No milkman today. Sunday. We do need some though so someone will have to pop out this morning to buy a pint or two. Might not be me. THG reminded me that I was only insured on her car by virtue of the fully comp insurance on my own. This morning the place where I normally park my car is empty. The car, as you know, has gone.
I feel no regret about selling the Defender. Somehow it feels liberating, almost like being a student again. As a student I went everywhere by public transport, or walked. No responsibilities. No thoughts to the future. It’s almost as if the direction of travel is back to that era.
It was great to have driven the Defender for the four years or so that I had it. People would ask me cynically why I needed 4×4 gas guzzler and I would reply “because it can drive through rivers, up mountains and across deserts and glaciers”. “When would I ever use it for that” they would reply. They didn’t understand. I could do it if I needed to.
There was only really once where I did need the off road capabilities of the car. Last autumn before catching the ferry home from France I filled in some time visiting the Normandy beaches. On one occasion I set the sat nav for one of the beaches, Gold maybe, or Omaha, and found myself driving down a farm track into a field full of sunflowers. I should have been suspicious but every farm track seemed to have a name which gave it some sense of being a real road so I figured Waze must know what it was doing.
It didn’t. I could see the beach a few hundred metres away on the screen but between me and it was nothing. My choice was reversing half a mile along a narrow, high sided Normandy farm track or going into the field and turning around. Fortunately there was around five metres around the edge of the field with no crops which was just enough for me to do a three point turn. For the Land Rover this presented no problem.
It was good while it lasted and I have now moved on. The next step is to sell the campervans. We decided that after eight years of being in the vintage campervan rental business it had run its course. The vans are going to be sold and the business closed.
Running a VW campervan business has been a very cool thing to do. There have been highs and lows, but mostly highs. It felt great when people would bring back a campervan and rave about the experience. Some would not want to hand the keys back and some customers return year after year.
The lows have been the occasional breakdown but that is all about how you handle it. We would give people a full refund and fortunately our hirers were fairly phlegmatic about those situations. After all these are fifty year old vans and things could go wrong.
Overall the experience was very positive but we now feel comfortable about getting our freedom back during the summer months. The time is right.
Selling my car and deciding to sell the vans has provided a remarkable sense of release, of moving on. I’m quite excited about what the future might bring. I have some ideas about things to do and I still have project Netxis project which although it has its ups and downs as businesses do it is mostly good fun. I think I have the balance right.
In the meantime it is nearly six thirty in the morning, dawn has arrived, the birds are singing and it is time to make THG a cup of tea.