It’s now February 2021 and COVID continues to dominate our lives as we’re in Lockdown 3. Since returning from our trip in November, we have been in quarantine twice, which is as many times as we’ve managed to get to the van in the same time. We have been fortunate not to have had the virus and the year of being thrown together all day, every day without driving each other mad certainly bodes well for living in the van!
One big change for 2021 is that we have now both stopped working which was the original plan to allow us to ship the van to Canada and begin our life on the road. We decided whilst in Spain that this probably wasn’t going to happen this year and currently the travel plan for this year is still very much up in the air. The trip back to northern Norway at the end of January, which was booked pre-COVID, was obviously cancelled and with no sign yet as to when we can even move out of the local area, there is currently nothing booked, something unheard of in this house!
But….although there are no bookings and not even any maps on the wall, we have ideas and are still hoping to get to Nordkapp for the midnight sun and then down to Morocco for the Autumn/Winter. As well as dealing with COVID and ensuring we are close to home when we get the call for our vaccinations, the joy that is Brexit is limiting our time in Europe (90 days maximum in any 180) so we, probably like many UK motorhomers, will be touring closer to home. Not that that’s a problem as there’s so much of our beautiful country to see and we’ll need to incorporate a few things to be done on the van enroute. We’ll also be able to visit friends and family who we don’t get to see very often!
Being at home has given us the time to have a good sort out and clear all the accumulated clutter before moving full time to the motorhome. We are still surrounded by boxes waiting for the charity shops to re-open but have been able to add to the travel fund with a few online sales. June’s eldest daughter has now firmly taken residence in the house (along with numerous more boxes!) as she will be living here whilst we travel.
Not having the inconvenience of work and not being able to go too far has meant that we have explored the local area and found so many footpaths that we didn’t know existed. We really have come to appreciate where we live. Although we are keen walkers, we still like a challenge to keep us motivated so signed up to Walk 1000 Miles in 2021 and despite losing 10 days to January’s quarantine we are ahead of schedule. The walking is needed to keep the weight gain from home cooking at bay!