Sunday 10 July 2011

Living In A Caravan Full Time - Day 320 !

They say time goes by quickly when your having fun - well we must be having a ball!

This is our 320th consecutive night in the caravan tonight! We missed the 300th night, not sure what happened there!

But as we approach the end of our 1st year in the caravan, what have we learnt?

Well, that depends on what you mean by learnt! We have discovered things, such as there are many more full timers out here than we realised.

Its funny how people react when you tell them you live in a caravan. Some are great and really interested, some cant understand it at all and think we are mad, and some totally look down their noses at us, as if we are the lowest of the low, which wouldn't be so bad if we weren't related to them!

We have met some great people since we have started this adventure of ours, which is always a good thing, and we have had a lot of laughs.

We have also had a few low points as well, such as when the snow was building up on the awning roof and I was up several times during the night scraping it all off. Not fun at -3 and blowing a blizzard! The water on site froze up, which meant daily water trips, which was a pain, but it had to be done. And, to be honest I knew of people who lived in houses and their water froze up, so we were not unique in this.

When the heating packed up, and when the waste pipes froze, all character building stuff.

Moving is always a challenge, we tend to move often, so getting old hands at it now. I can only remember a couple of times when I've got completely soaked through setting up the awning, the rest of the times have been fine. Hitting in tent pegs in below freezing conditions is also not what I would call fun.

But, would i change anything? The answer has got to be not at all.

This is a fantastic way to live and would recommend it to anyone to give it a go. It really isn't that difficult to do.

We have proved that it can be done, and done with a minimum of fuss and hassle.

Some of the perceptions that people have about us and how we live make me chuckle. These questions are from people who have never stepped foot inside a caravan, let alone stayed in one. Questions such as where do you go to the toilet? My reply is normally I take a shovel and find a hedge! Recently I was asked how do we do the laundry? Laundry, we don't, we just buy new clothes all the time, and during the winter we wear the same gear! Faces are a picture. Not too sure what they think launderettes are for, poor people?

All that apart, we are still enjoying living in our caravan full time, and we cant see that changing for a long time yet!

I totally accept that its not for everyone - and thank goodness for that! Our peace and quiet would be wrecked!

August 26th will be a full year, and its only next month! In fact its a year since I started to write this blog! I really didn't think that people would come back week after week and read about our life.

Looking at the stats, the interesting thing to see is that month on month we are increasing at a rate of 30% the number of new people visiting the blog! With this the actual viewing figures are increasing rather rapidly as well. Amazing!

This time last year we were at the early stages of thinking of doing it, in fact tomorrow will be the day a year ago that made us go for it. It was the day our old caravan managed to turn itself around and head down a hill and through a hedge, all on its own! That for us was the final straw and we knew we just had to do something. Here we are!

So a big thank you to all of you who follow us, those that have been with us from the early days, and to those of you who have recently joined us.

Don't forget you can leave comments here without being a member of google and you can also email us direct at bakers_cottage@btinternet.com It really is great to hear from folk so don't be shy!

Till later................

6 comments:

  1. well done guys keep it up, hope you have fun at portland(knights in the bottom) this weekend wont make it over there i'm afraid busy making the float for wareham carnival on Sunday.

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  2. Thanks, we are thinking of giving it a miss as two trips into Weymouth on a fri afternoon is not my idea of fun! Too costly in fuel and the traffic is a nightmare coming fm Ringwood. But, looking forward to purbeck!

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  3. you keep writing it , i will keep reading it

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  4. BRAVO. Wow I have been reading for quite a while and I too cannot believe it is nearly a year.

    I have not had to have the conversation with strangers about living in the caravan but I dont really care what anyone thinks, I just laugh at them as their house price (which they keep on yapping about) drops faster than the cost of the caravan :) and they like to ignore the utility bills as they rise and we bypass that as well :)

    I have yet to do a winter and I will be watching out for the things you have mentioned over time.


    Still, we are coming up to day 90 in 3 days time and we have loved every minute of it so far.

    We are still traipsing around Devon btw, as you asked in previous comments.

    Take care

    J+TJ

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  5. Hi J and TJ good to hear from you both, 90 days! Glad your having fun! With gas prices rising by 18% and electric by 16% i think it is us who should be laughing, of course site fee's will no doubt creep up a little but put them up too high and they lose custom, so feel fairly safe! Glad to hear everything ok with you both. Jools and "M"

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  6. inspirational!!

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