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Hello! Well, I figured it was time to update you all on what we're doing and
what we've been up to and where we're going.
Now, the plan was to do this from the caravan. However, it is such a beautiful day
I thought why don't I take you with me on this lovely walk with Dougal around the
woods. We're currently staying at Black Horse Farm Caravan and Motorhome Club
site in Folkestone in Kent, and about 15 minutes walk from the site are these
beautiful words, and there's a 45 to 60 minutes circular walk around them. So if
you're ever staying at Black Horse Farm Caravan and Motorhome Club site in
Folkestone, this is a great place to come and walk
the dog and throw the ball. (Go on, Dougal!) So what have we been up to? Well, we last
left you when we were coming back from the Huttopia site in Saumur in France.
So from there we headed on up and I have dropped off my Airstream for a few
repairs and a little bit of titivation; the lino has needed replacing for quite
a while after I managed to tread sand into it and basically spoil it on the
Island of North Uist in the Outer Hebrides. I did that quite a few years ago when I
came in dripping in my wet suit from kite surfing and I managed to get sand
ingrained into the lino and I've been wanting to get that done for a long time.
Lots of other little jobs need doing; all age-related kind of things like I dented
the bumper I did that at Knìp campsite in the Isle of Lewis - my poor Airstream
seems to get quite a bit of bashing in the Outer Hebrides! I'm gonna have my
cooker probably replaced because it is absolutely falling apart, and with the
amount of miles I do and the use that Airstream gets kind of no surprise that
it just needs a bit of love. So that's gone away to receive a little bit of
love and in the meantime I have been loaned a beautiful Airstream Missouri.
I'm so excited about that, this is exactly the same Missouri that I enjoyed this
time last year when I was staying at Love to Stay in Shropshire
and I did a full tour of this very Caravan, so I shall link to that tour in
the description below if you want to have a good old nosey at the Airstream
Missouri that we are currently staying in for the next two months. So after we
picked up the Missouri I took it to a weigh bridge and I was delighted to find
out that it was spot on to the declared MIRO - Mass in Running Order - so I can make the
most of the full payload, and if I drain off the water out the water tanks I can
enjoy even more payload, so that is fantastic.
In York we did a little bit of work for the Caravan and Motorhome Club Magazine;
you'll be seeing that in the December issue.
So from there I dropped off Dougal with my mum
and went to Birmingham to the NEC show. That was a really really full-on week
but it was great fun, and you've probably seen that I managed to bag myself an
interview with George Clarke, Matt Allwright and Martin Dorey, so hopefully you've
watched that. And now we're down in Kent and we're staying at Black Horse Farm
Caravan and Motorhome Club site near Folkestone, and the reason that most people
come to Black Horse Farm is because they're going to go across on the ferry
or on the Tunnel - or they've just come back. Well, that applies to us as well.
So now we can talk about the next trip which is so exciting! And our next trip
is going to be to France Spain and Portugal. As ever my insurance company
would rather I didn't tell you exactly which sites were going to and till after
we've been there, but suffice to say that we're gonna go to some hotspots and I'm
hoping to get some kite surfing in. And when we are in France on the way back
we're hoping to get some snowboarding in. So we would be there until...hopefully
back just in time for Christmas. So I'm really excited about this and then we're...
(just gonna change arms because the sun's over there now)
Now if that isn't
exciting enough what's even more exciting is the fact that we've
been loaned a different car to do our trip with. We are going in a SsangYong
Rexton, and not just any Ssangyong Rexton, we've been given a Rexton that is
absolutely fully loaded it is blinged up to the max.
It has got every single conceivable toy that you could ever want on a car.
So we've got that for the next two months, I am so excited about it. So the plan is to
take Eurotunnel over to Calais and then we're going to take the motorways, the
péage, down through France. It's going to cost quite a bit of money but I'm in
quite a hurry to get down to Portugal for reasons I'll explain in a moment.
Then we're going to make our way roughly around the coast back up, and back to the
UK in time for Christmas. So while we're doing this trip we do have three little
jobs to do. We've been commissioned by Airstream UK to make some short videos
for their website and do some nice pictures for their social media,
similarly with SsangYong they've asked us in return for the loan of the car to do
some very short videos for their social media, and finally the Caravan and
Motorhome Club have asked us to do some pictures and some videos of the sites
that we will be staying at for their marketing and their website and their
brochures, so we're going to be kept busy. But I'm sure there will be plenty of
time for vlogging so what I'm hoping to do is as well as all the regular travel
stuff that I enjoy making and I know some of you enjoy watching, also I'd like
to do a few other little videos probably a couple of Living Simply videos because
I've got a couple that I've been burning to make for ages. And also now I'll
explain one of the reasons we're going to Portugal. Some of you will know my
friend Shanna. We met Shanna in San Diego last year on
the videos, I've known her obviously a lot longer, and she has just made the
move from San Diego California to Lisbon Portugal, so a very brave lady
indeed. We're gonna go and see her, help her settle in. I'm sure the SsangYong
Rexton is going to come in very useful when it's time to go to Ikea!
So I'm really looking forward to catching up with Shanna and finding out about some
of the challenges that she's faced in making such a move because as you
all know this channel is all about keeping it authentic, keeping it real, and
talking about the challenges as well as talking about all the good stuff. So if
there is anything you would like us to cover on this trip whether it's if
you're thinking of getting an Airstream, how we're getting on with the layout, or if
you're thinking of getting an SUV like the SsangYong Rexton, what's it like to live with,
I mean we're going to cover all this anyway, obviously to the
destinations and just silly things like 'How do I pay the French péage when I'm
on my own in a right-hand drive car?' All that kind of thing. So we're be covering
all that but if you've got any burning questions that you would like covered
please leave in the comments below and I will do my best to cover those over the
next few weeks. So there you have it, that's our plans for the next few weeks.
Really exciting stuff. Please also give us a follow on social media; I'm on
Twitter and Instagram, I'll put links to those accounts in the description below.
Those feeds are generally a little bit more up to date than the YouTube videos
because it takes me a while to edit the videos obviously, so give us a follow on
Twitter and on Instagram. But I think there's a little dog over there who wants
me to throw a ball, so I'd better wrap it up now. Looking forward to your company
over the next few weeks, but it just leaves me to say, from Dougal and from me...
Thanks for tuning in!
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Oh Dougal! Really? Really Dougal... oh dear, this isn't going as well as I hoped!