Monday 24 August 2009

Camper Vanning

We are umming and aahing about getting a camper van. A volkswagen camper van for two.

'You won't be able to stand up in it,' I said to Andy, aware of his wont to bang his head on things in general, let alone low slung camper van ceilings. 'But we could get an awning to attach to the side. You'll be able to stand up in that.'

I'm not keen on awnings having spent many a caravan holiday in the 70s stuck in one with my brother whilst our sister lived it up inside the caravan on the bunk beds. He trod on my little travel alarm one year and broke the hinge. I was livid. I was sure he'd done it deliberately but I couldn't prove it. I mean, it was safely tucked under my camp bed. How could someone had stood on it there unless they had very big feet or the intent to commit a deliberate act of vandalism?

The consensus of opinion re: VW camper vans seems to be 'don't buy one. Get a Peugot/Ford /Toyota instead.' Of all the people we've consulted on this issue, none have actually given us a solid reason why we shouldn't get a VW; they have merely made random coughing grumbling sounds that mean nothing. So until someone says to me 'Don't buy a VW Camper because it is a well-known fact that the bottoms fall out of them after six months/ the stove will explode if you go over 30 miles an hour/they have a habit of migrating back towards their native Germany,' then I am going to continue my investigations regardless.

You see, the house we are hoping to buy is considerably cheaper than the house we are hoping to sell. Which means we can either a) pay a big chunk off the mortgage or b) go on a spending spree e.g buy a camper van. Of course, this is all circumspection at the moment. I'm sitting here, having spent most of this morning giving the house a once over tidy 'n' clean (after my deep clean 'n' chuck out efforts last week) in anticipation of people coming to view. All the little 'just jobs' that we've been meaning to do for the last three or four years have been done. Actually, I was thinking, as I finished off a bit of paintwork, it wouldn't matter if we didn't sell because the house is looking rather fab at the moment.

Anyway, back to the potential camper van purchase. We'd already explored caravans earlier in the year when I happened upon a new model on the British market called a T@B. It is like a little teardrop and is very cute - a pod made for two. It could also double up as an extra bedroom for visitors, provided we secured it to the drive so the visitors didn't wake in the morning to find they'd been stolen by thieves during the night and were now in Amsterdam or Cherbourg.

But again, I was slightly against getting a caravan. Not because of the actually living in one, because my childhood summers were often spent in caravans and one of my greatest joys was pumping the water up into the sink using the manual peddle pump or being allowed to light the gas lamps, but because of the moving it around the countryside malarkey because you knew you'd always meet something bigger and less flexible coming the other way and your dad would end up having an argument about rights of way with some stranger in the middle of a single lane bridge. Also, I used to hate it when you'd be travelling along the motorway with your Eldis or whatever chugging along behind you and a lorry would whoop past causing massive drag and wobble. I had visions of being sucked beneath the lorry and dragged along the road, the caravan being crushed like an aluminium drink can.

So a camper van seemed the obvious practical alternative. No bigger than the people carrier we currently own, but with infinitely more character and the ability to provide a cup of tea a darn sight cheaper than a motorway service station. And other camper vans we've looked at seem so, well, boring by comparison. All boxy and charmless.

Yes, I can see us with a VW camper. But then again I used to be able to see us living in a gated mansion with 200 acres.

Sometimes dreams aren't as grand as you first imagined them to be. Sometimes you realise that it actually takes very little to bring happiness and peace into your life. Sometimes, less really is more.

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