We’ve been a bit quiet

Time has flown by for us these past two months. It’s only when I looked at this blog yesterday did I realise we haven’t written anything since August. Although that isn’t strictly true – we have been writing stuff, just not on here.

When we returned from our tour around Anglesey it was back to work for us – not actual work, we haven’t done a nine to five since we reached financial freedom – but book writing work. During COVID sales of our Motorhome Touring Handbook took off massively as folks rushed to buy motorhomes and campervans for COVID-secure holidays (remember those crazy times?). Not long after we saw lots of questions on motorhome groups about how to use these new vans, then once borders opened up again, how to go abroad in them.

We not only travel slowly, but we also write slowly. A couple of years, and several rewrites, later, we’d distilled everything we’ve learned in our time on the road in Europe into a new book called Motorhome Europe. Hopefully it will help answer the questions people don’t like to ask for fear of sounding daft, and also give more motorhome owners the confidence to venture abroad in their van. The final push – editing, proofing etc – has been taking place since we got back and we’ve just clicked the button to publish it, so we’re very excited.

In between book writing, we’ve been doing some running both with our club and at races. Jay has been flying with personal best times in his latest 10k and half marathon races, he’s also tried his hand at pacing in a couple of races – helping others to achieve their running goals.

We’ve also had a great new business open in the shop we rent out, which is at the front of the house we live in. Ziggy’s Emporium sells a fantastic range of gifts, and we’ve been working with it’s owner to help secure some Government ‘leveling up’ funding to make improvements to the building.

For my birthday weekend in September, we headed down to Victoria Park in Leicester for Radio 2 in The Park. Our camping chairs came in very handy as a base while we flitted between throwing shapes in the DJ tent with the likes of Vernon Kay and Gary Davis, singing along with Sam Ryder, Simply Red and of course Kylie.

At the start of October, while our friend JT kindly proof-read our final book copy, we flew over to Ibiza for a holiday. We haven’t done a package holiday in well over a decade, so we decided to keep some independence by booking a hire car rather than the holiday bus airport transfer, for our stay in the resort of Santa Eulalia.

We’d never heard of the place when we booked it, but it turns out to be Ibiza’s third largest resort after San Antoni and Ibiza Town, but it was a world away from those two. A beautiful marina, with some very expensive looking boats, a sandy beach with crystal clear waters, restaurants and not a night club in sight.

We had a fantastically relaxing time getting to know the local fishes as we snorkeled around various bays across the island. The hire car was very handy for getting around, and a lot smaller than a motorhome. We did see a few motorhomes over there, mainly Spanish registered and free camping which isn’t surprising as the one campsite we did see was very expensive at around €80 a night in high season.

We kept up with our running, mainly first thing in the morning as it was a tad toasty. Jay even entered a race over there, coming third in his age category at the Toni Costa Balanzat.

Arriving back home, our tenant has given notice on the house that is attached to our ‘Cooler’. We originally designed the Cooler as a bolt-hole for us to stop in between motorhome trips, and for the first few years it was just that because we were on the road way more than we were at home.

We were so thankful it was sat here waiting for us when COVID hit, as some full-time motorhomers struggled to find places to stay as campsites closed during lockdown. We never expected to spend so much time here, but our lives have changed over these last couple of years. We now need to spend more time in the UK, so we’ve decided to move back into the main house – which will be very strange after over eight years in our tiny home. The Cooler will get itself a makeover and hopefully appear on AirBnB in the future as it’s perfect for short stays.

The end of 2023 will be filled with redecorating the house and the Cooler and sourcing furniture as we got rid of most of ours when we downsized – I’ll be hitting Freecycle as soon as we have the keys back. Zagan the motorhome has been drained down, but will be having a full-service and MOT as well as some new front tyres, so he’ll be ready to go in the spring. With all this happening, and not much to write about, we might go quiet again for a while, but as Arnie (almost) said: “we’ll be back”!

Ju x