THE JOURNEY FROM THOUGHT TO REALITY!



March 2013: I'm Kerry and hubby is Glynn and we are a happily married couple in our early fifties, kids gone, mortgage free, with a love of travel and cycling and a desire to leave the rat race behind. We have decided to give up work and explore Europe so we have just bought a motorhome and put our house up for sale (had an offer on it yesterday!). We don't want to wait until retirement age as we could be too old to cycle too far then. We plan on buying a smaller house and helping our son and his partner by letting them rent it cheaply so that we retain a property here in the UK and have a base to come back to when needed. 


June 2013: With 2 serious offers on the house but the potential buyers unable to sell their own properties with the slump in the housing market we are still no further forward 3 months later. We also haven't managed to find anything we want to buy in the area that also has a big enough drive for the motorhome for when we return to visit. As we love our house and have spent 8 years doing it up we have decided to take it off the market and keep it. Our son is delighted at the opportunity to rent the house and would have moved in the same day if we hadn't restrained him. Now we are no longer in limbo and can start planning in earnest. First things first is to pick a date to hand our notices in at our respective employers!!


October 2013: After much planning and doing lots of sums we have decided to retire at the end of February. Our son and his partner will move in at the end of this month so that we can spend some quality time together before we go and also so they can get out of their private rented cottage which is full of damp and freezing cold. Glynn has persuaded me that we should upgrade the motorhome to something newer owing to the amount of miles we will be doing and also so that we can hopefully reach the Col de Mente next year (see post on June/July 2013!!)


November 2013: We advertised the motorhome and it generated a lot of interest. What followed next was one of the most stressful experiences we had ever known but a big learning curve so I am not sorry it happened now that it is over. A couple came to see it and were very keen. While we were inside looking at the layout they asked me to show them how the seating area converted in to beds and as I went to move one of the seat pads I discovered it was soaking wet!! Imagine my surprise and embarrassment. We eventually traced the leak to where it was coming in by the roof and when Glynn got on the roof he discovered some of the sealant was damaged. As we'd had very heavy rain the day before it had pooled on the roof and been seeping in all night. The prospective buyers could tell we were genuinely shocked and indicated that subject to a satisfactory repair and new habitation check they were still keen to buy it. This was reassuring for us and we duly booked it in to be sorted.  As it was a busy time of year for habitation checks there was a 3 week wait which meant it would not be looked at until mid-December. We found the waiting extremely stressful as the outcome of this would potentially have a huge impact on our future plans. 


December 2013. On the day of the habitation check I got a call from the garage that knocked me for six. Not only did the motorhome fail the damp test but it was showing readings of 90% in some places and there was damp in almost every area of the motorhome. We were devastated. Not only could it potentially cost several thousand pound to fix but because of the age of it there was no guarantee of getting the parts which would need to be replaced as part of the repair process. I queried how it could go from passing the test 12 months prior when we had bought it to failing so badly now. The response was that it was unlikely to have passed the year before when the readings were now so high!! It felt like all our plans to retire early and travel Europe were slipping away and it was an incredibly stressful time. I contacted the garage that had carried out the previous habitation check and they recalled that it hadn't passed the year before and they were able to give us a lot of information that was really useful. I won't go in to too much detail other than to say that on closer inspection our original habitation certificate seemed to have been altered and following advice from CAB, who were incredibly helpful, we contacted the person we bought the vehicle from and arranged a meeting. What followed was the most stressful 2 weeks I have known. Suffice to say that they were adamant it had passed the test the previous year however over the next 2 weeks several discussions took place which culminated in them buying it back at a price we were happy with taking in to account that we had done over 3000 miles in it and had a good years use out of it. This was a preferable outcome for us rather than going to Court. 


New Years Day 2014. What a fabulous start to the year when the money for the motorhome was transferred in to our bank on the 1st January, finally bringing to an end the whole distasteful experience.  As there is still lots to do and because our current phone contracts don't end until March we have decided to retire at the end of April so that we have time to tie up all the loose ends and most importantly find a replacement "home". I'd better get that resignation letter written before we change the date again!!


January 2014: Now our plans were back on track and the search could begin for a suitable replacement. I preferred the style of the A class Rapido's whereas Glynn preferred the low profile C class motorhomes. He didn't want anything too big (not over 3500kg) but it must have a large garage. I want to take our mountain bikes as well as our road bikes (as I won't always want to don padding cycling shorts and be clipped in to my pedals when I am just cycling to the local boulangerie for a baguette) but Glynn isn't convinced we will find a garage big enough to hold all 4 bikes!! He also wasn't keen on the idea of a left-hand drive when I mentioned it but as we will be spending at least 10 months of the year abroad it seemed sensible to consider it. It's funny the way you think you know everything you want but end up with something completely different. After hours and hours of research over the last month and looking on every motorhome website we could find we narrowed our search down to an Autotrail Cheyenne 696G or a Fiat Bessecar E480 because of the lovely lounge layouts and large garages. We had come across a couple of other models we liked but hadn't found any second-hand ones available so we settled on these 2 and phoned to arrange test drives. One was near Manchester and the other was at a dealer's near Nottingham so we were also going to stop at other dealers in the area to see if there was anything else we liked. I had posted our plans for the day on Motorhome Fun, the brilliant forum for all things motorhomes. En route I received a message from a member of the forum asking if we had considered a Hymer that was for sale near Mansfield. We had previously looked at it on the internet but had dismissed it as it was a twin axle, over 3500kg, a left hand drive and Glynn didn't like the shape of them. 
I suggested to Glynn that we should at least visit the garage as it was close to where we were passing and he agreed. After test driving the 2 we had arranged we were feeling a bit disappointed that neither of them had us rushing for our wallets so we then drove to Mansfield to look at the Hymer. For me it was love at first sight. It ticked all the boxes for long-terming as far as I was concerned as it was fully winterised so we would be able to withstand cold weather (maybe I could be persuaded to try my first skiing holiday??), it had an enormous garage that would hold all 4 bikes, the layout was great and it already had a solar panel fitted and the fittings for refillable gas. The quality of the interior was amazing and it looked like new, even the garage was heated.  I was trying to contain my excitement as I knew that, on paper, it didn't tick many of Glynn's boxes. As it was too late in the day to get it out we arranged to return the following weekend for a test drive and to have more time to look over it at our leisure. I spent the week trying to convince Glynn of the virtues of the Hymer when travelling abroad (over 200 Hymer service centre in Europe, fully winterised and the lack of payload on a vehicle under 3500kgs!!)
We returned the following Saturday and it was a very nervous Glynn that got behind the wheel to drive it. With me resisting the urge to whisper hug the kerb he set off with his shoulders round his ears while Lee from the dealership explained the way to check his positioning in the road. After a few miles Glynn visibly relaxed and seemed quite happy driving it. He put it through it's paces a bit to test the acceleration and it certainly seemed responsive on a hill although it wasn't exactly the Col de Mente!! When we returned to the dealership Lee left us to talk. Glynn asked me what I thought and I told him I thought it was perfect. I then asked him the same question and with a dead pan face he paused before saying " I don't like it at all". My heart sunk in that moment when I registered what he had said and it was a full minute (well probably only 5 seconds but it felt like a minute!!) before he burst out laughing and said he loved it too. It took a week for his bruises to heal.......




February 2014. The day had finally arrived to pick up our new Hymer and I had been awake since 5am unable to sleep with the excitement. As our son was visiting friends in Nottingham it worked out perfectly as he was able to drop us in Mansfield en route. After a very comprehensive handover we were finally ready to head home late afternoon. Glynn was keen to break the back of the journey in daylight to give him time to get used to driving it. The weather had been bad all day with heavy bursts of rain and strong winds so he wasn't looking forward to the journey. The weather however decided to give us a break and apart from a few spots of rain and a few very strong gusts of wind that tested Glynn's hold on the steering wheel we arrived home in one piece. Glynn had quickly got used to the left hand drive with only the occasional drifting too far to the right which was soon rectified with a quick reminder from me to "hug the kerb".  We decided we needed to name him and there seemed only one logical choice for a big strong German motorhome so we agreed on Herman.

Herman


We were keen to start personalising it with our belongings and the following morning we were up and outside earlier than usual.  We spent the day putting our bits in it and checking things to make sure we understood how they worked. Suddenly it all seemed more real as this was going to be our home for the next few years and we were now in touching distance of our new life. I had already handed my notice in and my last day was going to be 24th April. We had decided to have one last traditional holiday first and we booked 2 weeks in Goa flying out on 15th March. 

April 2014. After a lovely 2 weeks in Goa I had just 4 weeks to work before "retiring". Glynn was asked if he could work until 9th May to cover a busy period after the bank holiday so he had an additional 2 weeks. We booked the Eurotunnel for 10th May as Glynn was keen to leave as soon as he'd finished work. There was lots to sort including opening a new bank account (Norwich & Peterborough allows free withdrawals overseas) and April was a hive of activity, planning and purchasing all the things we needed. We still hadn't been away overnight to test everything but we had booked a weekend at the Peterborough Motorhome Show on 25th April with Motorhome Fun so this would be our test run. The weekend at Peterborough was a success with no mishaps and armed with our book of notes that Glynn had taken at the handover we soon had the heating, hot water and plumbing working. The last 2 weeks seemed to be filled with leaving parties with work colleagues, family and friends and there were some emotional goodbyes after a few too many drinks. My days of getting in at 4am and functioning to an effective level the following day are obviously a thing of the past!! The 10th May finally dawned and it was time for our big adventure to begin......

1 comment:

  1. It's really helpful when Revers and Van-dwellers show photos like you have, it really helps the rest of us get a better vision of what we want.
    That model is starting to look good, just like Alice. Keep working on it and give us updates as you go along.
    Campervan Hire Alice Springs

    ReplyDelete