First (crashingly great) time away in caravan with reluctant OH, oh dear!

I grew up caravanning. I loved it. We travelled all over the UK and Europe. It was a wonderful freedom. 

My husband has never caravanned. Hated the idea. But with three children and needing some way of 'getting away from it all' ( and me going on, and on, and on about how great caravanning is, for years - about 8 years, in fact) he eventually relented and in late January 2015 we collected our caravan. We shared the towing home, all went well.

in february 2015 we went for our first trip away in the caravan, to a freezing cold blustery site for a trial. About half a mile from our home there was a loud thump as the caravan fell off the car-oops! We thought we'd hooked it up correctly, obviously not! We blocked the road, so embarrassing! A few good, kind and very strong people helped us pick it up and fix it back onto the car. We shamefully towed it back home.

After establishing that we had the caravan on the car properly this time, and chocolate for our shaken nerves (and telling the kids to stop laughing at us) we drove out of our gate onto the road. The wheels hit the curb stone, the caravan rocked and another loud thump was heard. This time we'd smashed a side window on the gate post. More chocolate and a lot of tape (and a lot of tears, mostly mine, now also the children, hubby just went worryingly quiet).

eventually we got back on the road and made it to our site, phoning ahead to tell them we'd be late as we'd had an accident (or two), the wardens were extremely kind and stayed open for us. It was only after we arrived it occurred to us to re-check the electrics and we realised we'd towed the caravan without lights etc, in the dark, oops! So very very stupid.

i was sure we'd be re-selling the caravan the following week. However, the only negative comment my hubby made was "it's a bit of a faff this caravanning business". Actually, in spite of the less than auspicious start to our caravanning we all love it, and we knocked up over 30 nights in our first year, from Cornwall to Scotland and Norfolk. We have 40 nights booked this year, can't wait! We've just come back from the first four nights in the new forest, in 'Storm Katie' - wow, that was windy and wet, but we haven't lost our love of caravanning. Our children get to have a proper childhood, playing out and having fun, not being distracted by TV and tablets and not fearing 'baddies'. 

Now that we know how to get the van hooked up properly, (not hard at all as it turns out) and have had a motor mover fitted to negotiate the narrow gate posts (awesome bit of kit) we're all set for years of fun, and hopefully no more crashing weekends!