I'm very surprised to see the England team doing better than us right now. I thought they'd be the ones in trouble...
As usual, I've left most things until the last minute having adopted the 'it'll sort itself out' attitude. With only 16 days to go however, I'm quickly realising that there's actually quite a lot that won't sort itself out.
For example, the route. How do we get there and what do we do on the way? Now, we've been to the grandparent's house before, but that was 2 years ago and it was by plane. And we were collected and dropped off at the airport.
I've recruited some help. I've got a Tom Tom and today we bought Auto Route 2007 with integrated 'thingy' that helps you know where you are. Problem is, the Grandparents (or 'Olds' as we like to call them) address isn't on either! Hmmm! Nice. I thought they could help me, but being the 'Olds', they don't even know where they live. Their address is also a PO Box so this really is going to be a challenge. We've (sort of) arranged for us to get as close as we can to them (they live somewhere near Rojales) and then we'll ring them and meet up (at least that's the plan; they are rubbish with phones and never have the mobile switched on because no one ever rings apparently).
Anyway, the route there is the easy part because we at least have a choice of which way to go. There are tonnes of other things we don't have a choice with however and it's now dawning on us how hard this 'holiday' might end up being. We have, after all got the extremes of children; an easily bored 4 year old boy and a terminally bored 16 year old boy. In between we have got typical 10 and 15 year old girls.
As we have never stayed in a Motor Home, we had a pilot sleepover on the drive the other day. Nightmare. The 4 year old wanted to be on his own and so did the 16 year old but the girls were happy to be together. After a couple of hours trying to sort it out, the 16 year old was evicted back indoors and the rest of us sweated it out. I left the heating on too high so that's another thing I need to master.
Back to today. We had a run out to test the Auto Route and its tracker thingy and set it to take us to a local pub. We were also testing the new alarm/immobilizer and reversing camera we had fitted. At first the engine wouldn't start because apparently I spent more than a minute trying after which the immobilizer does its thing. When we finally got underway, we were distracted by the Martian sounding voice of AutoRoute blurting out from our laptop with its directions. It doesn't say go left or right, it says things like 'take the exit to the B2289' which is fine if you know where you are going and are familiar with the road names, but even on my local jolly, I managed to misinterpret the instructions. It's early days, but I'd say the Tom Tom is gonna be better although if I ever do work out a route, I shall have the problem of programming it into the Tom Tom.
Me and Mrs. F are going to try out the 'first floor' bed tonight. That's the one above the cab. The kids can enjoy the warmth of the house tonight. In the last attempt at organising who sleeps where, we all sort of ended up in a pile so this will be an attempt to see if that bed works for us.
"We" bought a load more gear today. According to Mrs. F we need it. I'm getting paranoid about the weight though and keep picking up that Haynes manual to try and work out whether I've got anything to worry about. Every page I turn however just gives me something else to add to my list of things to work out or do.
Tomorrow I have the treat of emptying the dunny for the first time. We haven't been anywhere in the MH yet so have only used it for novelty purposes and as everyone who pops rounds seems to want to share the novelty, I reckon I will have a fairly ferocious cocktail to dispose of. Nice. No wonder I haven't rushed to tick that box yet.
Other things to try out for the first time include opening the awning, attaching the gas bottles, firing up the cooker (both gas and lekky), starting the fridge (I seem to have a choice of resource there) get the telly working, try the water heater, empty the so called grey water and (jeez, I'm shaking at the thought) exposing one of us, me probably, to the shower.
Logic says these should all be road tested on my drive rather than in some lay-by in France so that's the plan for the next few days.
As usual, I've left most things until the last minute having adopted the 'it'll sort itself out' attitude. With only 16 days to go however, I'm quickly realising that there's actually quite a lot that won't sort itself out.
For example, the route. How do we get there and what do we do on the way? Now, we've been to the grandparent's house before, but that was 2 years ago and it was by plane. And we were collected and dropped off at the airport.
I've recruited some help. I've got a Tom Tom and today we bought Auto Route 2007 with integrated 'thingy' that helps you know where you are. Problem is, the Grandparents (or 'Olds' as we like to call them) address isn't on either! Hmmm! Nice. I thought they could help me, but being the 'Olds', they don't even know where they live. Their address is also a PO Box so this really is going to be a challenge. We've (sort of) arranged for us to get as close as we can to them (they live somewhere near Rojales) and then we'll ring them and meet up (at least that's the plan; they are rubbish with phones and never have the mobile switched on because no one ever rings apparently).
Anyway, the route there is the easy part because we at least have a choice of which way to go. There are tonnes of other things we don't have a choice with however and it's now dawning on us how hard this 'holiday' might end up being. We have, after all got the extremes of children; an easily bored 4 year old boy and a terminally bored 16 year old boy. In between we have got typical 10 and 15 year old girls.
As we have never stayed in a Motor Home, we had a pilot sleepover on the drive the other day. Nightmare. The 4 year old wanted to be on his own and so did the 16 year old but the girls were happy to be together. After a couple of hours trying to sort it out, the 16 year old was evicted back indoors and the rest of us sweated it out. I left the heating on too high so that's another thing I need to master.
Back to today. We had a run out to test the Auto Route and its tracker thingy and set it to take us to a local pub. We were also testing the new alarm/immobilizer and reversing camera we had fitted. At first the engine wouldn't start because apparently I spent more than a minute trying after which the immobilizer does its thing. When we finally got underway, we were distracted by the Martian sounding voice of AutoRoute blurting out from our laptop with its directions. It doesn't say go left or right, it says things like 'take the exit to the B2289' which is fine if you know where you are going and are familiar with the road names, but even on my local jolly, I managed to misinterpret the instructions. It's early days, but I'd say the Tom Tom is gonna be better although if I ever do work out a route, I shall have the problem of programming it into the Tom Tom.
Me and Mrs. F are going to try out the 'first floor' bed tonight. That's the one above the cab. The kids can enjoy the warmth of the house tonight. In the last attempt at organising who sleeps where, we all sort of ended up in a pile so this will be an attempt to see if that bed works for us.
"We" bought a load more gear today. According to Mrs. F we need it. I'm getting paranoid about the weight though and keep picking up that Haynes manual to try and work out whether I've got anything to worry about. Every page I turn however just gives me something else to add to my list of things to work out or do.
Tomorrow I have the treat of emptying the dunny for the first time. We haven't been anywhere in the MH yet so have only used it for novelty purposes and as everyone who pops rounds seems to want to share the novelty, I reckon I will have a fairly ferocious cocktail to dispose of. Nice. No wonder I haven't rushed to tick that box yet.
Other things to try out for the first time include opening the awning, attaching the gas bottles, firing up the cooker (both gas and lekky), starting the fridge (I seem to have a choice of resource there) get the telly working, try the water heater, empty the so called grey water and (jeez, I'm shaking at the thought) exposing one of us, me probably, to the shower.
Logic says these should all be road tested on my drive rather than in some lay-by in France so that's the plan for the next few days.
