When we first got married in 2009, we vowed to go away to somewhere different every year. Covid, however had different ideas....?
Full of optimism, we booked a motorhome holiday to go around the 500 in the Highlands of Scotland in 2021.....again Covid had different ideas...?
Thankfully we were able to put back our motorhome holiday until 2022 without losing our deposit ?. Sadly in September 2021, the unthinkable happened - Andrew got made redundant and we had to sell our beloved home in Scotland and relocate to Yorkshire ?. Month after month, more major stresses happen and by February we were at the end of our tether ?. The price of diesel has gone through the roof and of course to date still soaring which made us rethink the motorhome holiday to the Highlands ?. People, in general were holidaying abroad again, and the covid restrictions had relaxed significantly. With the hellish 6 months hopefully behind us, we certainly felt like we wanted to spoil ourselves ?. However, still being nervous about officialdom regarding Covid, we decided to stick to France ??. The airports were constantly reporting cancellations and long queues so the decision was made to drive
?. That, of course was also the safest with regards to Covid. We had both got it within a month of moving south, Andrew got off lightly with a slight cold but I was unable to get out of bed for a week despite being vaccinated so I certainly didnt fancy that again ?
Of course there was still officialdom to deal with ?. Making sure we had the correct accessories for the car - hi vis vests, warning triangles, bulb kit, UK stickers and headlamp adaptors. Also all the correct paperwork - V5, insurance, breakdown, licence. We also needed to apply for a clean air sticker for driving into Strasbourg. Thankfully it was cheap (about 4e) but did take a couple of weeks to arrive and you needed to scan the V5 to apply. A last minute check on the Tuesday - arggghhh...no V5 ?. We had recently moved into our new house and thought it couldnt have arrived after applying for the address change. So in major panic mode I phoned up the DVLA for a replacement - it had 4 days to arrive!!! By the Thursday we decided to apply for the clean air sticker for
our other car just in case, the idea being that although the actual sticker wouldnt arrive in time, we would have the email confirmation just in case we got stopped. Then it hit...we needed the V5 to apply for the first one and of course it was still there under the scanner...doh!?
We also found out that the air conditioning on the BMW was broken and would cost a lot to repair, so a quick Amazon order to buy a portable car fan.....what was the worse????
Luck was with us on the Saturday morning. Andrew was actually down to work from 4am til 10am but amazingly that got cancelled so he didnt lose a lot of sleep which meant we could leave earlier than planned. So by 11am we were ready for the off.....and amazingly the now unneeded replaced V5 landed on the doormat at 1030am ?
It was a nice sunny day so the fan was definitely a addition to the car ?. The only problem of course being that it needed the cigarette lighter to run which meant there was no where to charge our mobiles when the fan was running.....note to self still
We had a lovely pit stop near Peterborough in a charming village called Wansford where we had cocktails and a wander over the old bridge before continuing on our journey??
The drive to Dover took us over the Queen Elizabeth Bridge ? ( Dartford Crossing) where the Government have decided to ensure anyone with a lousy memory would be hit by a fine for not paying the toll as the only way to pay it was by midnight the next day....grrr..?
Once we got to Dover, a quick unsuccessful shopping trip to buy a double adaptor ended with us buying a power bank instead which thankfully did do the trick with regards to ensuring the mobiles were kept charged.
