It took eight weeks to fix our campervan after the Greek tragedy and what a long eight weeks they were. For two of those weeks the ‘van was making its way back from Greece, another two weeks were spent sitting around while firstly the body shop did the estimate, then the insurance company assessed the damage and then we waited for parts. The repair took three weeks and the final week was spent in daily anticipation that the ‘van would be fixed only to be informed sometime mid-afternoon that there was another problem. One day it was the airbag, another a mechanic put too much weight on the oil filler and broke it off, another day the ABS fault was lighting up. Every day we were packed and ready to roll but each day the new fault required more parts and another wait on tenterhooks.
We were so pleased to get our blue Renault back and we went straight from the body shop to a campsite. We would have camped in any weather but as it turned out we were blessed with glorious and sunny weather and the Cheshire countryside proved to be perfect for a few days cycling. But first we spent a sunny afternoon cleaning the accumulation of Greek and garage dust from the van interior. I emptied every cupboard reminding myself what goodies we had left in there, having a little weep when I found the tins of giant Greek beans in tomato sauce and the bottles of dark Greek olive oil. Despite the mixed emotions, somehow this process healed the weeks of separation and made the ‘van feel like ours again.
In Cheshire we discovered The Whitegate Way, a 10 km cycle route on an old railway line and we cycled around Delamere Forest. We relaxed and took life easy feeling that our life was back on track again.
We followed this with a weekend camping with friends on the Staffordshire / Cheshire border and then more sociable camping in Derbyshire. We didn’t travel far and we didn’t need to, we were just content to have our campervan back where it belongs.
Back on the road again 