See You in 2018

With Christmas but a few days away and 2017 drawing to a close I’ve been feeling rather reflective this week. What a crazy year it has been….reluctantly we had to leave our Portuguese life behind (for now), we’ve made the decision to volunteer our way around the world and we’ve taken the first steps by moving the entire fam into a caravan.

Our first volunteer experience at Abbeyfields Society, Radlett was a humbling and endearing experience. All but one of my grandparents had passed away before I was even born and to get to spend the afternoon with the residents was an absolute pleasure. Hearing them recount stories of their childhood, the war, great loves, career paths they chose and lessons they learned warmed my heart in a way I can’t even put into words. The boys got to play Santa’s helpers and were in charge of the raffle and distributing prizes-a job they handled superbly and a real ‘proud mom’ moment. A special mention must go out to the staff and volunteers at Abbeyfields who went above and beyond to ensure everyone was in the festive spirit- a job which has its own set of challenges when dealing with so many unique and strong personalities. So a huge thank you for affording us the experience and we promise to visit regularly whilst here in the U.K.

As I’m sure you’ve come to realise life is never dull in our household and this week brought with it a couple of challenges. On Wednesday morning the power went out unexpectedly. After checking with other caravanners (is that even a word?) on site we found it wasn’t effecting the whole site-just us! I inspected the fuse box and trip switches and finding nothing suspicious went to disconnect the mains and found the plug was, for lack of a better word, melted. Immediately I contacted my new ‘go to’ -Twitter and luckily for me The Trudgians and The Caravan and Motorhome club came to the rescue with advice and suggestions. We popped down to GT towing, bought replacement plugs, sockets and a new power supply and after half an hour of fumbling in the dark with a headtorch and candles Warren had us up and running again.
If that wasn’t enough excitement for one day….Sebastian thought it would be a good idea to lock the keys in the car, outside of Tesco, before we had a chance to collect Warren and buy our replacement parts. Fortunately the drivers window was slightly ajar (as Alfie was in the back) and the lovely gentleman who run the Tesco car wash had a piece of wire which looked suspiciously made for the task at hand. Don’t misunderstand….this was no easy feat and I so wish I had captured it on video because it was a real girl power moment when I eventually managed to open it especially as not one person even approached to offer assistance. But alas, I didn’t, I was too busy asking Sebastian if he had his wallet on him as I was not paying for a locksmith, AA etc, etc and telling him if he wasn’t glued to his phone this never would have happened and now we will probably be stuck in the dark and cold as the caravan parts store would be closed-not my finest moment and probably the reason no one approached to help.
As you know everything worked out in the end and breaking into a car is another skill I can add to my resume.

So that brings us to the end of my final blog post for the year. Should you wish to catch a glimpse of what we’re up to over Christmas take a look at our Instagram and Twitter accounts @Travellingfam5 . I just wanted to say a massive thank you to everyone who has followed our journey thus far, liked, shared and commented on Facebook-the response has been quite overwhelming and we really do appreciate your messages of support and encouragement.

I guess all that’s left to do is wish you a

Merry Christmas and a Very, Happy New Year

From OurTravellingFamily to Yours ❤️

 

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