the shop to sell, one minute it’s on, then it’s of, I can’t keep up and yet again we are in limbo waiting for legal people to get their acts together!

I’ve not had much spare time over the last two weeks and when I do get a minute I’m practicing my Greek – I must admit that it is much easier than Turkish to understand – hopefully it will make sense when I try in real life!

I’ve ordered some swimming shoes so I can walk on the rocks and I’m back on my diet so I don’t get mistaken for a whale!  Apparently I look like my younger sister when she got up at 5 am and is wearing 5 layers of clothes. Dust and chewing gum again then.

Well that was weather worth discussing.  I maintain that I am a summer being, I always suspect that I am solar powered with more energy and good cheer in the sunshine. England however, is utterly crap at sunshine, the car has no air con and every-stupid-body is sitting in a traffic jam, the hay fever levels are off the chart and most of the summer clothes are in storage,  it’s hardly worth getting them out because it’s only going to rain again in a couple of days.  Still we made the most of it and had a bbq in the garden.

My poor mother however is stuck recuperating from a major operation and missed the good weather, she should be out for the thunderstorms though.  I’ll go and collect her on Friday, leave everyone else with the FG and stay with her until she’s recovered.

Hopefully we’ll have something to look forward to this week, I am ever the optimist.

Nothing ever goes smoothly, no sooner had we passed the first hurdle than we were thrown into total disarray by a series of setbacks.   Well I’m not giving in, I don’t care how long it takes or how hard we have to fight we will get through this.  As this weekend is a bank holiday we will have to wait until Tuesday before we can do anything.

We are settled at the FG’s house and have finally hidden most of our crap in darkened corners around the house.  The only downside to living here is the amount of sweet stuff everywhere, so much that child one made a little film of chocolate for her friends!  I have a big problem with this, my total lack of self control around sweets, having lost weight by cutting out sugar, I’m back on it and I can feel my clothes getting tighter already and I’ve only been here a week.   I’ll have to get a far more substantial swimsuit for the summer  at this rate.