Our first night away.

We have been rather remiss in maintaining our blog, so let me bring it up to date. We managed our first night away near Bala, very close to the National Whitewater Centre (Canolfan Tryweryn). The interesting thing about the river is they turn it off at night! Well not quite, but the flow is very much controlled by a sluice at Llyn Celyn, so that the flow is much greater in the day than at night. Celyn is an artificial reservoir, created in the 60's amidst much controversy, as it drowned the village of Capel Celyn, purely to provide water to maintain the flow of the River Dee without detriment to Bala Lake (Llyn Tegid). On a personal level, Celyn provided the inspiration for naming a wonderful Border Terrier we got whilst staying in a caravan near Bala some years ago. Celyn remains very much in our memory, certainly the most faithful and gentle male Border we have owned.

Our one night away was shared with our 5 year old grandson, despite the Motorhome being just a two berth. We managed it by me sleeping on cushions on the floor. All that money, and I sleep on the floor! However, we all slept well, and went exploring up the river on Sunday morning. The midges certainly made a feast of me, but we enjoyed watching the canoeists demonstrating their skills on the fast flowing river.

The only major error I made was not checking that the drain valve was closed, and the "grey" water we created drained immediately into the hard standing area. That said, no one noticed, and the ground was very well drained. We didn't produce that much, anyway, as we showered on the site, and only cooked one meal, washing our dishes using the site facilities, so really, it was a small amount of teeth-cleaning etc.

The 90 minute drive each way was uneventful and enjoyable. I must have appeared quite stuck up on the way out, not realising the Motorhome community rule of waving to each other on the road. I tried to make up for it on the way back, but ended up waving at not only Motorhomes, but Ice Cream vans, ambulances and white van drivers.

Got it!

After all the shenanigans over clearing funds, we got the telephone call this morning to say that cleared funds had arrived, and would we like to collect the Motorhome? Too right we would! As it turned out, it was more convenient for me to take the train alone to Blackpool to collect. I was kindly met at the station, and after pleasantries, formalities, legalities and practicalities, I nervously took the drivers seat. The sellers were banished back into their house, if I was going to make a fool of myself, I was going to do it unobserved! However, it was surprisingly easy to drive, excellent visibility, both front and rear, with the bonus of a rear mounted camera filling in any blind-spots. I had already decided that 60mph would probably be a comfortable speed, and indeed it was. 70 mph was easily achieved during overtaking a line of lorries, but I deliberately brought the speed back down once passed. I chose my route through Liverpool with care, no tight four-lane roads for me, not for the first time out, and chose the Wallasey Tunnel for ease of driving, although it is a slightly longer route. Pleased to discover that Mersey Tunnels class vehicle as a car for toll, so £1.40 lighter, I was out and cruising down the M53. In no time, I was home (pictured above), stealing a little bit of pavement as the road is so narrow. My wife was reintroduced to the vehicle, it seemed such a long time since we viewed it, but in fact it was only 9 days. We went together, well actually the three of us, as our dog insisted on joining us, to refuel the vehicle prior to taking it to storage. The tank swallowed 60 litres of fuel. It had been showing close to empty, but you never really know. We reminded ourselves what equipment was on board (one gas bottle, electric hook-up lead, levelling chocks) and started a shopping list for what else we would need. Fun but expensive.

Christmas is cancelled, or at least postponed.

Oh drat! Fully prepared to catch the train to take me to Blackpool to be told that the funds have not arrived. Desperate phone call to my bank, apparently the transferred sum was over the limit for "immediate" transfers bank to bank, and so reverts to "up to four working days". So the deposite arrived almost instantaneously, but the balance did not. Feel like a child who has been told there will be no Christmas, or at least Christmas will be late. We will be drumming our fingers this weekend, when we had planned our first "shakedown" run. Wouldn't mind arriving late on the site when we do, that way, we can make our errors in the fading light, and retire without too much embarassment!

Last minute doubts?

Sunday morning arrived, after, frankly, a fitful nights' sleep. This was to be a major investment, and whilst considerable thought had been given previously to making this purchase, the proximity of the decision was overwhelming my feeble brain. I had woken during the night and could not get back to sleep as the brain was on wheels. Have a cup of tea, do something banal, and eventually sleep returns. We had decided what our offer was to be and hoped the owner was not offended. Late morning, I rang him. I had my words rehearsed and managed to engage him in conversation and not be interrupted by his disgust at the offer. I put a proposal to him and suddenly, it was accepted. We were to be the owners of our own Motorhome. I came off the phone, almost reeling in shock. We had built ourselves up for a protracted discussion which did not happen. We agreed Friday was a good day to collect, with Mick, the owner, agreeing to have the vehicle MOT tested over a month before it was needed. It was to give us time to arrange insurance and storage.

Beside the seaside, beside the sea

Less than 90 minutes after deciding to look at it, we were there. The condition left nothing to be desired, it was immaculate. The owner told us the history of the vehicle, and just why it had such a low mileage. It was perhaps not an unusual story of the first owners suffering health problems soon after purchase, and sadly not being able to gain the pleasure from it they had intended. The story epitomised the reason why we had decided to go ahead now, and not wait until retirement. Who knows what the future holds? We were shown around the MH by the owner, who patiently answered our naive sounding questions, and demonstrated anything we asked about. I think we knew there and then that this was the one, but kept our powder dry, said our goodbyes, and took our Border Terrier to the beach, where we found the tide out, and were able to enjoy the golden sands in the sunshine, talk about our plans, and me to gain rather anorak type pleasure at the light aircraft doing the circuits at Blackpool Airport. Yes, offer day will be tomorrow. Let's not rush.

On eBay, of all places

So there we were, poised to take what was likely to be a test drive before signing on the dotted line, when an advert on eBay put the cat amongst the pigeons. This was a Burstner Marano, 2006 model, two berth, that ticked the boxes in nearly all the right places. The Marano is a budget van in a quality range, and brought us both up short when we looked at the specification. It was sited in Blackpool, a 60 mile trip up the motorway. To my amazement, my wife suggested, mid-afternoon, why don't we look at it? A couple of phone calls later, and we were off up the M6 and M55 It was not to disappoint.

The first steps

Well here we go! After months of pondering, dithering, googling and researching we finally decided to go for it. A Motorhome, that is. For those who don't know, we have had touring caravans in the past, but let our last one go somewhere around 10 years ago. We had a couple of adventures abroad with caravans, the second one a little too adventurous (if you think a car fire is an adventure). We looked at a smart Motorhome at a small-scale dealer nearby, and both of us liked the van, and had almost decided to go for a test drive, when we found "the one".