Back on the road again

Spring sunshine in Scotland

While storms blew in the south we travelled around Scotland in the sunshine, feeling blessed and happy with the world.

We travelled first to St Andrews, a charming stone built town with plenty to see and do, including a ruined castle and cathedral and two bays. Our campsite overlooked East Sands, the smaller beach. West Sands is near the famous golf course and is a wide stretch of sand where motorhome parking is possible overnight.

We travelled further north to the area around Nairn. Here you can either explore the charming fishing villages along the coast or travel inland for the hills and we did both, although the weather was always better on the coast and we craved the blue sky and sunshine. We were so taken with some of these small coastal villages we started to plan moving to this part of Scotland when we retire … we shall see.

We spent a night on the coast between Aberdeenshire and Peterhead at the Port Erroll Nightstop near Cruden Bay. This harbour has space for five ‘vans, no hook up but there are toilets and asks for a donation of £10 a night. The harbour is slightly removed from the village of Cruden Bay and the harbour is a peaceful and beautiful spot. We were the only ‘van there on a sunny evening and we parked with the huge ‘van door facing the sea and watched oyster catchers and herring gulls as we sat with a brew. Later there was a deep red sunset to watch while we ate.

From Port Erroll we walked along the coast to see the striking ruins of Slains Castle high on the cliffs and the dramatic collapsed cave and sea arch at the Bullers of Buchan. Here the cliffs were alive with hundreds of pairs of kittiwakes, as well as fulmars, guillemotts and razorbills. Both these sights have car parks that are suitable for motorhomes.

Please make it warmer!

20160408_074629 — Buttered toast; the best comfort food

I don’t know how this happened, but somehow I was born at the wrong latitude. I have no doubt I was designed to live in a Mediterranean climate, with mild winters and hot summers but instead I was born in the northern half of England, where the summers are mild and the winters damp … how did that happen?

As a lover of sunshine and warmth, I rejoice in the start of spring; this is the season that announces that the long days of summer are on their way. On country walks during March I exclaim with the excitement of a child at every sign of spring; new born lambs, daffodils, birds nesting and buds on the trees all give me pleasure. By the time the blossom is out I am beside myself with the anticipation of the forthcoming warmth of a summer’s day.

In our shared garden in Salford, the daffodils are flowering, the pink blossom is starting to show on the trees and yet, this morning I still couldn’t easily spread the butter on to our breakfast toast and for a moment I forgot I have no influence on the seasons and the weather and I moaned, ‘I just want butter I can spread!’

Although it hasn’t been a very cold winter here in the North-West of England, it has felt like a long slog through autumn and winter. It has been unusually wet and stormy, with floods even here in Salford. I know I am impatient for warmer weather but the truth is I am impatient for retirement so that we can take the ‘van south early in the year and follow the spring back north, feeling the warmth of the sun on my bare arms every day … and being more concerned about keeping the butter cool than how to spread it.

I am not perfect … sometimes it is very difficult for me to remember to enjoy the moment and be grateful for all the good things in my life … normal service will be resumed very soon.

Our camping breakfasts

2013 May Silverdale for Janets birthday (24) — Shared vegetarian breakfasts are a real treat

When we are camping in the ‘van it is breakfast that is my favourite meal of the day. I particularly love breakfasts when the weather is fine enough to sit outside and I have been known to sit wrapped up in jackets and a hat just so that I can eat my breakfast outdoors and watch the campsite wake up around me.

I think I love eating breakfast on our camping trips because it heralds the start of another day with all sorts of possibilities and adventures spread out before me. We often don’t know where the day will take us and what our view will be the next morning but for the first hour of the day my priority is sustenance while I excitedly anticipate another day on holiday.

When it is just the two of us we might toast crumpets and eat these with lashings of butter and marmalade, or warm up rolls to dribble honey over or fry soft potato cakes. When we are on holiday in mainland Europe we will buy fresh local bread and savour this with blackcurrant jam and mugs of tea maybe accompanied by a bowl of creamy yoghurt.

When we are camping with friends our breakfasts become more elaborate and we will share the cooking, producing vegetarian sausages, tomatoes, mushrooms, potato cakes, fresh bread and beans to create a feast that is the vegetarian English breakfast. These breakfasts set me up for the day and are always co-operative and jolly times, our small camping table heaving under the weight of so many dishes.

I am sure you all have your favourite breakfast when you are camping; is muesli or a bacon butty your breakfast of preference?

Reminiscing and breaking rules to tackle the paper mountain

20160315_172620 — The new shredder didn’t sit on my shopping list for 30 days!

Okay, so I set rules and then I break them.

In an effort to free up space in our small flat I have been steadily working my way through the receipts and bills we have for almost everything we have ever bought. Some of these receipts tell stories and have bought on a spell of reminiscing. The hand-written receipt for the wool rug [which we still have] from 1984 when shopping was a slower and more civilised experience will always remind me of the two of us, in our early 20s, sitting and drinking tea in china cups with the elderly shop owner before deciding on the rug to buy. The receipt for my backpacking rucksack from 1981, when Karrimor gave a lifetime guarantee, and which [of course] I still have, reminds me of all the pre-campervan trips when I carried that rucksack across Europe and Scotland. When I needed new walking boots recently it was great to be able to look back and see that my old boots had lasted 13 years. The receipts also remind me of previous DIY projects; it seems in 2007 Anthony was busy building us a new PC and past extravagance like my lovely Pearl Izumi cycling jacket which cost £85!

All these receipts have been scanned, organised in folders, triple saved and the paper shredded. In Greater Manchester we can recycle shredded paper reasonably safe in the knowledge that no one will take the time to piece the shredded paper back together to steal our identity. A few years ago it was reported that in Germany former DDR Stasi files are being re-assembled after they were shredded when the Berlin wall fell, let us hope our receipts are pulped in to toilet paper before anyone can do this.

This industrial-scale shredding has [not surprisingly] put a strain on our home shredder [strangely there is no sign of the receipt for this to know how long we have had the shredder or what we paid for it] and last week it moaned and complained and then stopped. I spent an hour clearing out its blades to coax it back to life but it only had one further spurt of life before it gave up the ghost.

The rule I have set is that new purchases have to be considered for one month to be sure we really need them but in a month I would be drowning under the pile of shredding. And so I broke the rule and a new shredder was purchased.

Our annual expedition to Scotland

2015 April Ben Vrackie (4) — The view from Ben Vrackie near Pitlochry

It is spring and Mr BOTRA and I find our thoughts turning to Scotland.

Most years since before many of you were born (1981 was our first joint trip) we have enjoyed a trip to Scotland at this time of year. On these numerous trips we have stayed in tents, in luxurious castles and occasionally in damp, cold and decidedly scruffy houses. Some years we have also visited Scotland in summer, autumn and / or winter but it is the spring holiday that has been consistent.

So for me Scotland is primarily a land of yellow gorse bushes, blossom on the trees, wood anemones flowering in birch woodland and patches of snow on the hills. On these springtime trips we are always sure we will get weather, it is just hard to predict exactly what and we tend to pack for every season. We have had days when we have worn shorts [although not too many of these] and days of heavy snowfall. We have chipped ice off the tent and watched the rain scurry across a bay, followed by a rainbow.

We now mix and match with a wonderful combination of the campervan and staying with friends in a large house. We get the perfect mixture of freedom to do our own thing and peace and quiet and time with old friends enjoying good food, excellent company and the chance to share a dram in a lovely Scottish country house.

Self-catering in a large house [there can be up to 17 of us] works out cheaper than self-catering as a couple and in Scotland no-cost camping in the ‘van is possible and this keeps the holiday within our annual holiday budget.

Planning to quit or stay through a reorganisation

20160317_135957 — Clock watching at work – is it worth it?

I had a plan; a fairly foolish idea when I work for a charity in a dynamic sector that is reliant on public sector funding in austerity Britain.

Nevertheless, I can’t help planning. My plan was to finish work from my three-day a week admin post in about eleven months time in 2017. In this plan I would get a card signed by my lovely co-workers all wishing me well and I would then retire in to the happy land of financial independence. This wasn’t a plan I had shared with my employer and now I hear that a company reorganisation is in the pipeline for the summer and I am feeling out of control.

This reorganisation means that I will be moved from my friendly and relaxed office that is just 10 minutes walk from home [the best commute ever] to a new [and windowless] office where I will be the ‘new girl’ who has had to cycle for 30 minutes through the chaos that is Greater Manchester traffic. In the new office everyone else is at the other end of the corporate spectrum to me; instead of turning up in my scruffy hiking gear, putting the radio on and just getting on with my job at my own pace, I will be expected to wear business clothes, get involved in office politics and become part of the corporate machine.

Some background. I gave up senior management roles some years ago when we took our 50-year-old gap year. I took on a role that I can easily achieve with my skills so that I don’t have the stress and responsibility that goes with a senior position; although this means we have less money, it also means I have head space for other projects and being so near to home I wasn’t wasting time commuting. Working three days a week also means that I have time to devote to my other work as a motorhome travel writer.

As far as financial independence goes, the money for our retirement in 2017 is in the bank [hurrah] and a little bit more besides. By next March the plan says we will have both enough saved and sufficient pensions to [hopefully] get us through whatever post-retirement throws at us.

I am lucky that our financial independence gives me is the freedom to walk earlier than I planned if I don’t like what I am offered by my company and Mr BOTRA supports me in this, although resigning will mean we eat in to our emergency savings that help him to feel secure. I am therefore trying to take back control and have a negotiating position and a fall back position. I am hoping I can get agreement to work from home [no nice colleagues to chat to but no pressure to corporately-conform either]. If this Plan B is allowed I can go back to Plan A and carry on working for a few more months. [Hope you are you following this?] If this negotiating position fails, I will offer to reduce my hours [thus saving the company money] so that the longer commute doesn’t eat in to my non-corporate working time … so I have a Plan B and a Plan C.

Britstops here we come

20160213_122904 — Mr BOTRA studying the new Brit Stops guide

Wherever we park our campervan is our home, it is self-contained and we carry everything we need to be comfortable. At present, with work restrictions, we generally spend about 70 nights a year in our motorhome. To do this while continuing to save for our retirement we are always looking at ways to save so when the new Brit Stops guide arrived recently we started planning free nights away in the ‘van.

The Brit Stops scheme is a simple system [always the best ones]. Farm shops, pubs and food producers agree to host one or more motorhomes to park at their venue for a night for no charge. For the cost of £30 for the guide, a motorhomer has a list of 640 places where they can park up for free. This is modelled on the French Passion scheme that is popular across France.

Using Brit Stops we get to stay in some beautiful places and sometimes discover a new local food or drink. We might stay at a farm shops and buy some cheese, or a café and relax over their breakfast the next morning or we might enjoy a pint of local beer in a country pub. Brit Stops also allow us to be spontaneous as we don’t have to book a pitch many months before. No sooner have we spotted a forecast for a spell of fine weather for the weekend and we can be on our way (although some Brit Stops do like motorhomers to ring ahead).

The beauty of Brit Stops for us is that we get the opportunity to buy good quality local food created with care by a small business which beats the mass-produced offerings in the supermarket any day. Camp sites can be quite expensive in the UK and the Brit Stop guide can help us save money on our holidays (meaning we can take more]. In any year, once we have stayed two nights on a Brit Stops the guide has paid for itself, so we feel good, and we can support local businesses with some of the money we have saved, so we feel even better.

The number of places to stay has grown dramatically since Brit Stop started in 2011. It took us a few years [and the ownership of a slightly bigger van] until we got the Brit Stop bug in 2015. This happened when we were staying on a Caravan Club Certified Location that charged £15 for just a hook up on an uneven field where they hadn’t even bothered to cut the grass. Down the road was a Brit Stop where ‘vans could park for free with views overlooking the canal; no competition, as they say.

Emotions vs economics

P1080525 — Our beautiful insulated cafetiere and milk pan make great coffee and so make me happy

According to the National Employment Savings Trust (NEST) in the UK we have spent £6.2billion in the last five years on stuff we don’t need and rarely use. If you thought that each of these impulse purchases added another day or two to your working life would you still buy that exercise machine, that electronic soup maker or that juicer that languishes at the back of a cupboard? For me, having a goal to retire early helps to put a brake on the impulse to buy. But everyone has to work it out for themselves and there are some interesting purchases listed here that are regretted and are now languishing in someone’s attic.

Of course, if you use your juicer every day, after exercising in your spare room and filling your soup maker then these products weren’t a wasted impulse buy for you … but we all have at least one guilty secret don’t we? Even Mr BOTRA and I bought a rowing machine some years ago that was soon listed on Ebay. Our insulated cafetiere and lovely milk pan [pictured above] by contrast was a well thought out purchase [for us] as it means that we can make good coffee in our ‘van that hasn’t become tepid before it is ready to drink [thus saving money in cafes].

Psychology Today considers there are reasons why we impulse buy; it might be that we love shopping or we don’t want to miss a bargain; because we are offered three for two or we have delusions that this new thingamajig will save us time or money or make us a better person. What it comes down to is that humans often make an emotional decision about an economic activity. Psychology Today also offers techniques for avoiding impulse buying. The NEST article ends optimistically, suggesting that individuals learn from their impulse buying mistakes and all those regretted purchases are certainly the backbone of Ebay.

Mr BOTRA and I have had an expensive month [even though February is so short] and I am certainly not going to lecture anyone on their own purchasing choices. But our shopping wasn’t done impulsively. I follow a simple process to avoid wasting money; I write down what I think I want to buy [I don’t do this for groceries you understand], consider it for at least four weeks and finally decide if it is something we still need rather than want. For us, walking boots and warm winter coats have all worn out recently and we opted to buy quality replacements that make a bigger hole in the budget but will [hopefully] last longer. We have also made two recent purchases that will result in long-term savings. The first is thermal vests; as I get older I become more of a wimp that craves the sunshine and warmth of summer; comfy and cosy thermals should keep the chills at bay and the heating bills down. Secondly, after many months of deliberation, we have bought hair clippers that will save money on hair cutting and soon pay for themselves.

Counting the pennies for treats

Back in the day (before Mr BOTRA and I went on our twelve month trip in the campervan around Southern Europe) we had a daily ritual of emptying our pockets, purses and wallets of any small change, from 50p downwards and putting it in a piggy bank. Every couple of months the piggy bank would feel heavy enough and we would spend an hour of a wet Sunday afternoon counting the change into neat piles, putting it in plastic coin bags and depositing it in the bank later that week. In a year we would accumulate about £250 just from the change in our pockets.

In those days we kept this money separate from our other savings and twice a year in January and August we would spent the small-change-savings in the Rohan sale. Rohan sell travel and outdoor clothing that is high quality, easy to wash and quick to dry, doesn’t require ironing and of course looks great. Part of the plan for the twelve month trip away in a small campervan was to maximise the space and practicality of the trip by taking only clothing that fitted those criteria. We didn’t take Rohan gear exclusively but they were a large part of our wardrobe and still are.

Using the savings from our small change to buy what is (for us) fairly expensive clothing was an excellent way of making this affordable, allowing us to have a bi-annual treat and taking us towards our goal of a quick-drying, iron-free wardrobe. For two people who don’t really enjoy shopping, these trips to the Rohan shop were anticipated with excitement and were all the more enjoyable for being funded by our pennies.

This seemed such a great way to treat ourselves without feeling guilty about using our savings. Our treat was technical clothing but yours might be anything; eating out, theatre tickets, computer games, books, holidays, music or tickets for rock concerts. The key to success with this seemed to be the discipline of only spending what we have saved and buying something for both of us.

Today we spend our days mostly wearing technical outdoor gear and have been able to completely do away with the ironing ritual. The outdoor clothing we have is mostly of such a high quality that I am confident some of it will see me out for the next 30 years of my life.

Nowadays we no longer need to buy any clothing or really feel a need for any expensive treats but we have kept the ritual of emptying our purses of change every evening. The amount has reduced in the last few years as more of our spending is using plastic, rather than cash, but it still adds up to about £120 a year and this currently is added in to our fund for financial independence, rather than being earmarked for specific spending. Perhaps when we finish work and are living off our savings we might once again use our small change savings for some sort of treat.

Magical and almost glamorous shoe cleaning?

20160209_080007

To get even a mention on this blog products have to be exceptionally good value; that is they are either really cheap or they hit all corners of the BOTRA-trinity of being affordable, high quality and long-lasting. The wonderful Leather Genie shoe polish pushes these buttons and works better than any shoe cleaning product we have every used before.

When it comes to shoe cleaning Mr BOTRA and I don’t generally get over-excited but we have found this fantastic product saves us both money and time … a win-win in anyone’s books.

We found this super merchandise in an unlikely place. We were strolling around the Caravan and Motorhome Show in Manchester last year, admiring ‘vans we couldn’t afford / didn’t need and looking at accessories we didn’t want when we spotted a shoe cleaning stall. As usual my shoes needed some TLC and so I stopped to see what the fuss was about. In just a few minutes the salesperson bought my shamefully scruffy walking shoes up to such a lovely shine I was astonished. And yet, we don’t make snap purchasing decisions in the BOTRA household and so we had to do a few circuits of the venue mulling over the spending of £13 before we returned to the stall and came away with our very own pot of Leather Genie.

Leather Genie uses jo joba oil to give a shine to your leather, be it shoes, furniture or clothing. The polish is quickly applied with a sponge in a no-mess fashion and shining your shoes takes only a minute or two and gives a grease-free lustre to leather in any colour.

No one would call me a smartly-dressed individual, my preferred look is comfy walking gear and that includes my shoes. That said, I don’t like to waste money and throw shoes away just because they are scuffed. I had a pair of burgundy leather shoes whose soles still had plenty of wear but which all sorts of cleaning products had failed to bring back to any sort of sheen and even I had become too ashamed to wear them for anything beyond going out to the bins. A quick rub with the Leather Genie and these shoes were once again presentable, now that is a result.

I am not an enthusiastic shoe cleaner, as you can probably guess, and generally grab a pair of shoes just before I head through the door and as I put them on realise how shabby they look. Because the Leather Genie is colourless and smells pleasant it is possible to quickly shine up my shoes without getting messy black / brown polish over my clothes and still get out of the house on time; this may not be glamorous but it is pretty cool.

We have had our tub of this magical shoe cleaning polish for over twelve months now and it looks like it will last a few more years, so £13 from the family budget well spent.