We have now been on the road for almost a week. Here are some observations From our real life experiences:
1. It is bigger than a car. Just when you think you have plenty of room to pass cars BANG, you manage to side swipe someone's wing mirror. And it is a loud and scary BANG. It has now happened to us twice. First time we filled in the accident form - refer previous blog entry. Second time, was in this little village and we didn't really have a chance to stop (I don't think it did any damage to their mirror, but I'm still looking over my shoulder in case they are following us)
2. The camper van is small when you have a young child with a stomach bug who wakes up in the middle of the night vomitting and doesn't stop until the end of the day. Poor Naomi must have eaten someone (actually meant something but thought i would leave the spello in) bad, the trouble is she ate everything we did and the last meal was cooked by moi.
3. You have no choice but to stay tidy. We seem to be washing up before we start the dinner. Everything has it's place, as there are not many places things can go anyway. However we lost the torch this evening - I blamed Esther assuming she used it last, she said she would only have put it in one place, and it wasn't there. 30 mins later, benjamin admits he used it the night before and was keeping it safe under his pillow. So now we know everything has one of two places - it's own place or under benjamin's pillow -where else!
4. The fuel cap is right under the drivers seat (a la gauche - the left). we found this out by going on the wrong side of this rather small garage to fill up. Rather than reversing (refer no. 5) I tried the shortcut of stretching the nozzle across the windscreen and pulling the pipe taut. Suffice to say no fuel came out. We asked the teller, who was next to useless and suggested we tried the other side. In taking the nozzle out, there was a rather loud bang (common theme) and we managed to break the fuel cap cover off it's hinges - yet another claim on the insurance I'm sure.
5. Reversing is all about 'doing it together'. As the driver you have no idea where you are going and what you about to hit when reversing. It is definitely a double act. Total trust. And I'm glad to say We haven't had any crashes as yet.
And we are only 7 days in, another 6 weeks to go...
Layers
Alex
You guys are so making my day, what an enjoyable laugh I have had today reading this..... I was the eyes in our van cos we were driving an English van on the wrong side, we had no crashes in the six months but added a few extra dents and scrapes cos the roads are just so darn narrow. Love reading look forward to the next update along with the great photos... Hope you loving all that bread and cheese.
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