What are you all up to
Comments
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Tammygirl, I may have had a bad experience of housing but I don't think the Meek family had any different experience of it than any others on here. Yet they still prefer this new way of life. How do you explain that?
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I think they live in a house and most of the time have a fairly conventional lifestyle and go away in a van during school holidays. I think the two big differences between them and Malc are 1, they tour in the accepted sense of the word and 2, they appear solvent
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I am not sure the club make much money out of folk through the winter M. Given the high electric consumption in the cold weather and the lower prices. That would particularly apply in the case of season pitches. Just as well the club don't seem to monitor these threads any more, or you might have talked yourself out of next years booking😉
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Unfortunately, Oneputt, we'll never know because they are not posting on here to tell us what they're up to. I wish they would, my wife and I met them on club sites on two occasions and they are a lovely family who are a credit to this way of life! I don't think anyone could go wrong by following their example.
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Because we have no need or desire to do so!
I can only speak for us, but I think this would apply to pretty much most on here.......
We are very happy with our lifestyle. We have a house we designed ourselves, it is spacious, comfortable and cosy and paid for long ago.
We have our friends and family nearby, and if family are not nearby we have plenty of space for them to come and visit, or we can visit them, we might even use our LVs to do so.
We have space to indulge our hobbies and space to have our treasured possessions around us, and for many of us, our homes hold many happy memories.
We do not feel trapped here, we have plenty to keep us busy, and we can go on holiday whenever we like as we have pensions and/or savings to enable us to do so.
Yes, we may complain about things like Council Tax, but then who does like paying taxes? Comlaining about taxes does not necessarily mean we cannot afford to pay them.
Neither do our children feel trapped in their lifestyles, they enjoy their jobs, as do their spouses. They are well paid, have small mortgages relative to house value, savings, and growing pension pots. Their children enjoy going to school and being with their friends.
If we were to suggest they would be happier selling up and living in a caravan, they would think we had totally lost the plot!!
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Just in case you're interested- read all about the intrepid Meeks.
And a quote -
In November 2016 we moved onto pastures new. We’d had over two years out of the rat race, more than we had initially planned to do and felt that we needed to add some stability into our lives, particularly for the girls. We returned to Nottingham and began what we called a hybrid lifestyle. We didn’t want to slip back into a life that allowed the jobs to consume our lives but wanted to have a base from which we could continue to adventure as a family. We wanted to enter back into a community where the girls could mix with their peers, but also balance this with regular family adventures. Still wanting to explore and adventure, we use our home and Swift Basecamp as a base from which we can #getoutside and find adventures.
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Remember it well OP, our eldest is in Southern Germany at the moment on exercise with the Yanks, talking to him the other night he said no snow, its too cold to snow. Minus 15c during the day and - 20 to 25c at nights. Brrrrr used to get really cold winters in Hohne.
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I've never felt 'saddled' with a house and mortgage or being in a 'trapped way of life'. They were my preferred way of life because they brought benefits to me and my family.
Whilst I honestly admire (or maybe I pity) the application of your energy, stoicism and determination to vagrancy I can't decide whether you are pulling your own leg or in denial and trying to convince yourself.
Frankly, MM, I can't help feeling that if you (had) devoted your time, your positive attitude and determination to a 'proper' job and your financial affairs you and your cherished 'daily help' would have a house that wasn't a burden and the freedom to overcome a frozen waste pipe and the constant setting up and striking camp when and at any place you fancied.
Most on here haven't followed your frugal lifestyle because they either don't need to or don't want to.
The Emperor with a new suit of clothes comes to mind.
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I've copied and pasted it on the other discussion Goldie, hope you don't mind.
Don't forget travelling folk have been doing it for hundreds of years
And some of themhave moved away from tradition and now have luxurious chalet or even houses
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To those who responded to my post of a couple of days ago, reminding me of the darker days on CT when we went through a period of nasty back biting and deliberately provocative posts. Yes you are right, - for I had indeed forgotten that period, it was most certainly a very negative period.
But that was quite quickly resolved by some excellent work by the Mods and the CC staff. CT then moved on and once the Trolls had been shown the door the Forum improved immensely.
I think that for me things started to go wrong after the somewhat disastrous re launch of CT. It was not ever a totally new system but rather more of a sort of "facelift" which was very clunky. That together with the change of the club to that other name, meant that for me it was almost time to call it a day.
To MM, remember that there are a significant number of CC members who never use Club sites due to the high prices today. But we still keep up our membership mainly in order to retain access to the CL chain, and very good they are too. Most now provide EHU's and various other facilities too. In 2017 we spent 55 nights in the van all on CL's or small commercial sites. Mainly the cost was limited to £14 per night although the small commercial site that we used, which was excellent cost £17 per night. I have no idea what CC club sites cost today but I suspect that by now it will have exceeded £20.
Poor health is suggesting that this might be our last year since starting in 1977. It has been great but I suspect that the next few years will bring many changes forced upon us by the new trend towards smaller cars powered by new technology engines. I hope that that will not bring the end to caravanning as we know it, - but it might!
Good Luck - TF
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Airport has opened briefly to allow the big plane from Dubai to land, but no sign of any other planes going anywhere.
They must have been working hard to get the runway opened as the plane had to circle over Lanarkshire 9 times before it could land.
Still snowing heavily here.
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The winter of 1968 working on the Railway between Sheffield and Woodhead and needing my car (an Austin A55 ) soon had me in Snow mode,and even the lorry drivers were having to use burning rags to unfreeze their diesel fuel tanks
ps Town and Country tyres, shovel and a good tow rope were essentials
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Reliable pair looking for work! Willing to clear paths and driveways. Satisfaction not guaranteed . . . They may try to hit you with snowballs instead of finishing the job 😃
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We used a CL in Lancing, Tigerfish, called Lancing Fruit Farm in late Autumn until just before Christmas. We were booked to return there from 5th January. Then one day before our arrival, we received a phone call from them cancelling our booking because of the weather. Yes it was cheaper at £12 a night but with only one days notice of cancellation, it was difficult to get a pitch elsewhere as it was over a weekend that was fully booked so that 21 consecutive nights were unavailable. It doesn't suit us to be let down at such short notice as we can be left stranded with nowhere to stay. Club sites may cost more but the booking is more reliable and the facilities better, so we think it's worth the extra cost.
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I see you got what I would consider a disruptive response to your post, however you are correct in your views TW. Sometimes we need reminders and guidance on here to keep things on track, we can't always self moderate. The rare poster will still seek the opportunity to cause disruption. May be the club now classifies this as lively input and daily hits without regard for content or discomfit?
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As promised, just managed to get a couple of pictures of our urban Foxes. The one behind the fence in the last picture is hoovering up all the meal worm/bug mix I put out for the Robins that has dropped from the feeder hanging above him.
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What were they supposed to do Malcolm if the ground was unusable. It can happen even on the best and most expensive of club sites that they have to cancel grass pitches due to weather conditions.
I feel very sorry for the CL in question as you seem to be determined to damn them, shame on you after all the time you have stayed with them. I very much doubt they haven't seen any profit out of you.
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Thanks Milo, amazing photos.
What have we been doing? Well we managed to stagger through the snowy streets of York to the Rail Museum and see the Tim Peake space capsule. Worth seeing, you could have a photo taken in a space suit and only admire the achievements of space flights.
(We chickened out on the virtual reality space flight.)1 -
Mine to, 1974 - 1979 couple of really hard winters, were local roads closed and only emergency/military vehicles allowed on the roads. Winter 78 - 79 was the worst, started snowing in November and didn't stop until March, coupled with -15c temps the ice and snow never went away. There was still piles of it in the fields come Easter. Thing is even with a baby and a toddler we just got on with it, the drive in from Bergen to Hohne Naafi was really fun some days. The car of choice then was a Rover 3.5 ltr automatic, lovely beast.
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I was thinking of dusting off my skis to go over to Lidl to buy milk, but it is getting really grim here so I have changed my mind!
Very grey now, snow still falling, and a bitter east wind.
There may be no porridge or cornflakes tomorrow, but we still have enough milk for a few cups of tea.
The poor birds are having a hard time finding the seeds we have put out as the snow keeps covering them over. I have cleared the sill right under the patio doors, where there is shelter from the house, and put seeds there, so we have our usual 2 robins and 7 blackbirds squabbling over the seeds, plus a thrush, a starling, a sparrow and the odd bluetit
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I was just thinking, what would it actually cost to caravan all year round on Club sites with facilities?
What is the average pitch price over a year? Maybe £18 per night? A seasonal pitch is no use if you want to see the country.
So for a year that would be £6570.
Even Council Tax and bills do not come to that much!
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