Once upon a time there were a couple of middle aged marrieds called Nell and Dave who decided to turn their back on the mortgage, the nine to five and the gentle decline into old age and to go on an excellent adventure!  “What about the rest of the kids, the parents, the dog?” I hear you say, but the kids are all over 18 and thankfully the parents seem to be doing okay, and we’re not short of offers to look after the dog, so we’re going to be selfish and do this thing. You only live once, Carpe Diem, live adventurously and so on.

So, in just over a week we set off on the first leg of our Senior Gap Year.  That’s what the Americans call it, a  “Senior Gap Year”. And in the absence of another, more British phrase, that’s what we’re calling it. At about five in the morning on 29 August we’ll climb into our (VW T5 short wheel base) campervan and head for the 8:30 ferry from Poole to Cherbourg. After that, we’ll be bumbling about France and Italy for about six weeks.

So this week, our mission has been to get the van ready.  We already have a kitchen conversion with two hobs and a fridge. In addition we decided to:

1. Replace the weedy tyres with sexy, chunky new ones.
2. Add a pop top so that we can stand up in the van – and get some ventilation going on those blistering hot days.
3. Add an awning to give us shade on those blistering hot days (notice a theme here? The weather in the UK has been rubbish this August and we’re both craving sun)
4. Purchase dayglo jackets, a warning triangle and spare light bulbs to keep on the right side of the Gendarmes.
5. Take everything out the van, clean the van, then put everything back in better.  And last but not least….
6. Install a kick-ass stereo with mahoosive subwoofers under the front seat.

And then on the seventh day, we stood back and saw that it was good. Or was it…? What was that strange whining noise? It wasn’t there before. Quick search of the van. Unable to find the source. Maybe we’ll just leave it. But just imagine how annoying that whining would become as we drive through France, even if we could drown it out with the kiss-ass stereo. And how even more annoying when you’re trying to sleep. So today we –

7. Bought a replacement Zig-zag unit. What is a Zig-zag unit? I have no idea, but thankfully, Dave does. And hopefully, he knows how to replace it. And hopefully, replacing it will stop the annoying whine.

Hopefully.