I have a confession to make. I’ve never liked going abroad.
I know what you’re going to say. I’m an unadventurous stick in the mud who doesn’t want to explore other countries and cultures. Seeing as my hobbies include paragliding and abseiling, that’s not why. Nor do I balk at tasting unusual food or speaking other languages, however badly. It’s just for all the time and expense, I generally end up with sunburn, a hole in my savings and a few photos which could frankly have been taken on the front at Morecambe. Why travel halfway across the world for that?
Until I met Josh, I worried I was a freak. Luckily he’s as blasé about Abroad as I am- and, what’s more, loves gallivanting around weird parts of the UK. A match made in heaven, or at least Glasgow! We’d been bouncing ideas for a staycation for a while. He likes camping, I like my creature comforts, so we’d bickered about that for a while. Then one afternoon he said something that changed everything.
“What about a motorhome?”
What indeed. I’d somehow convinced myself that you’d need all sorts of specialist training in order to drive one; in fact, all you need is an up to date driving licence. After a few hours’ research we hit upon Tyne Valley Motorhomes, which provides pre-owned motorhomes at extremely reasonable prices. We quickly chose an Eddis Autoquest with barely any mileage; when it was delivered, they gave us a full demonstration. We hugged each other and danced around like loons once it dawned this was ours, that we could go pretty much anywhere we liked.
Where to, though? While a comparatively small country, the UK offers an enormous amount of variety in the way of roads, scenery and attractions. I think Josh still entertained hopes of cooking and sleeping out of doors- absolutely no way, as I’d made clear. Why do that when you had Motorhome Stopover UK, who have five hundred sites dotted up and down the country? Started by a pub landlord and motorhome enthusiast, it means you no longer have to pay through the nose to stay overnight in a scrubby bit of field. A man after my own heart!
Once that was agreed upon, we planned out our itinerary. For a big hulking man, Josh can be surprisingly sensitive- he confessed that he’d always wanted to check out the Cotswolds, having glimpsed it once or twice in paintings or on TV but never actually been there. I leapt online (again!) and had a butcher’s at the official Cotswolds website. I’d had this image of twee little villages, but there’s actually tons to see and do: a perfumery, the Motoring Museum and Toy Collection, palaces, caves and- we couldn’t resist this- the Go Ape Tree Top Adventure!
So that’s settled. When our friends come back grousing about lost bags and bratty kids, we’ll grin and reminiscence about the Cotswolds. Bliss!
