A change of plans

In June 2019, after 44 years of working as an engineer and a nurse, we finally hung up the slide rule and diary. For the previous year, we had been planning our retirement, looking forward to purchasing a motorhome and travelling.

We had read the magazines, visited shows and came up with a shortlist of the ones we liked. In the October we hired a motorhome that nearly met all our requirements and went to the Gower. It rained and blew and manoeuvring the ’van on the narrow lanes made us start to have second thoughts.

Our original plan of going away for months was beginning to morph. Perhaps we should get a smaller motorhome and use it for UK trips and still have

the exotic foreign holidays.

So, with this revised retirement plan in mind, we booked to go to China in April 20. Then in the autumn we happened to be in a local dealership and spotted a Romahome R25. We liked it and, on impulse, bought it.

Our first “test” trip was in February 2020, to Cheddar, where we got used to its facilities and managing our lively collie.

Then ‘lockdown 1’ hit, so we had an expensive bit of kit, sat on the drive and unable to be used. Also our April China trip was cancelled and had to be moved to the autumn.

When lockdown 1 was relaxed, how good it was to have the motorhome, as it allowed us to easily get away on quite a few trips: the Malverns, Halden Forest, Dartmoor, Winchester and Stoke Gabriel.

Then came ‘lockdown 2’. We were unable to use the motorhome again and our China trip had to be moved to

April 21. However, the motorhome did come in useful over Christmas, as when our son came home we used it to isolate him.

Now that we’re into ‘lockdown 3’, it looks as though we won’t get to China in April, so we’ve had to move it to this autumn. Hopefully, we’ll get there this year and at least when we’re let out from the current lockdown, we’ll be able to tour the UK more extensively. We’ve already booked up a number of motorhome ‘tours’.

What a start to retirement!