Starting the Journey, Failing to Start the Engine

Well already this map of where I plan to go is out of date!

I finally left home on Tuesday afternoon, with a very rushed packing up of essentials and a drive down to Bournemouth to briefly meet with my good friends and their new baby. They kindly put me up on their sofa and I traded ten minutes of babysitting for a deliciously hot shower before driving up the M3 into London.

Problems before we've even started

The VW Specialists in Ladbroke Grove took a look at my fuel gauge, which had been acting very oddly. It wasn't broken exactly but it no longer reflected accurately what was in the tank (something I discovered the painful way, by running out of petrol on the M4). It had also started 'dancing' whenever a blinking light such as an indicator was deployed. Anyway, they sent me off for the day while they investigated so I used a Groupon deal to get my hair done for cheap in West London.

Run out of fuel on the M4 one chilly evening (that's my sister under the duvet)

By 5:15pm I still hadn't heard any news so I called the garage. They told me that they'd ordered a replacement sender unit, to which I replied that I didn't think we really had time for that and that I'd rather just live with the problem than be stuck in the UK any longer. I caught the tube, a journey of 20 minutes, and found a different story on arrival: they had already replaced the sender unit at a cost of over £100. I jogged to a cashpoint and paid them, keen to move on.

Barely 10 minutes into central London traffic, a man in a van next to me opened his window and called across "Hey love, your tail light's out!". I sighed and shared, "I'm on my way back from the garage", which caused a few laughs and jibes about the reliability of a poor old campervan.

An unplanned stop

Rather than venture through the Eurotunnel and into a foreign country in the pitch dark with only one tail light, I drove out of London and spent the night in a MacDonald's service stop along the A20.

Next morning, I popped into a local Kwik Fit who confirmed what I suspected, that the bulb was fine. They recommended an auto electrician some 20 minutes away who turned out to be very helpful indeed (he was in fact a former T25 owner with plenty of experience of wiring them up). He changed two bust fuses and gave me a spare set for the future, sending me happily on my way.

So finally, at 15:20 on Wednesday afternoon, I boarded the train at Folkestone and went through the Eurotunnel. My carriage was empty save for one other vehicle containing a couple in the process of emigrating to Spain. I invited them to join me in the back of the camper for a gossip (we had to forgo the tea - there's no gas cooking allowed).

Arriving in a new country

From Calais, France, I drove for five hours to an Aire de Service near Le Mans and pulled out the bed for another sleep. Bright and early I used the Service facilities and got back on the road, heading for my parents' house in the South West.



Aire de Service - a popular place to stop for the night and meet fellow campers

Trundling along on Thursday morning listening to Radio 4 podcasts, I again became concerned about the fuel gauge. It was difficult to be sure of its accuracy but I was aware of it behaving like a financial investment, i.e. moving unpredictably down as well as up, and of it'dancing' more vigorously than ever when I indicated to overtake lorries. I made a note to have strong words with the London garage once I reached my destination.

Another unplanned stop

Between Poitiers and Limoges is the N147, a major single carriage road with roundabouts every 5 miles or so and changes of speed limit as it passes through towns. It was whilst climbing a hill on this road that things started to go quite seriously wrong. I was strolling along doing about 40mph in 4th gear when the engine began to splutter. I assumed the hill was too much for it and dropped down to 3rd gear but the struggle worsened - the camper was coughing and losing momentum so I popped the hazards on and pulled off the road onto a gravelly verge along the right hand side.

The engine had of course stalled so I applied the handbrake, switched everything off and then tried the ignition. Nothing. Not a sound, not a hiccup, not even a dash light. Uh-oh.

I called the RAC, donned my high-viz jacket, set out my warning triangle and put my feet up in the back of the bus with a good book. The recovery chap arrived an hour later and chose to communicate solely through facial expressions and hand gestures. I don't think he was actually mute but perhaps just a bit shy. He loaded the 'camping car' onto his truck and commuted us both to his garage in the next town.

After unloading, the chap had another go at the ignition. This time it started! I was flummoxed. Could there be nothing wrong after all? How terribly embarassing. Aah, until he took the key back out of the ignition and the horn went off "PAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARP!". He silenced it by replacing the key in the ignition and then tried again with the same result. This is not, we agreed through further exchange of facial expressions, a standard feature of the VW Camping Car.

We filled out some paperwork and I stood in reception (there were no chairs) for a little over an hour, half listening to the garage workers doing impressions of my camper's horn to each other, before wandering down the road to a hypermarche for coffee. On returning I learned that my ignition switch was faulty and that a number of wires had melted behind the dashboard. Could it be that is was the real cause of the fuel gauge's eccentricites?

Hmm. More notes for even stronger words.

Anyway the upshot is that they can't fix it right away - they needed to order a replacement ignition switch (15 Euros) and bring in a specialist to repair the wiring. So the RAC have sent me to a hotel back near Poitiers for the weekend. We'll try again Monday...


Where I've travelled to so far - click for details and updates

 

Saying Goodbye

I had such a romantic notion of the 'farewell tour' before actually leaving this country. In my head it would be as perfect as waving a silk handkerchief through the open window of a steam train, or from the top deck of a great cruise liner.

My plan was to host three parties, one in each location where I have a high density of friends, so that I would have a final chance to drink with everyone I know and love. Being rather keen on events planning, these would of course be immaculately organised and perfectly run.

Hmm.

1. London

Well this was always going to be difficult. I wanted to have a party to include my beloved colleagues at One to One and also my fantastic housemates at the Old College in Paddington. But of course with so many of my colleagues going through redundancy, and with all my housemates going through eviction, there was little appetite for celebration.

My colleagues did organise a joint leaving party for us all but I'm sorry to say I was so exhausted with packing, moving and planning that I barely stayed for two drinks. I instead went into the office on my last day, the 9th February, to say goodbye to everyone in person. Ben made the most beautiful carrot cake I've ever tasted in my life and Winston broke into the wine cupboard, and I choked back the tears as I realised that this would likely be my last time ever sitting in that office and talking to the fantastic array of people there.

And I made them pose for this photograph:

L-R Andrew, Carmen, Mimi, Paul, Erdeniz, Sagi, Gurvinder, Winston, Zahra, Angustias, Ben, Aleksandra and Bernadett

  2. Cardiff

I telephoned the caterers in a panic with just 10 days' notice, only to learn that I'd already booked them and forgotten. I also ordered 80 designed invitations from Vistaprint and left 75 of them in my handbag. There was not one part of this event that I had properly organised.

Luckily there was still a great turnout - the amazing friends I've made at Telstars Theatre Group, some of the best rebels from my old office at Confused.com and of course my lovely neighbour James. We had a chilly outdoor marquee at the Gwdihw, with hot Indian food provided by the Vegetarian Food Studio in Grangetown. As the party was winding down, I borrowed a plastic recycling sack from the bar staff and poured all the left over bajis, samosas and atom bombs into it. We went on to a bar on Womamby Street where dancing, drinking and offering strangers Indian food from a bin bag took place. 

Some sober and stable friends, photographed by a sober and stable Emily

Finally, James and I took a taxi back to my house where one of my lodgers was still up and about, as well as Tufter the cat, so the three of us carried on the party until such time as all naughty children should be in bed. The bin bag of Indian food went in the freezer.

3. Salisbury

A week later we ploughed into The Pheasant, a pub that I called home for several years in my youth (literally - I lived with the bar manager in the adjoining cottage). This was in many ways the easiest to organise - I had still failed to send all my beautifully printed invitations, but I had managed to get food orders for everyone.

We had a three-course meal for 16 people in our own private room, with flowing wine and conversation and a heartfelt poem written and performed by my sister. The pub's boiler was condemned during our visit, so we were again condemned to be chilly, but another glass of wine can always solve that problem. Some friends had to leave early to big hugs and kisses, but most of us went on to a number of pubs in the area. Apparently. It was a night full of nostalgia all the way back to my school days, but sadly not a night I can remember.

4. The Cat

Four days after the Salisbury party, Tufter disappeared. He followed one of my housemates down the road in the morning and then never came home for breakfast. I spent the week that followed searching for him day and night, posting leaflets through neighbours' doors, publishing his photograph on 'lost cat' websites and talking to local vets and council departments. He has been spotted since the disappearance, locally too, but hasn't been hanging around his usual haunts and certainly hasn't popped back through his cat flap. I hoped with all my heart that I would find out what happened to him before I left, just to be sure that he'd be okay, but sadly there's no news to this day.

Now I just imagine and hope that an old lady has taken him in, and that she'll feed him roast beef and salmon trimmings and that he'll spend his last years purring in front of the fire somewhere comfortable. It's all I could ever ask for him. So, in memory of our long happy years together, here's a picture taken just a week before he went on travels of his own:

Tufter, age 16: he beat me to it

Getting Organised

Since I have no choice but to spend five days a week in London at the moment, weekends are precious.

I have a ridiculous amount of organising to do, but fun bits first: selling, donating and storing possessions. Like most people I know, I have much more 'stuff' than I need, and this is an opportunity to streamline. So the majority of it is going, one way or another. Thankfully my friends are only too happy to oblige: Photo album of things I'm getting rid of

I have a strict set of criteria for deciding what gets boxed up and placed in the coal cellar:
- Was it a gift from someone I like?
- When will I use it next?
- How strong are the memories associated with it?
- How much would it cost to replace vs how much could I sell it for?

So that's about 10% then... the rest is out of here.

Let me know if you've got your eye on something!

What to do with the house?

I have a house in Wales. I've had it for a little over four years, and there's really no equity to speak of in it. But the mortgage is cheap and I rent out a couple of bedrooms to lodgers, who between them help me to cover costs.

So I have two big reasons to keep the house:
1. To have some sort of secure base at 'home' and somewhere to keep that little bundle of valuables that are important to me for sentimental reasons.
2. If I tried to sell it, it would likely cost me most of my savings and take forever!

Plus, if I'm not there, I can let out a third bedroom and cover all the costs.

Now renting to lodgers does not always run smoothly. In the last four years, I've had to kick out two of the blighters for offences of indoor smoking and outdoor noise-making. So leaving them unattended is a worry.

Of course, there's the cat too. He owns that house and everyone in it, so he needs to be provided for.

What to do?

I could try to continue remotely. Difficult - how would I know when something was wrong? And if a neighbour reported an issue, how could I judge the offence? I really want to escape all the ties of home while I'm gone, not stress myself out about them.

Well another option is to hire an lettings agent. They would take a hefty commission in return for an impersonal service recruiting, vetting and managing lodgers. To be honest, all my experience of lettings agents has been really, really horrible. They always seemed to be out to screw me over as a tenant - claiming money for cleaning kitchen cupboards, for repainting doors or just for speaking to them. So it just doesn't sit right with me.

A better option is to find a friend, neighbour or relative who was happy to take it on. I have no idea whether there's anyone willing out there...

Feeling ready to go!

I had a quiet (well, perhaps not quiet in the traditional sense but lovely nonetheless) family Christmas at my Aunt's house this year. And my grandparents did an extraordinary job in finding me this book:

 

I've been flicking through it and, on top of recipes designed specifically for use in a VW campervan, it has all kinds of tips on how to prepare for travelling in the van, how to scavenge for food and how to have fun with eggs (apparently a cliff top is ideal for this purpose). So well done Nanny and Gampa!

I've also been looking into pet passports. I have an old cat at home. In fact he's lying across my chest purring right now, in a vain attempt to restrict my typing on the laptop. And it seems that I could quite easily bring him along on the European leg of the trip. But I've been trying to decide whether than would be fair... he's 16 years old now, an old boy who's really used to his home comforts. I can't help thinking that it's just too late to try and get him into the camping lifestyle. It'll break my heart to leave him at home for so long, knowing that I'm unlikely to ever see him again, but it surely has to be the best thing for him.

Well today it happened

We were gathered into a corner of the office and told that five people from our small team were being made redundant. Of course there's the usual consultation period and so on, but it's basically been decided.

I immediately grabbed the boss and revealed my travel plans.

So now it's out in the open... and hopefully I can save someone from losing their job.

No going back now!

Feeling bad about work

I don't need to hand in my notice at work until the 9th January - my contract only requires 1 month. I could in theory tell my employers about the plan early but I don't want to cause any upset, so for now it remains my little secret.

The problem is I'm suddenly getting all this gushing praise from the senior management.

The CEO of my company, based in the US, has just sat me down to talk about 'how things are going'. He told me that there may be some redundancies announced in December but that they hadn't yet made their final decisions.

In the same breath, he told me that I would be 100% safe from those redundancies - that I'm very valuable to them and that I have an extremely bright future with the company. He observed that I seemed rather relaxed so I said, "there are always options", and he threw his arms into the air, crying out, "I know but please don't take them - please, please, stay with us here!".

So I chickened out of telling him.

I couldn't bear to stay working beyond my scheduled date but now I feel like I'm letting people down and, I suppose, missing out on opportunities. Is it possible that they'll actually guilt me into staying!?