April 2020 – Back on the road again

The Culture of Vanlife book review

A book just about campervans! You can imagine just how much that appealed to me. I was lucky enough to be chosen as a winner of The Rolling Home book, ‘The Culture of Vanlife’ in a Twitter competition. If you’re thinking of buying this for yourself or think that it might make a great present for the campervan lover in your life, here’s my review.

Firstly I wanted a bit of background about The Rolling Home. In 2016 they published a photographic book and today they are producing regular journals which are a platform for campervan owners from around the world to share their passion for living in a van through a collection of stories, illustrations, interviews and technical advice. The Rolling Home story involves Calum Creasey, Lauren Smith and a 1996 VW Transporter. They have been travelling on and off since 2010, creating their dream van on a low budget with an eye for style and finding their own community. You can read more about them on their website.

The Culture of Vanlife is a delightful book to flick through. It is packed with beautiful drawings and photographs that make you want to start travelling. With an eye for an evocative image, you could just gaze at the photographs and cartoons in this hefty book and be happy.

But how do the words stack up? Once you start reading you find a collection of essays and chapters by different writers that aim to explore the culture of vanlife through the ideas and people that make it. On the first page they sum up their way of thinking about living in a campervan, seeing them as, ‘Catalysts for happiness.’

There is plenty of variety here. The first chapter discusses the perils of social media against the urge to be nomadic and appreciate the present. I was interested in Mattias Wieles’ chapter about vanlife and minimalism. Mattias and his girlfriend travelled for a year in a yellow van packed with everything they owned.

‘We sold everything, threw out all financial burdens, cut all redundancies out of our lives. All our possessions fitted in our little van now; ties had been cut, jobs left behind, subscriptions to magazines and the gym cancelled. We said goodbye and felt free as never before.’

Mattias writes that a shift in how they viewed their trip happened when they left Europe and adapted to having limited opportunities to buy food and fill up with water and they found a simpler life. He sums up perfectly how living in a campervan eliminates anything unnecessary from your life until there is no hiding from who you really are. With no fancy job, the latest smart phone or new clothes to shield you, vulnerability can materialise. Mattias writes honestly about how the road changes you and that in this simpler world there is just the earth and the people you love.

There is, of course, a chapter on the vans, although no mention of the vehicles I have owned, a VW T4 and T5 or a Renault Master … enough said! Let’s move onto interior design, where readers can see there is no right way to do it and everyone has a different idea of a perfect campervan. If you are a self-builder you will enjoy the case studies. There is something for everyone here, a 4×4 Merc, a VW T25, a small Japanese van, some technical info, a van with a wood burning stove and one with a roof-top bed.

Chapter Three is about vanlife people and readers are invited to meet the ‘van dwellers.’ ‘The Adrenaline Junky’ fills her camper with kit for activities. ‘The Digital Nomad’ is a working recluse who is always online. ‘The Hipsters’ live in a Mercedes Sprinter and have a herb garden on the dash. ‘The Eco Warrior’ has a recycled Transit van and ‘The New-Age Hippies’ have a converted horsebox which they share with their rescue dogs. ‘The Golden Oldies’ have a coach built ‘van and travel around Europe spending the children’s inheritance. These are just for fun; I don’t recognise myself in any of these vanlife profiles and there is still no mention of a Renault Master!

The real strength of The Culture of Vanlife is in the personal stories it tells. Matt and Steph talk honestly about full-time vanlife as a young couple who spend six months a year on the road

‘For us, van living created a very intimate and close relationship. Disagreements are dealt with immediately and we usually end up laughing about it an hour later! As a result we have become excellent at communicating and knowing how the other feels, sometimes even without speaking.’

The thoughts on solo van travel might touch you; the van owners who make music and busk on their travels might inspire you; or reading about the family in a converted bus might encourage you to reconsider your life’s trajectory.

‘In Norse mythology, Valhalla is the great hall that warriors go to after falling in battle … there is a lesser-known land, Vanhalla. Some say it is a fictional place, where camper vans and their inhabitants go to when they no longer travel.’

I hope I won’t be ending up in Vanhalla soon but this fantastic idea introduces a list of favourite places to travel, from Europe to South America, India and Canada. There are stories from New Zealand and rugged British Columbia. You will find plenty here to inspire your own trip.

This is a book that asks questions and tries to get beyond the hashtag campervan lifestyle on social media. The book reflects on the tension between the simplicity of vanlife that so many people seek and digital connections that allow remote campervan fans to reach out to others. The authors find both real communities and those in cyberspace and consider their value.

Yes, this is a book that will look beautiful on your coffee table and any campervan owner could buy it to browse and learn from. If you are looking for a gift, I would suggest you buy it for that reflective and discerning friend who is yearning for a campervan. If they sit down and read some of these stories they will either buy a ‘van and set off on their own journey the next day or realise the lifestyle isn’t for them. Either way they will thank you for the present.

If you want to know more about The Rolling Home you can sign up for their newsletter here.

An abundance of days out from Devizes Camping & Caravanning Club Site in Wiltshire

Wiltshire 3 — Delightful topiary in Bradford-on-Avon

We didn’t know in February that in less than a month the country would be locked down but with the hindsight we now have I am so pleased we got away for a ten-day campervan holiday while coronavirus made its way across the world to the UK. We toured around Wiltshire for most of that time and for five nights stopped at the Camping and Carvanning Club site at Devizes. Our average stay on a campsite is less than two nights, so five nights is a chunk of time for us to settle anywhere but in February open campsites were not easy to find and the Devizes site turned out to be a great base with lots of options.

On the way to Devizes we drove up to the high car park near The White Horse of Westbury. It was a windy day and our walk to see the horse carved out of the chalk, although now covered in concrete, and around Bratton Camp blew away the cobwebs after a long drive. On the northern edge of Salisbury Plain, the views from the 17th century Westbury White Horse stretch for miles.

We walked, took the bus and also drove from the campsite. Here are the places we visited.

Taking the bus from the campsite

Leaving the Blue Bus at the campsite, we used the local buses to visit a couple of attractions.

Opposite The Three Magpies pub, at the entrance to the campsite you can pick up a bus to Devizes. Alternatively, a short walk over the canal bridge and along the quiet lane takes you to Seend. Here you can catch the number 49 bus to Trowbridge in one direction and to Avebury and even Swindon in the other.

Bradford-on-Avon – Taking the 49 to Trowbridge, we picked up a train to Bradford-on-Avon on a day of bright sunshine and showers. Visiting this pretty town sitting on a steep hillside by the River Avon was perhaps the highlight of our time in Wiltshire. With stone buildings that are warm and elegant and charming cobbled streets, Bradford-on-Avon has plenty of old weaver’s cottages from its time as a cloth-making town. Overlooking the Town Bridge, which has an old lock-up perched on it with a weather vane known as the Bradford gudgeon, we found Il Ponte Italian restaurant, a great choice for coffee and lunch.

Wiltshire — The long flight of Caen Hill Locks

Away from the town centre we explored the enchanting and strangely proportioned Saxon Church of St Laurence with narrow arched doorways and windows and crossed the river to reach the 14^th century Title Barn. With sunlight filtering through the slit windows of this monumental building I gazed up at the impressive timber roof, the stories from the past echoing among the beams.

We climbed steep lanes and steps to the highest buildings in the town that have views across the Avon valley to Salisbury Plain and The White Horse. At the end of one lane, perched on the hillside we found the splendidly situated medieval chapel of St Mary Tory. Tory here means hill [tor] and we looked over the town from what was once a pilgrimage site between Glastonbury and Malmesbury. The chapel was restored in the 19th century and more recently the east window was replaced with modern colourful stained glass.

Avebury – Using the bus in the opposite direction we spent a day walking seven miles around the many Neolithic sites of Avebury. After walking around the huge circular bank and ditch with impressive standing stones, we walked to West Kennet Long Barrow, passing the mystery that is Silbury Hill on the way. This long barrow is my favourite site out of the many at Avebury and on a fine sunny day the views from West Kennet Long Barrow were worth the exertion. A burial site for many individuals, along with pottery, beads and a Neolithic dagger, large sarsen stones hide the entrance to the barrow’s 42-foot-long passage which has two side chambers and another at the end. We returned to Avebury by East Kennett and the Sanctuary, another baffling site that you can be creative imagining what it was used for.

Walking from the campsite

The Kennet and Avon Canal runs alongside the Devizes campsite and an easy and enjoyable walk of about two miles each way will take you to Caen Hill Locks, 29 locks rising 237 feet. It is an exhausting trip for boat owners, taking the best part of a day to travel up or down this row of locks and you are bound to spot one or two as you walk.

Carry on a mile or so more and you reach Devizes. We were there on market day which always adds an extra bustle to a town. We admired the outdoor stalls and then walked through the indoor market which has a wide array of goods from cakes and cards to wooden crafts. Chatting to one stall holder he recommended Times Square for the best coffee in this agreeable town. On market day it seemed that everyone had decided to enjoy a break in this friendly cafe but it is big enough to accommodate everyone and the stall holder was right, it was good coffee.

We visited The Wiltshire Museum to see its exceptional collection from the many ancient sites in the county. If you are confused about the timeline of Wiltshire’s history then this is the place to help you get it straight in your head. If you don’t want to immerse yourself in local history then the tour of the Victorian Wadworth Brewery might be more your glass of ale. After walking back along the canal [or you can take the bus] a visit to the Three Magpies pub next to the campsite for a glass of Wadworth was a great way to round off the day .

Walk in the opposite direction and you reach The Barge Inn after just over a mile.

Days out in our campervan from the campsite

As well as walking and taking the bus, we took our campervan out for a couple of days.

Stonehenge – We last visited Stonehenge in our first campervan in 2006. The stones are the same but the organisation of the site has changed massively since then. Today the visitor’s centre is one mile away from the circle and one of the roads alongside the stones has been closed. We purchased timed tickets in advance and arrived at the large car park [with dedicated motorhome parking] with a comfortable amount of time to visit the exhibition before taking the free shuttle as far as Fargo Plantation. This enabled us to approach Stonehenge across the green pasture land, skylarks singing above us and the stones in the distance. Of course, the scene isn’t as it was in the Neolithic era but it is more peaceful than it was.

In 2006 we paid extra to be able to walk among the stones as the sun set, a truly magical experience. Today, the stones are surrounded by a low fence and with controlled visitor numbers everyone has space to walk around the stones and get an uninterrupted view from different angles and in different light. There is no doubt that Stonehenge is a popular place to visit and given the limitations, English Heritage are doing a good job at enabling everyone to enjoy and understand the structure. For me, Stonehenge remains a special place and I look forward to coming back when the A303 is out of sight.

Wiltshire 4 — The huge stones at Stonehenge

Marlborough & Savernake Forest – If you want somewhere to stretch your legs, enjoy a spell of window shopping followed by some people watching in a cosy cafe then Marlborough, with the second widest high street in the UK, will fit the bill.

Nearby is Savernake Forest, an expanse of woodland with a network of footpaths, deer and a remarkable collection of ancient oak trees, each with a name. In the mixed woodland, with so many paths, we were soon disorientated and only knew where we were when we stumbled upon the sign for one of these gnarled oak trees. We found The Saddle, The Cathedral and Old Paunch; these trees already have character but knowing their names made me consider the features of each tree and admire the ridged bark and dripping moss.

Lacock Abbey & village – Owned and managed by the National Trust, Lacock Abbey is a 13^th century abbey that was converted to a family home in the 16^th century. If you recognise the building and the village this is probably because you have seen it on a film or TV programme. Downton Abbey, Cranford, Harry Potter and others have all been filmed here. The car park isn’t huge but it does have some large spaces for motorhomes.

The house has plenty of personal touches that retain an intimacy in the rambling building and there are knowledgeable guides in most room. William Henry Fox Talbot lived here and in 1835 captured the first photographic negative of one of Lacock Abbey’s oriel windows. You can see this image and others in the small museum by the entrance that tells the interesting story of photography.

Wiltshire 2 — The courtyard at Lacock Abbey is charming

Devizes Camping and Caravan Club site is an open and green site with friendly and helpful wardens. The facilities would welcome an update but are totally satisfactory.

I realise that none of us can travel anywhere just at the moment due to coronavirus but I hope this post and these ideas might contribute to your planning for future trips while we can only dream. Happy future travels!

Scenes from Morecambe in a pandemic

2017 July August Scotland (118) Stromness — Early morning in Stromness, Orkney

Three years ago we spent a couple of months without our campervan while it was being repatriated from Greece and repaired after a bit of a bump. Loyal readers will remember that being without our campervan was agony. Of course, in retrospect those two months don’t seem so tough … we could still travel and we tried different ways of taking holidays while we were without our Blue Bus and I learnt that nothing compares to being away in a campervan. The coronavirus pandemic lock down is a whole new scenario, one that is shared worldwide; we are all staying at home so that Covid 19 patients don’t overwhelm the NHS.

I know there are people far worse off than me and that I have a lot to be thankful for. We have a private garden that I never expected to give so much attention to and although we will be hit financially I am confident we can cope. I am used to being away from friends and family for months at a time and don’t feel lonely, what I have lost is the rhythm of my year. It is Easter weekend as I write this and we have spent this time in Scotland pretty much every year since 1979.

I have always enjoyed seizing the day, making the most of the time I have knowing I might not be here tomorrow. I am finding it tough to have to watch, what feels to me like the apocalypse approaching, from my sofa. In my imagination I always pictured that when the warning sirens rang Anthony and I would leap into our campervan and drive to the mountains to witness the end of the world.

As much as I love Morecambe and feel so glad that we can walk to the sea, I only really expected to be here for about half the year! I can see how shallow I am, there are people living with much greater hardship than not being able to travel in a campervan but the loss I am feeling and the fear that I may never be able to go camping again is real. Reading about how others are struggling I find that my anxiety has a name, it is anticipatory grief. I hope that with a label for how I am feeling I can maybe deal with it [I am bringing myself back to the present right now, looking around I can see a futon, some herb seedlings, a candle, a cushion and a roll of sellotape].

In the past I have worked through anxiety by writing but for almost three weeks I have been silent, unable to write down any words. Sitting in front of the laptop is where I spend my time planning campervan trips or writing travel articles. This association is so strong, I haven’t been able to face the unkind reminder of what I can’t do and I have sought out other ways to occupy myself. On top of this my embarrassingly self-pitying inner voice asks, ‘What is the point of your ramblings when the world is ending.’

I am taking the writing one small step at a time. Here are some pictures of life in Morecambe over the last three weeks.

Holding back the tears

I don’t need sympathy, I am just trying to be honest; it is a pretty good day if I don’t start weeping about something. There is no doubt there is plenty to be distressed about; in no particular order, here are some things that make me cry:

People all over the world being very ill and dying and health services unable to cope with the numbers
Favourite small businesses facing financial difficulties due to the temporary closure
People being judgemental and spiteful about the actions of others
Empty supermarket shelves
Finding strong bread flour on the supermarket shelves for the first time in three weeks
Watching the oystercatchers on Morecambe Bay
The moment after waking when I remember that nothing is normal anymore
Those tormenting inner thoughts, ‘Where would we be camping now?’
Not being able to meet up with our son and daughter-in-law
Being so anxious and tense for most of the day that I go to sleep with a headache almost every night

A small scene from life in Morecambe …

I am waiting in our local Co-op, at a safe distance from all the other shoppers, clutching my milk and essential hot cross buns. At the checkout is an elderly woman. The assistant was calm and patient as the woman slowly placed her shopping by the till and she asked her to move back to the line marked on the floor. The elderly customer looked confused and shuffled to the side, although she had a stick she was more comfortable with the counter to help her stand while her shopping was rung through and bagged. The assistant noticed and smiled, ‘Oh you need the counter, that’s fine you can stand there.’ Once the shopping was totted up, the customer got her purse out. ‘We are only taking cards now, not cash,’ the assistant reminded her; she was clearly a woman who usually paid in cash. The customer understood and fumbled for a little used card and with help tried to use it contactless. After several assisted attempts, the assistant relented and let her pay in cash. The woman looked as if the world was spinning way too fast and trying to throw her off, everything had changed, she had seen the news but hadn’t realised how this would affect her weekly shop at our little Co-op. A lump in my throat I hid my face, desperately wanting to go over, take her arm and offer comfort.

Connecting with friends

For the first couple of weeks our What’s App groups were buzzing, everyone checking in on everyone else. The novelty of social distancing is now wearing off, no one has anything to say and I can go all day without my phone pinging.

My Twitter friends have been supportive, as always and often make me smile. I find Facebook a bit more of a challenge and although useful for connecting, I limit my usage. We have an inter-continental quiz game going on with our friends in Australia that is getting pleasantly competitive.

We have chatted to six households at one time using Zoom, our friends in little boxes on our laptop screen, sitting on top of each other like they are on University Challenge. Although it is hard to have much of a conversation with around ten people online together and the ‘meeting’ bears no resemblance to seeing them in real life, it is lovely to connect with them all and the laughter is great medicine. No one talks about how awful social distancing is at these gatherings, everyone stays upbeat with stories of what they are achieving in isolation and says they are fine. I wonder if it is just me that is crying inside.

Too much socialising during social distancing

One evening, after two video calls with different groups of friends, we both collapsed into bed exhausted from so much socialising!

Empty supermarket shelves

As I mentioned, seeing empty shelves in the supermarkets triggers tears and panic. One day there is no butter, strong bread flour was becoming just a distant memory and there is still no yeast. It seems the small 568 ml of milk are no longer worth producing and we have to find ways to use up a litre while it is in date in sauces etc.

Sending parcels of joy

While we can’t meet friends, the post office is still open and we can send small gifts in the mail. We have sent out books and jigsaws we have finished with and food parcels to other friends and I have other surprises planned.

I have also volunteered for our local food bank.

Happy talking

We chat to our next door neighbour over the fence most days and when we are out for our daily walk or cycle ride I say hello to pretty much everyone we pass [at a safe distance]. I do this partly to use up some of my surplus words, I have words to spare these days and I can give them freely. Some people just grunt a response or ignore me but others cheerfully say hello back and maybe for just one person I am the only human being who has spoken to them all day … here come the tears again.