2025 Round Up, and 2026 Plans

Oh my! I’ve just realised I haven’t written on here since the end of August (Jay’s done a few posts, but clearly I’ve been very lax). It’s not like we haven’t been doing anything, but it’s mainly been normal day to day stuff, so I never feel inspired to write about it.

When I mentioned to Jay I was going to write this 2025 round up, he said ‘but, we haven’t done anything’. It does feel like that sometimes, but the beauty of an end of year round up – it reminds you of just how much stuff you did do. So, please indulge me as I take a look back at what we did in 2025, and a give you quick idea of our very vague plans for 2026.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ll know that our motorhome adventures have become less frequent and much shorter in length these days. Gone are our several month long trips, as we’re now needed back home to support our parents. However we do still get out and about in Zagan (our motorhome) and this year we managed 57 nights away in him. Seeing this reminds me how lucky we are being financially free, because if we were still at work I very much doubt we’ve have managed half of that.

We’ve also been away for 46 nights away without Zagan. So, in total we managed to be away for over three months of the year, just not all together in one go. As our trips are much shorter at the moment, when it comes to going abroad we tend to fly and stay in an AirBnB or similar, so we can maximise our time in the sun.

That said, for our first trip of the year in January we opted for a week in Whitby in an AirBnB. The cliff top campsite we’ve used in the past has hard standing pitches available all year, but there’s no view – other than of caravans – and at £210 for a week, we found an apartment overlooking the sea didn’t cost that much more.

In need of some winter sun, in February we flew over to Mojacar in Spain for a couple of weeks to stay with my brother who lives there. While he and his wife enjoyed a long weekend in Seville, we dog sat their pooch Biggie, and with our hire car, we explored the local area as well stopping for a couple of nights in Santa Pola before we flew home.

Back home Jay smashed out a masters PB at Retford half marathon, before we both took part in the Nottingham 10k race along with lots of members of our running club, the Kimberley and District Striders. I unexpectedly found myself the cover girl for the race with my photo splashed on every participant’s results email – I expect the photographer was asked to get a pic of an old woman who looks like she’s enjoying herself.

Our running club is our main social network when we’re back home. We attend training sessions a couple of nights a week, and you’ll usually find a few of us at a Parkrun on Saturday mornings. This year I managed to take part in 42 parkruns, several of those were volunteering as the runs can’t happen without volunteers marshaling, barcode scanning, time keeping etc. We also volunteered at this year’s Robin Hood half marathon, handing out race numbers before we ran it too.

Over the last year we’ve both held voluntary roles on the clubs committee. As web manager Jay is responsible for the club website and all of its social media posts – and there are a lot of them. I’m the Treasurer, looking after the club’s accounts day to day, and also trying to boost funds with grants from local councils etc. It’s been a steep learning curve, but I think I just about know what I’m doing now, so we’re both staying in our roles for the next year.

It was the club’s 40th Anniversary this year. In the summer it held a huge party for current and former members. It was great to see so many of them and learn more about the club’s history. Lots of us also took part in a local parkrun flooding the course with maroon and silver, our club colours.

Jay donned the club colours in April to sweat his way around the London Marathon for the third time. After months of training for it, sadly the crazy heatwave put paid to any plans for a personal best time. He dug deep and got round in just over three hours, which I am still in awe of.

Our big trip of the year in Zagan was a tour of Scotland. When we’re out in the van doing stuff, we love to write about it – so the blog posts came thick and fast over the time we were away. It had been a few years since we’d been north of the border. We were a tad dubious after hearing how motorhomes aren’t welcome on the NC500, how overrun Skye is by them and how we wouldn’t be welcome anywhere.

It couldn’t have been further from the truth, although we did steer clear of the big attractions. We had a great time mixing up campsites, paid aires and a bit of free camping while pottering around the south west coast and the Isle of Arran. We spotted deer, otters, eagles and lots of seals. We enjoyed sunshine, as well as the odd shower, climbed Goatfell, ran parkruns, toured historic sites, slept on an old airbase, stone skimmed on the world championship course and loads of other stuff. It reminded us why we love touring in Zagan so much.

The summer heatwave meant my nephew’s wedding in June was baked in sunshine. We haven’t had an excuse to dress up for a while, so Jay bought his first suit in over a decade. I pulled together an outfit from my favourite shop – the local charity shop.

After another baking hot run at the Derby Ramathon half marathon, we headed back to Whitby, this time in Zagan. The Camping and Caravan club open a Temporary Holiday Site on the college playing fields during the start of the school holidays. At £15 a night it is a bargain, so we tucked ourselves into a corner of the site for just over two weeks, before stopping in to see our friends in Bridlington on the way home.

We enjoyed a long hot summer at home. One of our day trips was to watch a set of cooling towers being blown up – what an experience. The towers started to collapse before we heard the explosive boom. Then the dust settled and they were gone, very surreal. We found out after that we’d witnessed a Guinnes world record for the most towers simultaneously demolished.

Our summer project was our ten year old (and second hand when we bought it) kitchen which was in need of some TLC. We priced up a range of options from a new kitchen to a door refresh. However, we finally realised we could remove a damaged door turning that cupboard into shelves, replace the failing fridge freezer and cooker hood, plus a couple of other bits for just a few hundred pounds – instead of the thousands we thought we’d need to spend – we were very happy bunnies.

We only live about 20 miles away from Sherwood Center Parcs, but neither of us have ever been. I went for a mid-week break with my girlfriends, and thoroughly enjoyed it. We’re keeping our eyes on their late deals page and hope to visit together in 2026. My swimming costume hardly had chance to dry before it was thrown into my suitacase for a couple of weeks in Menorca.

We booked a package deal with Jet2 to a self catering apartment. We cancelled the airport transfers and booked a hire car for the fortnight instead, which was surprisingly around the same price. Our balcony looked out over the best place on the island to watch the sunset (according to Google maps). It was lovely to spend the days exploring the island, then come back and sit on the balcony watching the sunset over Mallorca, and the other sunset watchers too.

As well as hiking, running, snorkeling, visiting historic sights and eating like kings, while we were on Menorca Jay took part in a trail race. The trail was a path used by horses which goes around the entire island. Some bits were OK, other parts, let’s just say they were slightly more technical, and I was very pleased I wasn’t taking part.

On the day, Jay, and hundreds of others, were taken by bus to a series of three starting points. Jay’s was 19 kilometres from where I was sat, near the finish, eating pastries and reading a book in the sun. He phoned me to say he’d fallen over – fortunately his elbow took most of the impact so he was able to carry on. A visit to the first aid tent patched him up and also used most of my Spanish I’ve learned over the past 1500 days on Duolingo.

We returned to the UK to cold, short days. It didn’t take us long to book ourselves flights for some winter sun in 2026. My other nephew also had a flight booked, only his was one way. He emigrated to Australia in November, so we had another excuse for a family get together.

The winter has been quite tough as my Dad’s dementia has been getting much worse and Jay’s Dad has been undergoing some medical investigations. My Mum also has dementia and is in a care home. She is very well looked after by the amazing staff, so I get to pop over to see her and we just have fun together (even though she doesn’t really know who I am). My Dad is still at home and has carers in each day to help him stay independant. So, all our future plans always have our parents in mind, which often mean last minute booking.

As it’s New Years Eve, we’re looking towards 2026. Our plans include flying to Nerja, Spain to stay in an apartment for a month from January. I’d also love to take Zagan over to northern Spain in August to see the solar eclipse, but can’t book anything just yet. There will be lots more running, volunteering and helping our parents.

I expect this time next year I’ll be writing another round up and be equally surprised at what we’ve done in another year where we’ve not done much!

Have a great evening everyone and here’s to a wonderful 2026.

Ju x