In no particular order-

Why? – This was easy given our sense of adventure. We’d both had a few hectic years with parent illnesses and changing jobs. Claire had to resign from her roles as her mum’s decline with Alzeihmers took up most of her time, visiting Buxton, what seemed to be every other day to deal with the day to day issues. Her Dad also being diagnosed with Vascular Demetia laterly added to the strain!. Steve’s Dads major stroke resigned him to a nursing home. So with all parents now passing by mid 2018 to release ourselves from these tasks and look for new challenges was a no brainer.

How we were to take up our new lifestyle was decided fairly early. We already had a 4×4 and caravan and knew how cumbersome it would be travelling and putting down the anchors every other night. The motorhome it had to be. You can pullover in most places and be having a cup of tea within ten mins!!! The only issue was what layout, age and of course the cost!!

Financing the journey was not as easy as it seems. Do we need to sell the house? Part with the Apartments or could we get away with renting? What about the cost of storage and the different insurances. It was a minefield to consider but we both wanted to keep hold of the assets if we could. I suppose the main decider was that we could finance the motorhome with Claires’ legacy from her parents house so it was just whether we could live within the rental income and what would it be!

The Motorhome search was the first objective once we’d sold our beloved Coachman caravan and 4 x 4. We spent 6 months trawling the internet, visiting showrooms to establish what we wanted. We concluded that an end bedroom with a fixed bed was a must as we’d spent too many nights putting the caravan bed up and down!! What a pain that was! We also established that the German brands i.e. Hymer, Burstner etc were the better quality build and most reliable. So the final confirmation of layout and brands was to be made at the NEC Motorhome show in Oct 2018. We booked ourselves into a small local hotel for one evening and commenced the challenge of trawling the many halls and what seemed to be thousands of Moho’s. We started to understand the various terms and styles of motorhomes and decided we would look for an “A” class. A moho that is in one piece and not a low level which is a moho that has a seperate driving cab and habitation pod on the back. The insulation layer is much better on a “A” class but at the end of the days its down to personal taste.

To our shock we did something we hadn’t set out to do!! We bought a brand new Pilote motorhome. The layout was as we wanted and the supplier had a show discount which brought the price slightly above the level we had agreed on. So a new Moho, which we knew where it had been, no gremlins except new ones meant we were more than happy!!! Hip Hip Hooray, the journey was beginning and now we couldn’t turn back!!!! The only downside was we had to wait for 6 months for delivery. I know what you’re saying it’s not German but the price did swing it considerably.

A big consideration was Samuel James, Steves son, Whilst we’d decided what we wanted to do before the end of 2018, where Sam was to live or stay was top of our priority list. We are not that cruel that we would put him out on the street before we began our new venture. He had decided that coming up to 26 it was high time for him to get his own place, if he could!!! Coming up to the end of 2018 he’d looked for sometime and whilst he wanted a house he was tempted by a new apartment in Woodley that would be ready for moving in by April 2019. Little did we know what a problem he would have with not least the red tape of finding a mortgage, dealing with a stubborn solicitor but the basics of the sellers not having the final plans passed due to outside cladding on a bike shed he was not going to use!! It took till end July/Beg August for the work to be completed and the plans to be passed. He finally moved into his new pad at the end August bank holiday weekend. One proud new owner who was now released from the burden of living with his father and Step-Mum. He could now do things without being asked what he was up to, hahaha!! Parents prerogative!

Other things we had to consider and arrange were- Communication (making sure our phone contracts were up to date and the best for the journey)- Work (When would Steve have to work till to finish paying the bills)-WIFI(We needed a wifi unit and the unlimited data card to allow us to have constance contact and also allow us to use our existing Amazon firestick in the Moho)-We originally decided to tow our car but due to the difficulty of a)transporting and b) parking when on a European site we change our plan to 2 x Electric Bikes plus a trailer for the dogs. Whilst Archie is only 5 and fit to run, Florence at 11 was not and we couldn’t leave her behind.

The dogs were a major consideration due to the uncertainty of Brexit and the changes in procedure. They need rabies jabs which they had in Nov 2018 to last 3 years. Coupled with the lack of Sams moving date, therefore our departure date we took it upon ourselves to have them blood tested for the level of rabies vaccination within their bodies. If we didn’t leave till Nov this would have been procedure but if they failed then we would need to have to have further rabies jabs and blood tests done again. This procedure has a minimum timescale of 3 months therefore if they had failed at the beg of Nov we wouldn’t have got away till Mid Feb 2020. A nightmare especially if we’d rented the house!!!! Needless to say we had the blood tests done and they failed, horror scenario!!! The vet then informed us that 50% of dogs fail on their first test. We had them rabies jabbed again with a view that if we had to re-blood test them at least we’d be away before Xmas. This whole procedure cost us approx £350, not cheap for our 4 legged friends!!!

Having an apartment in Nerja Spain has allowed us to taste the Foreign experience for the past 3 years. Bitten by the bug of warm weather and a new culture certainly wet our appetite for further ventures. However we realised staying in one place was not for us.

Spending years in our individual pasts travelling overseas, Caravanning or camping in the UK meant we both had an affinity to the outdoor life.

On top of this we have some very good friends Julie and Tony who had been travelling in their new motorhome around Europe for the past 2 years who wet our appetite even more so:-

• We started to think outside the box
• What do we want to achieve?
• Why tie ourselves down to one place?
• We are still young enough to travel all over Europe or do we want to travel further?
• We had recently lost all of our parents, which freed up a lot of time and responsibility
• The children are self dependent and as we write this we have no grand children
• Could we manage with the financial risk?
• How long do we want to go for?

It would be a major transition in our life but would it be worth the risk?

What we had to consider?

• How do we travel?
• Do we buy a vehicle?
• What do we do with the house? Sell or Rent?
• How do we fund everything?
• Where is Sam going to Live?
• What do we do with the Spanish properties?

So much to consider but in principle we were alive to the idea so the thinking caps were on!

Here starteth the next chapter in our lives!