Time to record some changes with a post as I sit in my new, used, home on wheels, with its few-days maiden testing voyage to the sunny climes of Norfolk having been successfully achieved.
I have finally downsized, parting with my beloved 7m Monte2 in exchange for a 6m Citroen Relay-based van from british manufacturers ‘Wildax’, most likely to be known as ‘Blue’.
Just as my house building project was coming to an end, I would not have normally wanted to add into the mix the part exchange of my second home, along with making a final decision about whether I was crossing the Channel for a 3-week annual leave road trip as planned from 28/8. But my target vans become available so rarely, added to which this one was being sold from Skipton, just 20 or so miles from Harrogate. It would appear the
van had my name on it, as it turned out to be one that I went to view at a Kendal dealer the previous year!
The completion of the transaction and handover did bring a tear to my eye, and with Stephen the broker obviously not able to empathise, we agreed that to him Monte2 was just a commodity – another “tin of beans”. For me it represented lots of memories of good travelling times with family, had been a great home while travelling last year, and a great office during the last few months while my house was being knocked about. Of course I know it’s just an inanimate object but I’m not ashamed to hereby state my affection and gratitude for it, with hope that it will pass to a next owner who will value it as much as I have.
So have the risks I ran in swapping my ultra-reliable, everything-working Monte2 for an unknown potential more trouble than it’s worth , materialised? So far no! Delighted with everything but will acknowledge that shutting the sliding door and putting it into reverse takes some heft. And, always looking for improvement ( or “never satisfied”) I’m already deciding the hacks that need doing to it. But out of all its great features, the best has to be ………. the WINDOWSILL.
As for the other significant accommodation, 6 months on from a lockdown-interrupted realisation of my vision, it has finally been achieved. It’s not a Grand Designs, but still significant for a house described by my brother-in-law as one that someone decided to build to make use of a pile of bricks left over from building the rest of the estate. Similar to making some kind of tart with leftover pastry. Well, I declare myself delighted with the final result – some compromises along the way,- external unwanted but necessary soil stack which can be disguised with some kind of trellis and climbing plant, or quite frankly, just becoming invisible to my eye within a short space of time, and a genuinely unexpected monstrosity of a chip shop flue pipe (log burner) sticking out through the roof, which cannot. The trees in my garden do hide it from my view to a certain extent, but not that of my neighbours’. I was relieved to find that my immediate ones did not see its appearance as a hostility-declaring incident , as they still cut my front lawn for me a few days after installation.
I also discovered just last week that there is proper access from a public path at the back of my garden, which I had been totally unaware of. Given that my modifications had knowlingly closed off access to the garden other than through the building, this was a fantastic completely unexpected bonus.
Annual leave week one covidly-morphed from a drive down to Lake Maggiore to building flat-pack furniture!!! – yes I know it was a difficult choice to make – but also doing more enjoyable home setup stuff such as being able to order sofas, rugs, pictures etc. I do feel I have been extremely fortunate to have the resources to be able to create my home just as I want it to be, and this creative work to be able to engage in, during social distancing. Just as well I now have all this new space, to take the incredible amount of stuff which came out of Monte2, and which I am not intending to try and stuff into Blue.
Since my last post, I will admit to having passed a significant birthday also, which should have been celebrated with a disco, only to go the covid way of all such plans. But moving swiftly on – what more can I say, other than it’s time for me to go to France now via the virtual immersion offered by the Tour de France on TV. Missing greatly my adopted country, and hoping for lots more opportunities for campervan travel across that water in the coming months and years. An Italy ski trip has been booked for February with a great gang – let’s see whether covid or yet another government brexit-induced episode gets in the way.
The above does reflect what small part of the planet in human/societal terms I come from, that I have enjoyed such a good life thus far. The challenge continues to keep anxieties about the bigger picture checked, and to maintain joy instead but I will record them here because they are part of my thought life also. I understand and wish it could be other that my good life has in part been enabled by the inequality in the world, the past and current exploitation of peoples and the environment. I do fear for the planet and all its life, plus that of younger generations because of climate change. I fear the rise of populism, and the decline of those institutions and political systems which although flawed, have on balance been forces for good, in the face of the huge challenges which are already here but undoubtedly going to increase. And all those things are interconnected. I hope and pray that leaders from across the spectrum, with a genuine wish for justice and the flourishing of all people, global as well as local strategic vision, courage, determination and competence, will come to the fore or be further empowered to work together from top down, bottom up, middle across. I hope and pray that I will know and have the courage, if and when it’s necessary, to stand for what’s right, rather than pretending I haven’t seen.
“ For evil to flourish it only requires good men to do nothing.”
Simon Wiesenthal.