When I was fifteen years old, for some crazy reason I wrote a love letter to my future husband. Not a boyfriend at the time, although being honest, I had probably already fantasised about marrying most of them!

I just hoped and prayed that somehow, sometime in the future, I would find the right person for me. Someone who would make me laugh, love me exactly as I was and be there beside me through the good days and the bad.

Sadly, at fifteen, I had no idea it would take me over thirty years to find him.

I didn’t know about the twists and turns my life would take first, the difficult decisions I would have to make, the heartbreaks, the challenges or all the lessons I apparently still had to learn before Tim, and I finally found our way to each other.

I folded the letter away inside one of my many diaries and completely forgot about it for nearly forty years, until a couple of months ago I found it again.

The strange thing was, when I read it back, it felt like I had somehow written it to Tim all those years ago, long before I even knew who he was.

“I wonder who I’m going to marry, and where he is at the moment. I wish I knew you.”

I wrote more about the day I found that letter nearly forty years later here 🌹

The Love Letter I Wrote To My Future Husband

Of course, when I wrote those words, I had absolutely no idea what life had waiting for me. I didn’t know that before I found the love I had always dreamed about, I would have to travel a much longer and more complicated road than I ever imagined.

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if Tim and I had met years earlier. If we’d met when we were young, bought our first little home together, had children and muddled our way through life side by side. I often think it’s the ordinary days that become the memories you treasure the most.

But perhaps it just wasn’t meant to happen that way.

Maybe we both needed to live a whole lifetime before we met. To have our children, make plenty of mistakes, get things wrong, learn a few hard lessons and become the people we are today before our paths finally crossed.

When Tim finally walked into my life, it never felt like I was meeting someone for the first time. There was something strangely familiar about him from the very beginning. I can’t explain it any better than that.

Ever since we got together, life has tested us in ways neither of us could ever have imagined.

But life has thrown just about everything it possibly could at us. We’ve cried together, laughed together, picked ourselves up more times than I care to remember and somehow kept putting one foot in front of the other. Through it all, Tim has never left my side.

Writing this has taken me hours because how do you possibly put into words finding the person your fifteen-year-old self was writing to?

So maybe I should start at the beginning.

I married my first husband in 2000, a year later we had our first baby boy Jamie who was sadly born with a cleft lip and palate, a hole in the heart, facial paralysis and later we found out Charge Syndrome and autism.

Despite everything, we somehow found our way through those early years. Jamie needed so much care and attention, but we did our very best to give him the happiest life possible.

Bringing him up was filled with hospital visits, challenges and stress, but he is 25 years old now and the most incredible young man who has achieved so much more than we ever thought would be possible.

A couple of years later our beautiful daughter Maria arrived, and in many ways, she helped heal a part of me that had been living in fear for so long.

I suddenly got to experience all the little things I had dreamed of as a new mother. The endless chatter, the funny little questions, the games, the stories and all those simple everyday moments that many people probably don’t even think about.

Of course I loved Jamie with every piece of my heart, but with Maria I could finally breathe a little and enjoy motherhood without the constant worry of what might happen next.

We carried on as a family and from the outside I think everything probably looked perfect. But behind closed doors, I don’t think either of us really understood how much everything we had been through had changed us. Having a child with such complex needs changes your whole world, and everyone copes with that differently.

Due to Jamie needing one to one care, I sadly had to give up my career as a location manager on Midsomer Murders. I absolutely loved my job and the crazy world of television. I had grown up watching my father working as a producer and secretly hoped that maybe one day I would follow in his footsteps, but there really wasn’t a choice to make. Jamie needed me and Jamie would always come first.

Slowly, without even really noticing, we started drifting further and further apart.

I had always imagined marriage would be full of love, closeness, laughter and kindness. Someone to cuddle up with at night, someone to share the little moments with and someone who felt like they were walking beside me through life.

But over the years, that closeness seemed to slowly disappear.

We didn’t cuddle up in bed anymore. In fact, we each had our own single duvets, which probably said far more about our marriage than I realised at the time. He enjoyed going away with his friends and would often disappear for days on boys’ trips, while I stayed at home looking after Jamie and Maria.

We argued over the smallest things and slowly I started to feel like I was losing a part of myself.

From the outside we had what looked like an enviable lifestyle. A beautiful home with a swimming pool, brand new cars, amazing holidays, a huge cliffside villa in Majorca overlooking the sea and a 34-foot Windy motorboat. Although I was terrified of going out on the boat, but that’s another story!

I knew how lucky I was financially and I never took any of it for granted. I adored our villa in Majorca, especially because it sat high on the cliffs above Porto Petro, just a ten-minute walk from Cala Mondragó, the little beach I had swum in year after year as a child.

I remember sitting outside at the table in the evenings, looking across the sea with the moon reflecting on the water and thinking how lucky I was. But deep down there was still something missing, something I couldn’t buy or pretend didn’t matter.

The love and closeness I had always dreamed about all my life.

I felt guilty even admitting that because I knew so many people would have looked at my life and thought I had everything anyone could possibly want. And in so many ways I did.

Looking back, I think I was slowly losing a little bit of myself. On the outside I probably seemed exactly the same, but inside something had changed. The happy, carefree girl I used to be was gradually disappearing.

Deep down, I think I was still searching for the kind of love I had written about all those years ago.

But what do you do when you’re married with two children and a little boy who depends on you for everything?

You get on with life.

So that’s exactly what I did.

Once Jamie was safely settled at his special needs school, I decided it was time for me to try and get a little piece of myself back again, so I started working in my husband’s business centres helping him find more tenants as there were a lot of empty offices.

Being back at work felt wonderful. After years of hospital appointments, operations, caring, worrying and being known mainly as Jamie and Maria’s mum, it felt amazing to use my brain again and remember the person I had been before everything changed.

I threw myself into it completely. I filled the car parks with bright hanging baskets, redecorated the offices, made sure we were advertised everywhere and slowly the empty spaces started filling up. Before long, we were practically full. It gave me such a boost to feel as though I was achieving something again. I’d forgotten how much I’d missed working.

Life carried on between our home in Buckinghamshire and our beautiful villa in Majorca. From the outside, everything looked exactly as it should. For a long time, I told myself this was simply my life now. I had two beautiful children, a lovely home and so much to be grateful for.

But if I was really honest with myself, I’d started to believe that the kind of love I’d written about all those years earlier was never going to happen. I was married; I had two children and a little boy who needed me every single day. I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to take all that on.

And then, on a normal weekday morning, whilst sitting in my little office surrounded by paperwork, my mobile rang.

It was a man enquiring about renting an office.

His name was Tim.

🌹

Thank you so much for reading.

Writing this wasn’t easy. Not because I didn’t want to tell the story, but because I wanted to tell it as honestly as I could.

Life isn’t always straightforward, and looking back I can only write about those days as I remember them. There is still so much more of our story to share with you.

If you’ve enjoyed reading, I’d love to hear what you think in the comments. I read every one.

If you’d like to help support my writing, you can buy me a coffee here:

☕ https://buymeacoffee.com/georginadeglanville

There’s never any expectation, but every coffee gives me a little more time to write the next chapter.

Thank you for reading. It really does mean a lot.

Love,

George 🌹

Night after night I would wake in the early hours of the morning in our bedroom overlooking the sea, listening to the faint ticking of the little clock beside the bed. Curled up in Tim’s strong arms, I felt though I had just come back from a war. The battle was finally over, but my mind was still fighting it.

Tim would be holding me tightly and Charlie Brown would be fast asleep in her little bed beside us, snoring gently, neither of them having a clue of the crazy thoughts racing around my head.

I should have saved the hotel

I am a failure

I let everyone down

How are we going to survive now we have practically nothing left?

What now, what next?

Outside our patio doors, the waves would crash onto the beach below, echoing the chaos in my mind. It had only been a couple of months since we had finally escaped bankruptcy. The process had dragged on for well over a year, after another exhausting year spent working with the administrators, desperately trying to find an investor.

We tried everything we could think of, but nothing seemed to make any difference. At the time, we kept believing the next meeting, the next phone call or the next conversation might somehow change everything. Looking back now, I don’t think there was anything we could have done differently. We were simply caught up in something far bigger than us.

Some nights the noise in my head would become overbearing and I would have to get up to try and break the feelings of fear and dread about what might or might not happen next.

I would slip out of Tim’s arms, tiptoe over to our bathroom, put on my white cotton dressing and my red Crocs and sneak out of our bedroom, closing the door softly behind me then wander into our kitchen and make a cup of tea.

As it boiled, I would stare out of the kitchen patio door and wonder at the stars scattered across the sky, trying to remind myself that I was just a tiny ant in a huge world. There were people in far worse situations than us and then I would thank my Angels for keeping us safe, take a couple of deep breaths and try to calm my racing heart.

I’d reach for my old cow mug, drop a tea bag into it and pour on the boiling water before adding just enough skimmed milk to turn it the right colour. The milk came from the huge American fridge that had once stood proudly in our family home before we were forced to sell it just to survive. Then I’d carry my tea into the living room, curl up on our cream leather recliner with a throw over my knees and begin to write.

It was the only way I could calm my racing mind, and it would happen several times a week at first.

Outside, the sea carried on exactly as it always had. The waves rolled onto the beach, then slipped back again, completely unaware of everything that had happened to us. I’d listened to those same waves through some of the happiest days of my life, through all our plans and dreams, and later through the long nights when I lay awake wondering whether we were going to lose everything, including the flat above the sea that meant so much to me.

That flat was so much more than somewhere to live. I’d dreamt about it long before I ever knew it existed. As a little girl, I’d stand at my bedroom window and pretend the field behind our house was the sea, promising myself that one day I’d wake up to the sound of the waves.

When Tim and I bought the flat, I could hardly believe it was ours. It was supposed to be another renovation project, but deep down I hoped we’d never sell it. Even in the middle of winter we’d wrap ourselves in blankets and sit out on the balcony, whatever the weather, watching the world go by below us.

Children building sandcastles, dogs running in and out of the waves, families, couples, strangers passing beneath us. So many different people, all living completely different lives, carrying worries, hopes, dreams and stories we knew nothing about.

I used to love wondering where they were going, what their lives were like, what they were thinking about. Those were some of the happiest days of my life. I had recently married my soul mate and life felt exciting.

But at that time, sitting there writing in the middle of the night I knew that something inside me had changed forever.

I knew I would never trust people in quite the same way again. I would never again assume everything would somehow work out, because sometimes it doesn’t. But I also knew there was no chance I could have survived those years without Tim beside me and without the love of my parents.

Those years had changed something deep inside me. I could meditate every day, walk for miles along the beach with Tim and Charlie Brown, stop and breathe when I felt the panic rising, and remind myself over and over again that we were finally safe. None of it seemed to convince my body. Part of me was still waiting for the next disaster.

After losing our hotel, along with Tim’s pension, our savings and what felt like an entire lifetime of security, I wasn’t the same person I had been before.

It didn’t take much to throw me straight back there. The ping of an email could make my stomach lurch. A call from a number I didn’t recognise would have my heart racing before I’d even answered it. If the postman arrived with an official looking brown envelope, I would immediately wonder what had happened now. Before everything we’d been through, those things wouldn’t have bothered me. Now they could undo me in seconds, taking me straight back to that awful feeling of never knowing what was coming next.

I’d sit there on the sofa with the faint ticking of the clock above the television and the soft glow of the lamp beside me, trying to talk some sense into myself.

It wasn’t your fault.

You couldn’t have known Covid would arrive just before completion.

You couldn’t have predicted interest rates would treble.

You couldn’t have foreseen a management company letting you down.

I’d repeat those words over and over, but there was always another voice waiting to answer back.

Yes... but what if you’d spotted something you’d missed? What if there was one decision that could have changed everything?

No matter how hard I tried to be logical, that little voice refused to let it go.

But underneath all of that, there was still that little voice inside me that argued back. The one that ignored all the facts and made me go back over things in my mind, wondering if somehow, I should have seen what was coming.

Then my mind would wander to my tarot cards.

Why hadn’t they warned me?

And then I’d remember The Tower appearing more than once. Each time I’d shuffle the cards and start again, almost as though I could change the answer by refusing to accept it. By then we’d already invested so much, emotionally and financially, that walking away no longer felt like an option.

Looking back now, I don’t think it was the cards I ignored. It was my own intuition. Part of me knew something didn’t feel right, but I wanted so desperately to believe everything would be alright that I pushed that feeling aside.

Deep down, I knew all of that. We couldn’t have predicted what was coming. We weren’t the first people to lose almost everything, and we certainly wouldn’t be the last. There were families carrying far heavier burdens than ours. None of those thoughts made any difference. My head understood we were safe. My heart didn’t. The anxiety had become part of me, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t seem to shake it.

I would finish my tea, shut down my computer, turn off the lamp beside me and creep back into bed with Tim, curling myself into his back, feeling the warmth and strength of him beside me.

I’d close my eyes and pray to God and the angels. I’d ask them to watch over us, ease the fear that still clung to me and help me believe, truly believe, that we were safe. Most of all, I’d ask them to help us find our way through whatever came next.

We thought it was over.

What we didn’t realise then, was that it wasn’t.

🌹

Thank you so much for reading and for coming along on this journey with me.

Writing these chapters is not always easy, but it has been incredibly healing, and your kindness and messages mean more than you probably realise.

If you enjoy my writing and would like to help me keep going, you can buy me a coffee here:

https://buymeacoffee.com/georginadeglanville

With love,

George 🌹

We try and go up to see my parents as much as we can in Bennie, our motorhome. There are three spare bedrooms in the house, but Tim and I have always slept cuddled up together. We simply can’t bear to sleep apart, so why on earth would we choose separate single beds when we can retreat to Bennie’s perfectly comfortable drop-down bed, pour ourselves a huge G and T and enjoy a few nibbles before turning in for the night?

My mother rather likes us being in Bennie too because she doesn’t have to worry about making beds, breakfasts or anything else. We are completely self-contained, Charlie Brown can spend hours watching birds and squirrels through the window overlooking the garden, and Tim and I can fall asleep in each other’s arms, so everybody is happy.

I actually love sleeping outside on their driveway. Bennie is parked right beside the same woods my sister and I used to play in as children and at night I lie there listening to the owls hooting and the gentle hum of the old oil boiler my parents still have heating the house.

It is funny because although my parents have plenty of money, they still insist on keeping the same old carpet, which must have been down for at least thirty years.

They still have the same washing machine, which my mother regularly messages me to say has finally packed up. Then I arrive a week later and it’s happily washing another load as though nothing had happened.

They still have the same old fridge freezer too, which seems to have decided that being cold is now optional. I have suggested several times that perhaps it might be time to replace them, but somehow, I don’t think they ever will.

Although how can I talk? We still have the dreadful old gold carpet in our flat, which must have been there for about the same length of time. It is so worn that you can feel the concrete underneath, hence the need for my faithful old red Crocs to cushion my rather delicate feet.

Before my parents house now, we lived in a much more suburban house in Amersham, but then my parents bought what was, quite frankly, little more than a derelict cottage with an eyebrow window sitting in over five acres of land, which I was convinced winked at me every time we pulled onto the drive.

The grounds were completely overgrown, there were woods to explore and a huge wheat field stretching away behind the house. To my sister and me, it felt like our own little world.

There was an old well outside the back of the house which my father had filled in because he was terrified one of us would fall down it. It never seemed to occur to him that I would spend the next ten years falling down it in my dreams instead.

At the far end of what we rather generously called the garden stood the barn where my father worked on cars with permanently oily hands while my mother cleaned and polished the interiors so they could sell them on.

Underneath the barn was our secret den dug into the earth. It was damp, cold and full of old bones and goodness knows what else. My sister was convinced it was haunted and I pretended not to be frightened because I was the older one and apparently that meant I was supposed to know everything. We dragged little chairs and a table down there and held tea parties with our dolls before racing our bikes along the bumpy lane or disappearing into the woods for hours.

My mother had a copper bell which she rang when she wanted us to come home. Somehow, wherever we happened to be, we always heard it. There were no mobile phones or tracking devices and my parents had absolutely no idea where we were half the time. It was a wonderfully wild childhood.

I have written about it before in Borrowed Freedom and also about something rather more frightening that happened behind the barn in Shadows Behind the Barn, both of which I will share at the end of this piece.

But this isn’t really about my childhood adventures. It’s about the two people who made that house our home. My parents were in their early thirties when they moved there, full of dreams and love for their young family.

They meant everything to me. My Mummy and Daddy.

And somehow, without me even noticing, the years slipped by. We celebrated birthdays, holidays and Christmases together, along with all those ordinary days in between that never seem important at the time. Then suddenly they were no longer the young parents I had always known.

How did that happen?

Now I find myself wondering, with an ache I can’t quite explain, how many more hugs I will have with them. How many more times I will hear them call my name or feel their arms around me.

Only a couple of years ago my father was power walking for over an hour every day and now even that has become difficult because of his aching ankles. My mother seems to be getting a little more fragile every time I see her, although she is still happiest pruning bushes in the garden and pulling up weeds. When I visit now, they move more slowly and they look so different to the young parents I grew up with.

It has made me realise that, whether we like to think about it or not, one day almost all of us will face losing a parent. It is one of the few experiences in life that unites us all.

We are born. We become babies, toddlers, teenagers, young adults, middle aged, old and, if we are fortunate enough to get there, very old. Yet none of us can ever know when our own time, or the time of those we love, will come.

Perhaps that is why I always find myself encouraging people to live for today. To make the phone call, arrange the lunch and tell the people you love that you love them while you still can.

I had only seen my parents a couple of weeks earlier when we celebrated my father’s 81st birthday, but for some reason I suddenly found myself wanting to see them again. There wasn’t a special occasion or any particular reason.

I simply missed them.

So, I suggested we all meet halfway between our homes for lunch. My two girlies were coming too, which made it even more special because there is nothing my parents love more than having all of us together.

Sadly, my dear mother had to cancel at the last minute. She had fallen and hit her head a few weeks earlier and was still in quite a lot of pain, so she reluctantly stayed at home. My father, however, was determined to come. At 81 years old he climbed into his car and drove for well over an hour to meet us at the Mill House near Alton.

It was another beautiful sunny day. Tim and I drove there in our old BMW, Beamie, with the hood down, while Sara and Maria travelled together because Sara was heading back to Windsor afterwards.

Tim had finally managed to get the radio working again, which felt like a complete luxury after more than three years of driving in silence. It had sat on his never-ending list of jobs for years and, at last, he had fixed it.

As we hurtled along the motorway in the blazing sunshine, with Tim driving Beamie like he was trying out for Formula One, we sang along to old songs with the roof down and the warm air blowing through my hair. I closed my eyes for a moment and, quite unexpectedly, felt tears welling up behind my sunglasses.

For once it wasn’t because I thought we were about to crash, which, to be fair was usually the reason.

Quite out of nowhere I found myself wondering how many more times I would make this journey to meet my parents.

As the miles rolled by, memories began tumbling into my mind.

They brought me into this world, changed my nappies, picked me up when I fell off my bike, cuddled me when I had nightmares, drove me to school every day and listened patiently to every teenage heartbreak. And, if I’m honest, there were quite a few.

They watched me get married. Daddy walked me down the aisle twice, and they both stood beside me through everything that came with Jamie’s complex disabilities. I honestly don’t know how I would have got through those early days without them.

They accepted the shock of me falling in love with Tim, stood by me through the end of my first marriage and celebrated when Tim and I married and began our life together. Then, just a month before Covid brought the world to a standstill, they invested alongside us as we bought the hotel.

None of us could have imagined what was about to happen.

Instead of watching us build something for the future, they watched years of hard work, hope and investment unravel almost overnight. They shared in the losses, the heartbreak and the uncertainty that followed. They saw the years it has taken us to rebuild our lives, and they know that journey isn’t over yet.

Yet through every bit of it, they never once blamed us or questioned our decisions. They knew none of us could have foreseen a global pandemic. They simply stood beside us, just as they always had.

As we drove to meet Daddy for lunch that afternoon, all of those years and memories came flooding back.

Daddy was already there when we arrived.

Of course he was.

I honestly don’t think he has ever been late for anything in his entire life. Even though we were five minutes early ourselves, there he was, waiting by the entrance.

Seeing him standing there took me straight back to our television days on Midsomer Murders. As the location manager, I was always one of the first to arrive, greeting the endless procession of cars, trucks and catering vans and directing them to their parking spaces for the day. Daddy, who was the Producer, would often wander over for a chat before filming began.

He had rung me about ten minutes earlier to warn me that the car park was heaving, and he wasn’t wrong. After driving around for what felt like ages, Tim eventually spotted a space. It was barely big enough for a Mini, but of course he expertly reversed Beamie into it. I watched in amazement. Had I been driving, we’d probably still be circling the car park looking for somewhere bigger.

I pulled my stomach in, squeezed out of the car and wandered over to wrap my arms around him.

He smelled exactly as he always had. Not of aftershave, but of clean laundry and the familiar washing powder my mother had always used.

For just a moment I wasn’t fifty-six anymore.

I was six.

As I looked into his eyes, I realised they were still the same dark brown eyes I had always known, now surrounded by the gentle lines of a life well lived. There was still that same kindness in them, the same reassuring look that had always made me feel everything would somehow be alright.

I had to fight back the tears. What on earth was wrong with me?

We chose a table beside the river in the garden. It was another glorious summer’s day, something that had become almost unheard of in Britain this year. The water trickled gently past us, but after a while it became obvious there wasn’t enough shade, so we moved inside the old mill where it was much cooler.

We had a lovely lunch together chatting about what everyone had been up to, my father’s latest discovery which had improved his golf swing, Jamie, the bungalow renovation we hope to buy and how sad it was that Mummy had not been able to come.

I ordered two starters because I didn’t really fancy a huge lunch and was supposedly watching my waistline. It seemed like a sensible idea until Tim’s enormous fish and chips arrived looking absolutely delicious. I immediately wished I’d ordered the same thing instead. Still, I managed to steal a few of his chunky chips whenever I thought he wasn’t looking.

Daddy ordered the chicken and mushroom pie because, as he put it, he was fed up with “those packet cook meals and soggy overcooked vegetables” he’d been surviving on while Mummy recovered.

Mind you, neither of them can really be bothered to cook much these days. It’s usually a packet meal or a trip to the golf club for what they insist on calling lunch, despite the fact it’s nearly always a full English breakfast.

When it was time to leave, I gave my father the biggest hug in the car park.

I could already feel my eyes beginning to fill behind my sunglasses as I whispered, “Goodbye Daddy. Thank you for everything. I love you.”

As I watched him slowly walk back to his car, for a moment I could still see the young father from my childhood. The young man with oily hands who spent hours working on cars in the barn while my sister and I disappeared into the woods to play. The man who taught me to drive, walked me down the aisle twice, stood beside us through our happiest and our darkest days and somehow always made me feel that everything would be alright.

Even now, as Tim and I continue to navigate the aftermath of the hotel and everything that came with it, he is still there in the background, quietly supporting us, always believing in us and never once making us feel that we have let him down.

As Tim and I climbed back into Beamie, I realised that ordinary days are never really ordinary at all.

Years from now, it won’t be the big occasions I’ll remember most. It will be lunch beside the river. A hug in a car park. Conversations about golf swings, bungalow renovations and whether the seal on the fridge can somehow be persuaded to last another year.

I don’t remember many birthday presents from my childhood anymore, or even what I wore on most Christmas Days. But I do remember Daddy coming upstairs at bedtime, climbing onto my bed for a cuddle and sometimes tickling me until I was laughing so much I could hardly breathe.

I remember Mummy ringing her copper bell from the back door when it was time for my sister and me to come back for dinner, hours after we had disappeared off into the woods to spy on people.

I can still picture her now, happiest out in the garden with a pair of secateurs in one hand, pulling up weeds and pruning bushes for hours.

This morning we spent ages on the phone discussing the seal on the fridge and how many milligrams she should be taking for her blood pressure tablets. Twenty years ago, we’d probably have been talking about trips to Majorca or plans for the weekend. Funny how life changes.

And I have a feeling I’ll remember that hug in the car park for the rest of my life.

In fact, I’ve already booked our next trip to see them next weekend in Bennie. He’s been looking rather forlorn sitting out there in the car park recently, so I thought it was time to cheer him up. We’ll spend another night cuddled up together on our drop-down bed, drift off to sleep listening to the owls hooting and, most importantly, give both my Mummy and Daddy the biggest hug in the world.

Writing this has reminded me that life isn’t really made up of the big occasions. It’s all those little moments in between that become the memories we treasure most.

If you’re lucky enough to still have your parents, don’t wait for birthdays, Christmas or some other special occasion. Give them a ring. Meet them for Sunday lunch. Stay a little longer than you planned. Listen to the stories you’ve heard a hundred times before. Give them an extra big hug before you leave.

Because one day, without either of you realising it, one of those hugs will be the last.

So, cherish every ordinary moment. They really are the most extraordinary memories in the making 🌹

If this story touched you, I’d love to hear your own memories in the comments. I read every one.

If you’d like to read more about my childhood, you might also enjoy Borrowed Freedom and Shadows Behind the Barn.

If you’d like to support my writing and help me keep sharing stories like this, you can buy me a coffee here:

Buy me a coffee

Thank you for reading.

Love George x 🌹

As I sit here at our old wooden kitchen table, the same one I bought for my very first little end of terrace cottage in Old Beaconsfield, I find myself thinking about the young 23 year old George and wondering what on earth she would make of the woman sitting here now.

Back then, I had just left college after doing a degree in Business Studies and Finance and was working as a location manager on Midsomer Murders with John Nettles. I worked six days a week, often for more than twelve hours a day, and although it was a complicated and sometimes very exhausting job, I absolutely loved it. I spent my days driving around the Buckinghamshire countryside, exploring villages, knocking on the doors of beautiful old houses and searching for quaint locations where we could film the series.

Of course, because it was Midsomer Murders, most of these beautiful places would eventually become the scene of some rather gruesome fictional murder, but at the time it all seemed perfectly normal to me.

My father, Brian, was the producer at the time, having worked his way up through the film and television business from being a runner many moons before. Daddy and I have always got on incredibly well and, amazingly, we worked brilliantly together too. We were both working ridiculous hours and there was often a huge amount of pressure, but I loved working with him. Looking back now, I realise how lucky I was to have those years with him, although I am not sure either of us thought about it like that at the time. We were far too busy trying to get the next day’s filming organised.

And now, here I am, living in our flat above the beach, the very place I manifested as a child when I used to look out of my bedroom window across the fields and wish they were the sea. Being a Pisces, there is nowhere I would rather be than by the water. There is just something about the sound of the waves that calms me like nothing else does.

The sky is bright blue today and the sea is a deep, dark blue, and looking out at it all, I can’t help thinking how incredibly lucky we are that this place wasn’t taken away from us in a bankruptcy. There was a time when that was a very real possibility and I honestly didn’t know whether we would still be living here. Maybe my angels heard my prayers.

Thirty three years later, the same old oak table is still here too. I am sitting on the same chair, watching the waves crashing onto the shore below, while Charlie Brown is sprawled out on the same old gold carpet that we have never quite managed to afford to replace, despite the number of times I have looked at it and thought, one day that gross carpet is going.

It is so old now you can practically feel the concrete underneath it, which is why I invested in a good old pair of red Crocs to lighten the impact, I’ll have you know. Last week, I completely forgot I had them on and went shopping in Tesco. Nobody even batted an eyelid. In fact, I noticed one woman walking around in her slippers, so I actually felt quite well dressed.

The sea is a little choppier than normal today, which is why I didn’t venture in for a swim this morning. Strangely, despite loving the sea as much as I do, big waves scare the hell out of me. It probably goes back to when I was a child and got sucked under the water by a huge wave.

I can still remember being thrown around underneath it and genuinely thinking I was going to drown. Perhaps your body never quite forgets these things, because even now, all these years later, the minute the waves get too big, I am quite happy to admire the sea from a safe distance.

Preferably in my red Crocs.

But sitting here now, my eyes keep coming back to this old table and I can’t quite believe how long I have had it. Thirty three years. It has followed me through almost my entire adult life and God knows how many meals have been eaten around it.

When I first bought it, it was brand new and I was so proud of it. I loved having people over to my little cottage and hosting dinner parties around it. I have always loved cooking and feeding people, although I am sure back then I probably thought I was far more sophisticated than I actually was. There would have been wine, far too much food and me rushing around trying to make sure everything was perfect.

Since then, my children have eaten at this table. My parents have eaten at it. Friends who are still very much part of my life and others who have long since disappeared have sat around it. There have been Christmas lunches, birthday dinners, ordinary Tuesday night suppers, glasses of wine that turned into bottles, laughter, tears, rows and probably hundreds of conversations I have completely forgotten.

I have filled in forms at this table, had scary Teams meetings at it, opened horrible emails at it and, more recently, written at it. I have sat here worrying about Jamie. I have sat here worrying about Tim. I have sat here worrying about money, the hotel and what the hell we were going to do next. I have probably spent an extraordinary amount of my life sitting at this table trying to solve one problem or another.

And yet it is still here.

And so am I.

There are scratches and marks all over it now. Little dents and imperfections that I couldn’t possibly tell you the story behind, but each one must have come from somewhere. It has been moved from house to house, taken apart, put back together and dragged along with me through every different version of my life.

And I suppose, in many ways, I am not so different. I have my own dents and imperfections now too, marks left by everything I have been through, each one with a story behind it, even if I can’t always remember exactly where they all came from.

I wonder if a table can have a soul of its own.

Because if this one could talk, my goodness, it would have some stories to tell.

And that is when I start thinking again about the 23 year old George who bought it. What would she have thought if someone had sat her down at her lovely new kitchen table and told her what the next 33 years were going to bring?

That she would have a disabled child who would completely change the way she saw the world and teach her more about love, patience and fighting for someone than she could ever have imagined. That motherhood wouldn’t look quite like the version she had probably pictured in her head, but that Jamie would shape so much of the woman she was going to become.

That she would go through a divorce and discover that sometimes the life you thought you were going to live isn’t actually the life you end up living. That she would have a completely crazy love affair with a man called Tim and eventually marry him.

That she would fall so utterly in love with him that, all these years later, they would still cuddle up in bed together every single night and choose to spend almost every waking moment together. Except, of course, when he is down in the basement fixing something, like he is now.

That she would nearly lose him when he had open heart surgery and spend five nights apart from him, the only five nights we have ever spent apart since we got together. Five nights that felt like a lifetime.

That together we would buy a 109 bedroom hotel as investors. A little note to my readers here: DO NOT EVER BUY A HOTEL.

That after three years of legals we would finally complete the purchase, only for Covid to hit literally a month later and the whole world to shut down around us.

That we would eventually find a way to take it over ourselves and throw absolutely everything we had into trying to save it, only to lose the hotel and millions of pounds with it, sell our family home and spend years dealing with the consequences.

And then, just when we thought it was finally all over, find ourselves facing the aftermath of it all again.

I honestly don’t know what that young George would have thought if she had known all of that was waiting for her. She might have run for the hills. Although, knowing me, I probably wouldn’t have listened anyway.

But do you know what? Over these last few days, after I wrote my last piece about being here but not actually seeing the sea, and I mean really seeing it for just how stunningly beautiful it is, I have started to feel something shift.

It is difficult to explain because nothing has actually changed. The problems haven’t suddenly disappeared and the aftermath of the hotel is still there. I know there may still be more difficult conversations, more questions and more things to deal with. Nobody has waved a magic wand over our lives and made everything perfect.

But I feel different.

Tim has been constantly down in the basement, welding, polishing and fixing the chairs for our little boat. He disappears down there for hours at a time and seems happier than I have seen him in a long time. Every now and then I take him down a cup of tea and he proudly shows me whatever he has been fixing, welding or polishing. I nod enthusiastically and make all the right noises, secretly feeling incredibly proud of what he can achieve, because there is absolutely no way on earth I would be able to weld something without probably blowing up the basement by accident.

In fact, I don’t think he would ever come up if it wasn’t for the fact that I set an alarm on his phone for the end of the day. He says he will be finished today and we can finally put the chairs into the boat.

Mmm. Let’s see!

While Tim has been happily hidden away in the basement, I finally managed to finish the bloody questionnaire. The questionnaire that has consumed almost every waking thought since it arrived last week with a two week deadline and turned me into a slightly obsessed woman surrounded by old accounts, bank statements, legal papers and emails from years ago. I have gone backwards and forwards through the history of the hotel so many times that I am amazed I haven’t started dreaming about it.

But finally I finished it.

Well, I finished my first draft, which is probably a more accurate description, and sent it over to our lawyer to check. I know there will be changes and questions and probably things I have got completely wrong, but for the first time in days, there is nothing more I can actually do with it.

So now I find myself sitting here alone at my good old faithful kitchen table. No kids here today. No husband, because he is somewhere underneath me in the basement, probably ignoring the alarm I have set on his phone. And for once, there isn’t anything urgent tugging at me. No one asking questions, no decisions waiting to be made, no crisis looming before lunchtime.

Just me, sitting at my 33 year old kitchen table, on my old chair, with Charlie Brown asleep on the gold carpet.

I can hear the faint sound of the tumble drier in the background, intermingled with the crashing waves below and the gentle sea breeze coming in through the patio doors.

And something in me feels different.

I wonder if it was the lovely message I received this morning from Patricja Rusak that somehow seemed to put into words exactly what I couldn’t.

She said, “I’ve been going through something very similar, and I kept on asking myself ‘when will this end’? But then I realised it wasn’t really about waiting for it to end, it was about who I was becoming while I was in it. That shift in perspective has helped me more than I expected.”

And do you know what? I think that is it. She hit the nail on the head.

For years, I think I have been waiting for it all to end. Waiting for the hotel problems to end, waiting for the financial mess to be sorted, waiting for the legal letters to stop arriving, waiting for the next problem to disappear. Waiting for the moment when Tim and I could finally look at each other and say, right, that’s it, we can get on with our lives now.

But perhaps life doesn’t really work like that.

Perhaps there isn’t a big finishing line where somebody hands you a glass of champagne and announces that all the difficult bits are now officially over and you may begin enjoying yourself again. Although, quite frankly, I wouldn’t say no to the champagne.

Perhaps life is actually happening while you are waiting for it to begin again.

And perhaps Patricja is right. Maybe it isn’t just about what we have been going through. Maybe it is about who we have become while we have been going through it.

Because when I really think about the last few years, I should be proud of myself and Tim for how well we have coped. We never once just gave up and walked away. Even when things felt completely impossible, we just kept going, dealing with whatever was put in front of us next.

Like all the problems and challenges we have had thrown our way, we dealt with each one with truth, honesty, integrity and determination. We answered the questions, found the paperwork, sat through the meetings, read the horrible emails and tried to do the right thing, even when we were absolutely exhausted by it all.

That doesn’t mean we have sailed through it with huge smiles on our faces. Far from it. There have been tears, sleepless nights and days when I have wanted to pull the duvet over my head and never come out again. There have been times when Tim and I have looked at each other and genuinely wondered how much more could possibly be thrown at us.

But somehow, each time, we got up the next morning and carried on.

And perhaps that is what Patricja meant about who you become while you are in it. I am not the same woman who sat at this table at 23. Of course I’m not. But I am also not the same woman who walked into that hotel believing that if we just worked hard enough, cared enough and fought hard enough, we could save it.

I have learnt that sometimes you can give something absolutely everything you have and still lose it. I have learnt that money can come and money can go, and believe me, ours certainly did. I have learnt that you cannot control what other people do, what they say about you or what they choose to believe.

But I have also learnt that losing everything you thought made you secure doesn’t mean you completely fall apart. Although God knows, there have been times when I thought I might. Perhaps it is only when so much of it has gone that you start to work out what actually matters.

And when I think back to that little cottage in Old Beaconsfield and picture the young George hosting dinner parties around her brand new kitchen table, I realise just how far I have actually come and how much life I have managed to squeeze into those 33 years.

I have loved enormously. I have had my heart broken. I became a mother and discovered very quickly that motherhood was going to be nothing like the version I had imagined in my head.

I have fought for Jamie, loved him with every part of me and learnt more about life through him than I could ever have learnt from my Business Studies and Finance degree.

I have watched my beautiful Maria grow into the young woman she is today and felt that strange mixture of pride and disbelief that comes with realising your child is suddenly an adult.

And I have helped bring up Tim’s children, Tom and Sara, loving them and treating them as my own, because to me they are. Somehow, between us, Tim and I created this slightly complicated, blended family that I wouldn’t change for the world.

And I still have my dear parents, who have been there through all the highs and lows of my life. Daddy, especially, has stood beside us through the loss of the hotel and everything that came with it, supporting us when I know he was going through his own pain and losses too. The same Daddy I worked alongside all those years ago on Midsomer Murders is still here, 33 years later, helping me through yet another chapter of my life. I don’t think I will ever be able to put into words quite how much that means to me.

I have left a marriage and fallen completely and ridiculously in love with Tim. I have built businesses, made money and lost money. A lot of bloody money. I have sat beside the man I love through open heart surgery and known what it feels like to be absolutely terrified that the life we had built together could disappear in a heartbeat.

I have owned a hotel, walked through its doors as the owner and watched it disappear from our lives. I have lost our family home and the financial security I thought we had built, and learnt that money really can come and go. Losing it is incredibly painful, of course it is, but it isn’t actually the thing that makes you who you are.

And since losing the hotel, Tim and I have explored so many wonderful places in Bennie, our motorhome, with Charlie Brown squeezed in alongside us. We have woken up in places I would never have imagined visiting, sat outside with a glass of wine looking at mountains, lakes and beaches and driven for miles without really knowing where we were going to end up next.

We lost our passports, accidentally drove along the narrowest cliff top roads and were accused of absconding, but what I realise now is that those times when we were free and travelling wherever we wanted to go next were some of the happiest moments of our lives, and we would never have experienced them had we not lost the hotel.

And now, having been through one of the most stressful times of my life, I find myself doing what I truly love. I write. I read tarot. I meditate. I walk along the beach with Tim and Charlie Brown. I swim in the sea, although obviously only when the waves are behaving themselves. And I have time to sit here at my old kitchen table and actually think, something I am not sure I have ever really given myself much time to do before.

Perhaps the life I kept waiting to get back to doesn’t actually exist anymore. Perhaps that is what I am finally beginning to understand. I have spent so long wanting everything to be sorted, wanting the aftermath to end and wanting us to be able to say, right, now we can start living again.

But we already are.

We have been living all along.

Maybe I am not meant to go back to the person I was before the hotel, before the loss and before everything that came with it. Maybe I had to go through all of it to become the person sitting here now.

As I sit here at my faithful old kitchen table, writing this, listening to the tumble drier turning away, the waves crashing below and the occasional grunt from Charlie Brown as she sleeps beside me, I realise that I don’t actually know what life is going to bring me next.

If the last 33 years are anything to go by, it probably won’t be boring.

But I do know this. Whatever comes next, I will deal with it when it arrives. I have spent far too much of my life worrying about things that haven’t happened yet.

For now, I am still sitting at my old kitchen table, wearing my bright red Crocs, with Charlie Brown asleep on the old gold carpet beside me.

Thirty three years later, my table is still here.

And so am I 🌹

Love George x

If you enjoy my writing and would like to buy me a coffee, you can do so here:

https://buymeacoffee.com/georginadeglanville

If you think losing your business, facing bankruptcy and losing all your savings is enough misery, then think again.

It’s been over two years since we lost our hotel and a year since we narrowly avoided being made bankrupt. It beggars’ belief that it still isn’t over.

Sometimes I find myself wondering, “Is this ever going to end, or is it going to carry on until I’m practically in the grave?”

Sometimes it feels as though the universe is looking down and saying, “They haven’t been through enough yet. Let’s test them a little bit more.”

I called it The Aftermath because I genuinely believed the worst was finally behind us. At least, I hoped it was. I had no way of knowing whether life had finished testing us or whether there were still more unpleasant surprises waiting around the corner.

I look back now and honestly wonder how we ever coped. The constant threat of losing our beloved flat by the sea, my jewellery, my diamond engagement ring and everything else that meant so much to us was almost too much to bear.

We had already been forced to sell our family home simply to survive. We had no income while we fought our way through the collapse of the hotel, the administration and the bankruptcy threat. Losing our flat by the sea as well would have been devastating.

I cannot even begin to explain the terror I felt every single time an email landed in my inbox. There had been so many of them that my body had learnt to react to the simple sound of that little ping.

Then there was the fear of every official-looking envelope pushed through our front door. Every letter made me wonder what fresh nightmare was waiting inside.

My body stayed on constant alert, waiting for the next threat. It went on for years. Even now it’s still there, but not nearly as intensely as it once was.

Only over the last couple of weeks had I started to notice the tightness in my neck easing. I wasn’t waking with that familiar feeling of dread. Emails no longer filled me with panic and the nightmares had finally begun to fade.

Life had finally begun to feel a little calmer. The purchase of our bungalow was moving along smoothly, and we had a meeting with the architect there the following week. For the first time in a long while, it felt as though we had something positive to look forward to.

We had decided over breakfast that, as it was too windy to enjoy an evening on the balcony, we would take our motorhome, Bennie, and head off for a little trip to the New Forest with Charlie Brown.

We had planned to sit outside in our sun chairs with an Aperol Spritz before enjoying a little barbecue. I’d bought a beautiful piece of fillet steak, along with fresh asparagus, Jersey Royal new potatoes and stuffed mushrooms with Stilton. My favourite.

Then, that afternoon, while I was happily sitting on our reclining sofa writing, with Charlie Brown curled up beside me, it happened.

Out of the corner of my eye, a new email landed in my inbox.

It was addressed only to me. The moment I saw who it had been sent from, I knew.

My heart started pounding, my mouth went dry and I felt sick.

“No, God... please, not again,” I whispered to myself.

The strange thing is, I think I’d always known there was more to come. Spiritually, I’d felt it for a long time. I’d even mentioned it to Tim on several occasions, but he would always smile and tell me to stop tempting fate.

Whenever I’d read my tarot cards, they seemed to suggest there were still matters to resolve before we could finally move on with our lives. Time and time again they’ve guided me in ways I struggle to explain. Whether you believe in tarot or not, they’ve rarely led me astray.

I clicked on the email and skimmed through it, just as I always do when I’m scared of what I’m about to read. But there was no escaping this one.

Another nightmare linked to the hotel.

I guessed Tim had probably received the same email, but there was no point trying to call him. He was downstairs in the basement repairing the seats from our little boat before putting them back in. There was never any mobile signal down there anyway, and even if there had been, he’d have been completely engrossed in what he was doing.

I forced myself to read every word. By the time I reached the end, my hands were shaking.

I sat there for a moment, staring out towards the sea and taking three long, slow breaths.

Why?

We had always tried to do the right thing. We’d poured everything we had into the hotel, always making sure our staff were paid before we paid ourselves. In the end, we’d lost almost everything.

When would it ever end?

I looked down at our gorgeous Charlie Brown, our faithful companion, who had travelled halfway across Europe with us in Bennie while we were facing bankruptcy.

I’m sure she sensed something was wrong because she lifted her head and looked at me with those gorgeous, soft brown eyes. I cuddled up to her, feeling the warmth of her body beside me as I gently rested my hand over the neat little row of stitches where she’d had a lump removed only a few days earlier.

That was another worry sitting in the back of my mind. Was the lump cancerous, like the last one they’d removed?

I looked out through the patio doors at the waves crashing onto the shore below.

Hot, wet tears rolled down my cheeks.

I’d always believed I was a good person. I’d always tried my hardest. Why was this happening? Had I been a really bad person in a past life?

More than anything, I needed Tim.

I needed him to wrap his arms around me and tell me everything was going to be alright. That somehow, just as we always had before, we’d get through this together.

I slipped my feet into my bright red Crocs, my favourites, walked along the corridor, picked up my keys and called the lift. I was surprised Charlie Brown stayed where she was, curled up on her blanket. Normally, she followed me everywhere.

The lift carried me down into the cool foyer and, by complete coincidence, I saw Tim walking back into the building.

The moment he saw my tear-stained face, he knew something was wrong. He hurried over, took me in his arms and held me tightly.

“What’s wrong, darling?” he asked, pulling back to look at me.

“We’ve received another horrific email,” I managed to say between sobs. “When will it ever end?”

He held my hands tightly.

“What do you mean? Who’s it from?”

“It’s something to do with the hotel again,” I replied. “I think you’ve probably had the same one.”

Without saying another word, we stepped into the lift together and I turned the little key that took us straight up into our flat.

I knew we needed to find out exactly what this latest problem was, so I handed Tim my laptop while I went into the kitchen to make us both a cup of tea. It felt like the only normal thing I could do.

As the kettle boiled, I stood staring out of the kitchen window, watching an elderly man walking his dog around the little green beside the beach where we took Charlie Brown every morning. I found myself wondering what his story was. Had he lived a happy life? Was he married? Had he lost anything?

It reminded me that there are billions of us on this planet, each carrying our own burdens. Some people have endured far worse than we ever have. Somehow, that thought helped put things into perspective.

I took another deep breath, made the tea and walked back into the sitting room carrying our mugs.

Tim was sitting on the sofa with his laptop open in front of him. He looked up at me as I handed him his mug of tea.

“I’ve had one too.”

I sat down beside him on the sofa again and opened my own laptop. For a few moments, neither of us said very much. We simply sat there reading it again, hoping somehow, we’d misunderstood it the first time.

“We’ll be alright, darling,” he said eventually, reaching across and taking my hand. “We never did anything wrong.”

“I know,” I replied, “but it’s more legal fees. We have no income, Tim. How are we supposed to keep paying solicitors every time something else to do with the hotel lands on our doorstep?”

He gave my hand a gentle squeeze.

“We’ll get through it,” he said. “We always do.”

Charlie Brown was standing in front of us with her nose resting on my knee. We called her up onto the sofa and she settled herself between us, as though she knew we both needed a cuddle.

For a long time, neither of us said very much.

We simply sat there with Charlie Brown between us, holding hands, our cups of tea slowly going cold as we tried to take it all in. Outside, the waves carried on crashing against the shore below, just as they had every day before our lives were turned upside down, and just as they would tomorrow.

As I sat there, I realised something. They hadn’t managed to take everything from us. We still had our health. We still had our children, my parents, Charlie Brown and our beloved flat by the sea. But, more than anything else, we still had each other.

If you’d asked me a couple of years earlier whether I could survive everything we’d been through, I’d probably have said no. Yet here we were.

The fear I’d felt when that email arrived had been overwhelming, but it hadn’t broken me. Somehow, instead of falling apart, I found myself thinking about what we needed to do next.

I looked over at Tim.

“Come on,” I said, getting to my feet. “Let’s pack up Bennie and go.”

He smiled.

No matter what life threw at us, we’d face it together.

We locked the flat, loaded Charlie Brown into Bennie and drove towards the New Forest, hoping a change of scenery might quieten our minds for a while.

As we drove, I silently said a little prayer to my angels that this would be the last of the horrible surprises life had in store for us.

But unless you have a crystal ball, none of us ever really knows what’s waiting around the corner.

And as for my tarot cards... I certainly won’t be reading them this week. That’s for sure.

🌹

Thank you so much for reading. It really does mean the world to me.

If you’d like to read the earlier chapter, The Aftermath, you can find it here:

And if you’re enjoying following our journey and would like to support my writing, you can buy me a coffee here:

https://buymeacoffee.com/georginadeglanville

With love,

George x 🌹

Hello to my friends,

While I am still trying to finish the story of how I met the love of my life Tim (which is taking me forever because it is probably the hardest thing I have ever written), I thought I would share something a little different to keep you all on your toes. 😂

Some stories pour out easily. This one doesn’t.

Not because I don’t know what to say, but because some moments in life change absolutely everything, and I want to do it justice.

So while I am battling with words, memories and probably far too many cups of tea, I wanted to share another side of me.

I’ve been reading tarot cards since I was a teenager and have turned to them throughout my life, both for myself and for people close to me.

Time and time again I’ve found them uncannily accurate, not in a fortune telling way, but as a way of looking at a situation differently and finding clarity when life feels confusing or uncertain.

After everything I have been through over the last few years, learning to trust my own intuition has become a huge part of my journey.

As a thank you for following along, encouraging my writing and supporting me, I would love to offer a free five card tarot reading on a question of your choice.

It could be about a decision you’re facing, a new chapter, relationships, work, family, or simply something that keeps popping into your head.

If you would like one, just reply to this email with your question and, if you feel comfortable, a recent photo of yourself. I find it helps me connect more personally with the person I am reading for.

As many of you know, I have Jamie, my wonderful disabled son, staying with us this weekend, so between beach walks, Diet Cokes, routines and probably being asked “Mummy, where go to?” about fifty times 😂 it may take me a little while to get through them all, depending on how many of you reply.

I promise I will do as many as I can because I genuinely love doing them, but I want to give each reading the time and thought it deserves.

I’d also really love your feedback afterwards. If a reading helps you, gives you comfort, makes you look at something differently, or is completely wrong and the cards have clearly gone off for a cup of tea 😂 please let me know.

If afterwards you would like to explore things in more depth, I will also be offering longer, more detailed readings.

Right, back to staring at my Tim chapter and trying to explain how one ordinary day changed the whole direction of my life.

Thank you as always for being here and being part of the madness.

With love George 🌹

And if the cards behave themselves 😂 and your reading helps you in some small way, you are always welcome to buy me a little coffee afterwards ☕🌹

But please don’t feel you have to. I’m doing this because I love it and because I’m excited to share it with you.

Before I begin, I just wanted to say thank you to those of you who already know most of our story and have sent us so much love, kindness and support along the way. It honestly means more than you probably realise 🌹

I realised recently that I have been sharing little pieces of my life, but some of you may have joined halfway through the story and have absolutely no idea who I am, or who Tim, Charlie Brown or Bennie actually are!

Or why there is a strange woman on the internet writing about childhood memories, motorhomes, soulmates, beaches, intuition, losing everything, finding herself again and all the other random things that seem to appear in my head 😂

So I thought perhaps it was time to introduce myself properly.

Hello and welcome 🌹

I’m Georgina de Glanville, although most people call me George, which is probably just as well, as my mother only ever seemed to call me Georgina when she was angry with me! 😂

I never expected to be sharing my life online. In fact, until recently I had never written anything publicly at all. But then again, I never expected half the things that have happened in my life.

Honestly, if someone had told my younger self what was coming, I’m not sure whether I would have laughed, cried, or packed my little suitcase, climbed out of the window and shimmied down the drainpipe all over again.

Looking back, I sometimes feel like I have lived many different lives.

There was the little girl who loved exploring, adventures and finding special places.

Then the young woman who somehow found herself working in television as a location manager on Midsomer Murders, searching for beautiful villages, old houses and hidden corners of the English countryside.

A job I absolutely loved.

Back then it was my job to read a script and find the perfect places to bring those scenes to life. The little village tucked away down a country lane, the old house full of character, or the view that somehow matched what had only existed on a page. And of course, because it was Midsomer Murders, every location had to have that beautiful, timeless English charm.

And maybe that is why, even now, I am still happiest when I am exploring and discovering those special places.

I have begun to realise that perhaps travelling in Bennie takes me back to those days as a location manager. Only this time, instead of searching for the perfect place for a scene in a script, I am searching for our own perfect places.

Somewhere to stop for the night, a hidden beach, a beautiful view, a new country, a new experience or a little corner of the world we would never have found if we hadn’t gone looking.

I think that love of exploring and finding beautiful places never really left me.

And somewhere along the way, I also learnt to trust something I can’t always explain.

My intuition, those little feelings, the signs, the white feathers, the hag stones from the beach, the strange coincidences that don’t feel quite like coincidences at all.

Some people may call it spirituality, some may call it something else, but for me it has always felt like there is something gently guiding us through life, even during the moments that make no sense at the time.

Because, as I would discover many times, life doesn’t always follow the route we planned.

And perhaps that is the whole point of our time here. The lessons, the love, the heartbreak, the unexpected moments and everything in between.

Because every single thing we go through shapes us in some way and slowly turns us into the people we are meant to become.

I think I first truly learnt that lesson when I became a mother.

At my twelve week scan with my first baby, Jamie, I was told he had a cleft lip and palate. It was a terrible shock. Suddenly all the dreams you have of everything being perfect disappeared in a single moment.

I remember the doctor trying to reassure me by saying, “Don’t worry, he can always grow a beard when he’s older.”

I know he meant it kindly, but at the time I was a frightened young mum who had no idea what lay ahead.

When Jamie arrived into the world, we discovered there were many more medical problems than anyone had expected. We later found out he had CHARGE syndrome and autism, and from that moment everything changed.

The television career I loved disappeared almost overnight as Jamie needed one to one care from day one. Motherhood was nothing like the journey I had imagined, but Jamie would go on to teach me more about patience, unconditional love and appreciating the smallest moments than anyone else ever could.

And now, all these years later, Jamie is still such an important part of my everyday life. Every single day of the year, no matter where I am in the world, my phone rings at 6pm on the dot and there he is on FaceTime.

Our conversations are simple. We talk about what he has done that day, what he has eaten, where he has been and all the little things that matter to him. He always asks, “Mummy, where go to?” which is Jamie’s way of asking where I am and what I am doing.

Every new word, every sentence and every bit of communication has taken years of patience, encouragement and love.

It’s just our little thing, and I honestly wouldn’t change it for the world.

I truly believe Jamie was sent to me by God and the angels. Such a pure, beautiful soul. No pride, no agenda, no ego. Just love.

He loves the simple things in life, like coming to stay with us from his care home, going on a trip to the cinema, bowling or out for a Chinese. Jamie has taught me to slow down, have patience and appreciate things most of us take for granted.

He grounds me and centres me, and reminds me every single day how lucky I am to have him in my life.

A few years after Jamie came my beautiful daughter Maria, my little healing angel after everything we had been through.

She brought a different kind of light back into our lives. She was the little girl who played with her big brother, accepted him completely for who he was and filled our home with laughter, chaos and happiness again.

Watching their bond grow was one of the most beautiful things, and she has grown into the most wonderful young woman. Kind, strong, intelligent and still such an important part of my life.

But like every story, there were chapters I never imagined I would have to write.

My first marriage came to an end.

It is something I am still writing about because life, relationships and love are rarely as simple as they might appear from the outside. There are always years of memories, emotions and struggles that nobody else sees.

The truth is, I fell in love with Tim while I was still married.

It wasn’t planned. It wasn’t something I went looking for, and it certainly wasn’t something I ever imagined would happen to me.

But as we all know, life is complicated, isn’t it?

My marriage had been struggling for a long time. Over the years we had stopped being the people we once were together, but leaving felt impossible. I was frightened of hurting people, frightened of breaking apart the life we had built and, if I am completely honest, frightened that no one would ever want a woman with a disabled child and all the challenges that came with that.

But then, somehow, life brought me Tim.

Or perhaps the angels gently guided us towards each other, two people who were both a little lost, both trying so hard to do the right thing, and both needing someone who truly understood.

We worked together and, before anything else, we became friends. In fact, we became the very best of friends.

We spent years talking, laughing and supporting each other through our own difficult marriages and all the ups and downs life was throwing at us. We were there for each other long before anything else happened.

Then, without either of us planning it, that friendship became something more.

I realised I had fallen in love with him, and with that realisation came the knowledge that everything would have to change.

It was one of the hardest times of both our lives.

Falling in love meant facing decisions I never thought I would have to make. It meant accepting that I could no longer carry on pretending everything was okay, and that I would have to find the courage to leave my marriage and change all of our lives forever.

But through all the pain and all the uncertainty, I had found Tim.

The man who felt like the missing piece of me I never even knew I was looking for. My twin flame, my soulmate, my best friend and the person who has been beside me through everything that followed.

For the last fourteen years we have fallen asleep cuddled up together every single night. We have worked together, laughed together, cried together and somehow survived things we never imagined we would have to face.

Tim is the grounding force in our relationship. The man I would choose to be beside if the world ever fell apart. An engineer who could probably build a house from scratch, mend a car, fix almost anything and somehow turns all my crazy ideas into reality.

He still manages to make me laugh, even when everything around us seems to be falling apart.

And together we created our wonderfully blended, slightly chaotic family.

When I fell in love with Tim, I didn’t just find him. I also gained Sara and Tom, two more children who would become such an important part of my life.

Sara came into my world as my stepdaughter, but over the years became so much more than that. She and Maria grew up together and became best friends, which was one of those unexpected gifts you could never have planned.

Watching their friendship grow and seeing the family we created together has been one of the happiest parts of our story. And now that little girl has grown into the most caring young woman, helping bring new lives into the world as a midwife.

And then there is Tom, the other son I never expected.

The little boy of four who somehow grew into a young man taller than Tim, almost eighteen now, although he is still his mini creation in so many ways. Kind, loving, determined and with the same practical mind as his dad. Now chasing his dream of becoming an RAF pilot.

But of course, I can’t tell our story without my dearest Charlie Brown.

Our beautiful German Shorthaired Pointer, or German no hair pointer as we lovingly call her, because of the little bald patches she developed after being diagnosed with alopecia.

My wise, faithful companion with those dark brown soulful eyes that seem to know exactly what I am thinking before I have even said a word.

She has been beside us through so many chapters of our lives. The happy ones, the heartbreaking ones and all the ordinary little moments in between.

To some people she may just be a dog, but to me she has always felt like so much more.

Maybe some people will think I am crazy, but I have always felt Charlie Brown and I have known each other before. Another little soul who somehow found her way back to me in this lifetime.

And then there are my dear parents, now in their eighties but still woven through so much of my life.

They were there for the childhood adventures, the holidays and all the memories that shaped me. They were also there when everything fell apart.

When the hotel business we had put everything into collapsed and we found ourselves facing bankruptcy, they stood beside me and Tim through one of the most frightening chapters of our lives.

For years we had worked hard, built businesses and chased the life we thought we were meant to have. Then suddenly the life we knew disappeared.

I remember sitting in our beautiful beachside flat in Southbourne, looking out across the sea and wondering if we would lose that too.

That flat became my sanctuary. The place where I cried, healed and wrote.

I would sit there in the middle of the night, unable to sleep, listening to the waves crashing onto the beach below while sipping a cup of tea, trying to calm my racing mind when I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen next.

But somehow it is still here.

And then, in the middle of all the chaos, came Bennie. Our little motorhome who was never actually meant to be ours.

We bought him from auction with the plan to sell him and make a profit, except there was one tiny problem.

Nobody wanted him 😂

So when we were facing bankruptcy and life had turned completely upside down, we decided maybe Bennie had come into our lives for a reason.

Instead of selling him, we packed our Tesco bags full of clothes, bundled Charlie Brown inside and drove away.

And of course, because we had absolutely no idea what we were doing, we took far too much with us.

Goodness knows why I thought I needed three bikinis. I think I only managed to get one of them out a couple of times!

It turns out you need far less than you think when your days are spent walking, exploring, sitting outside Bennie with a glass of wine and watching the world go by.

We travelled over 7,000 miles across France, down through Italy, all the way around Sicily and back. Only returning when, believe it or not, we were accused of absconding. Honestly, you couldn’t make it up 😂

Somehow the motorhome nobody wanted became our second little home on wheels. I found myself smiling again, realising there was more to life than just sitting in our flat waiting for what might or might not happen.

One day we would wake up beside a lake, the next high up in the mountains and often, my favourite of all, beside the sea. It was a way to reconnect with nature and remember there was still a beautiful world out there waiting for us.

And no, before anyone asks, we absolutely do not take turns driving.

There is no way I could ever drive Bennie. I would be terrified, almost certainly crash and would most definitely be a danger to mankind 😂

So poor Tim did, and still does, all the driving while Charlie Brown stretches out and sleeps in the back, and we carry on exploring.

So that is what you will find here. Pieces of my life. The old ones, the new ones and the ones still waiting to be written.

Sometimes I go back in time, revisiting childhood memories and moments I thought I had forgotten.

Sometimes I write about where we are now, the places we discover, the people we meet and whatever adventure we somehow find ourselves on next.

And in time I will start sharing chapters from the books I wrote sitting inside Bennie and our beachside flat while we were facing bankruptcy, and the aftermath of everything that happened next.

The funny moments, the difficult moments and all the little bits in between.

So make yourself a cup of tea, or maybe a glass of wine depending on the time of day, and come along with us. I’m so glad you are here 🌹

And now, as we find ourselves starting all over again, again (yes, apparently once wasn’t enough 😂), we are going back to where it all began.

Our next renovation project, a bungalow conversion.

The very bread and butter of what Tim and I started doing together all those years ago. Taking a home that has had its own story and creating the next beautiful chapter.

And, if I am honest, hopefully something a little less stressful than running a hospitality business!

So I hope you will continue to join us on whatever adventures come next. The renovations, the travels, the unexpected twists and all the little moments in between.

I am actually sitting here on our balcony in Majorca, overlooking the same little bay I first came to over fifty years ago as a six year old girl, thankfully still in the shade, writing these words from a wicker chair that has given me a very numb bum 😂 while Tim watches the Grand Prix on the television behind me.

And before I finally press publish and we embark on our next adventure, I can’t help wondering what that little girl jumping into this very same sea all those years ago would think of all the chapters that were waiting for her.

And if my stories make you smile, bring back a memory of your own, or simply give you something to look forward to reading, thank you.

If you ever fancy buying me a little glass of Sangria while I carry on writing, I’ll raise a glass to you from this little bay in Majorca, or wherever life takes us next 🍷

Right, I’m off for a swim! 😂

With love,

George 🌹

Nearly fifty years ago, a little six-year-old girl stood on this beach, completely unaware of the life that was waiting for her.

The adventures she would have, the mistakes she would make, the people she would love, the storms she would somehow get through and the man she would eventually find.

And now, all these years later, I am back.

Sometimes I really do think our lives are whirlwinds. One minute we are travelling through Europe in Bennie, the next we are back at the flat, and then, completely unexpectedly, I find myself sitting on a balcony at Hotel Playa Mondrago, looking out across the same beautiful bay in Majorca where I spent so many childhood holidays.

We only booked it a week ago because we had been asked to help sell a villa off market, but at the very last moment everything changed and the owners decided not to sell after all.

The old me would probably have cancelled everything, tried to get refunds and told myself we shouldn’t go, especially with the renovation about to begin.

But one of the bookings was non-refundable and, for once, instead of worrying about all the reasons we shouldn’t, I allowed myself to accept this unexpected little gift.

Especially as only a few weeks earlier, I had said a little prayer to my angels, asking if we could escape somewhere before we would be fully focused on our first bungalow renovation, the start of a new chapter in our lives and one that would definitely keep us busy.

It would be so lovely to go somewhere we didn’t have to drive, pack up Bennie, cook, wash up or think about what needed doing next.

And somehow, without even planning it, we ended up here.

Back in this magical place where my parents first brought my sister and me over fifty years ago.

My parents didn’t have a lot of money in those days and, as you know from one of my earlier posts, we mainly went on holiday to Beer in Devon. But on this particular occasion, my father had made a little bit of extra money from his television production managing, and my mother from her side jobs, like selling Pippa Dee, so they treated us to our very first overseas adventure.

It was the first time my sister and I had ever been abroad and, as if the aeroplane journey hadn’t been exciting enough, we were going to stay in an actual hotel near a sandy beach. After years of our lovely holidays in Beer, Devon, with its pebbly beach and the British weather always keeping us guessing, the thought of warm sunshine, soft sand and swimming in a warm sea every day felt like the best thing on earth.

Once we had landed and walked down the steps outside the aircraft, the sun blinded me and the Mediterranean heat hit me like a blast. I had butterflies in my stomach imagining my very first holiday beside a sandy beach.

I was overjoyed.

My parents hired a little Fiat 500, and we all squeezed in, suitcases and all. In those days, there was no luxury of sat nav, just good old-fashioned maps. We wound down the single-track Majorcan roads, the smell of pine and dry grass wafting through the open windows, and eventually found ourselves on a narrow, steep, winding track down to a hidden bay.

There was a stretch of soft white sand leading down to the clearest turquoise sea I had ever seen. On either side were rocky headlands covered in pine trees, with another bay hidden behind. Fifty years ago, it felt even more untouched than it does today. There were no crowds, no rows of sunbeds, just the sound of the waves, the warm Mediterranean air and this amazing place we had discovered.

It was breathtaking, but there was just one little problem.

The hotel they had booked was on the other side of the beach.

And there was no road.

“We can’t possibly drive across the beach, we’ll get stuck,” said my mother, looking at my father in disbelief.

“Oh yes we can,” replied my father, gritting his teeth like he always did, and still does today, as he revved the little engine.

My sister and I looked at each other in excitement as we bounced across the sand, and somehow the little Fiat managed to make it to the other side.

A group of nuns sitting paddling by the sea in their dark black robes looked on in complete astonishment.

When we finally arrived at the hotel, still laughing about our adventure across the beach, my parents discovered something else they hadn’t expected. The whole hotel had been taken over by nuns.

It was not a normal holiday destination by any means, but we had stumbled upon it and I didn’t care one single bit.

All I wanted to do was get changed into my bikini and get down to the beach.

There are still, to this day, only two hotels in Cala Mondrago, and we used to stay at the Hotel Condemar, which is a little further up the road. Both are two-star hotels, no bells and whistles, but my favourite type of hotel. Small, friendly, simple and, to me, perfect.

Maybe that’s why, even now, I still love places like this. It doesn’t need to be the poshest hotel or have all the latest mod cons. The rooms can be simple and there may not be any fancy extras, but somehow it is the places with character, memories and lovely people that end up meaning the most.

Perhaps that little girl running down to the beach all those years ago already knew that.

I still remember those holidays vividly. We used to park our car behind the hotel and enter through the side door, passing the kitchen on our left with the smell of whatever they were cooking for that night’s dinner drifting out as we walked by, before continuing down the long echoing corridor which led to the little reception.

It was so peaceful you could almost hear a pin drop. I can still remember the clock ticking away on the wall and the fan sitting on top of the reception desk moving slowly from side to side. I was so little I couldn’t even see over the top of the reception desk, just Magdalena’s kind, smiling face peering over at me as she welcomed us.

Year after year we returned, and each time I was a little bit taller until eventually I could see over that reception desk myself, but Magdalena was always there with the same friendly smile, ready to take us up to our rooms.

She remained there for many, many years and became part of our memories of Cala Mondrago. Eventually her daughters took over and continued the family tradition.

In the hotel, there were large, shiny sandstone tiles and a staircase that led up through the four floors. I can still remember the sound of our flip flops clacking along the cool tiled floors as we walked through the corridors.

We used to have a twin room next door to my parents on the first floor. In those days there was no air conditioning and no mosquito nets, so in the summer months we got very hot and very bitten.

The rooms were very basic and smelt of wood and pine. The beds were hard, the pillows flat, the sheets felt like sandpaper and the curtains were made of some kind of plastic, but none of that mattered to us. To my sister and me it was paradise, although looking back, I’m not entirely sure my parents felt quite the same way about the lack of sleep and mosquito bites.

Our first-floor rooms had larger patios than the ones higher up, which was an extra bonus, or so my parents told us, and we loved sitting outside watching the world go by.

I also remember my mother taking us back to our room in the evenings, making sure we cleaned our teeth properly and tucking us into bed. One night there was a huge thunderstorm. The curtains were flapping in the wind; the rain was pelting down onto the balcony and the whole room kept lighting up with flashes of lightning before the most enormous crash of thunder.

“I’m scared,” my sister said as she jumped into my bed. The storm got worse and worse, so we ran into my parents’ room, where they cuddled and reassured us.

“If you count after the lightning until the bang, that’s how far away the storm is,” my mother told us.

It is something I have remembered all my life. I taught it to my own children, and it still reassures me today, especially when we have had storms in Bennie and it sounds like we might get struck by lightning or sucked up into a tornado, in my imagination of course.

But above all, my favourite part of the holiday was going down to the beach.

My parents used to hire sunbeds, while my sister and I spent hours playing in the gorgeous aquamarine sea on our lilos or in the blow-up dinghy my parents had treated us to. We loved that dinghy so much that we ended up leaving it in the hotel garage year after year because we became regular guests.

We would turn it upside down, swim underneath and pretend it was our own little secret camp in the sea, where we could hide away in our imaginary world.

My mother was always there watching us from the beach, making sure we were safe, covered in sun cream and occasionally joining us in the sea as we tried to persuade her to play whatever game we had invented that day.

My father used to cup his hands together in the sea to make a step for our feet. We would climb onto his hands, and he would shout, “One, two, three,” before launching us as high as he possibly could into the air.

For a few seconds we felt like we were flying before crashing back into the sea, giggling wildly. The salty water would go straight up my nose and my eyes would sting, but I didn’t care one bit.

“More, Daddy, more,” we would scream, and of course he would carry on until he was probably completely exhausted.

We also used to walk along the path that led around to the second beach. Halfway along there was a platform with some steps leading down to the sea, where we would spend so much time playing. To me, it seemed rather high at the time, and to start with, my sister and I would just jump in, but my father always dived and I was determined to learn how to do it too.

It was there he taught me how to do the perfect dive.

“Point your toes like a ballerina and don’t bend your legs,” my father would tell us, as we tried again and again to get it right, sometimes finding ourselves doing the odd belly flop instead.

But once we finally got our confidence, my sister and I couldn’t get enough of it. We would climb out of the water, run back round and dive straight back in.

I absolutely adored that platform, so when we returned one year to discover the ladder had been taken away, I was distraught. To everyone else it was probably just an old ladder, but to me it felt like someone had taken away a little piece of my childhood.

To this day, I still remember those moments so vividly.

Now, as I look down from the balcony and watch the young children playing on the beach below, it amazes me how little has really changed. The same hotels sitting in the same place for all these years, the same beach, the same sand, the same walkway through to the second bay, and new generations of families enjoying their time together just as we once did.

Children are still making sandcastles, burying each other in the sand and running in and out of the sea, just like we did all those years ago.

It didn’t matter what country anyone came from or whether we could even speak the same language. We were just children playing with whoever we met and having fun.

After that first holiday, we were all hooked and went back year after year after year.

When I was about ten, once our day on the beach was over, my sister and I would be trusted to walk back to the hotel on our own. I felt so grown up being given the responsibility of holding my little sister’s hand, taking her back to our room and getting us both showered and changed into our long pretty summer dresses.

Then we would make our way back down to the beach, hand in hand, with our long blonde wet hair falling down our backs, tanned and golden, smelling of shampoo and shower gel, and join my parents at the little beach bar, where my sister and I felt terribly grown up sitting with them.

It has long since gone now, but back then it was full of life.

I remember the laughter and joy coming from that little bar, no doubt helped along by the adults enjoying a few sangrias, while we sat sipping our Sprites and dancing along to the Birdy Song.

Then it was back up to the hotel with my parents so they could get ready for dinner, while we played pool in the little room beside the bar.

In the 1970s, there were obviously no mobile phones, computers or anything like that to keep us entertained, so we just did what children did back then. We made friends with whoever we came across and played.

There was one particular boy called Alex. Even to this day I remember his surname. He was only about Ten, as was I, and I thought he was terribly handsome. He had neat blond hair combed over to one side and always looked very smart in his little chino shorts and short sleeved shirts.

In my ten year old mind, I had fallen in love.

Well, as much as an ten year old can fall in love.

We used to play on the beach during the day and play pool in the hotel in the evenings before and after dinner. He was the very first boy I was ever interested in.

Very interested.

Although I’m not entirely sure he was prepared for quite such an enthusiastic declaration of love from an ten year old English girl.

It just so happened that his balcony was next door to ours, and as I was trying to communicate with him over the barrier using a mixture of English, German and hand signals, I decided it would be a good idea to give him a little kiss on the cheek.

He blushed, so did I, and I regretted it almost immediately, but for some reason I just couldn’t help myself.

I was so sad when the time came for him to go home. In fact, the only German words I managed to learn during that entire holiday were “Ich liebe dich”, which means “I love you”, and which I shouted out to him as I waved goodbye from the back door of the hotel on his last day, with tears in my eyes.

My very first little heartbreak.

We had swapped addresses and, for a little while afterwards, wrote letters to each other. Proper handwritten letters that would arrive through the post, which seems almost unimaginable now.

Eventually, as childhood friendships often do, it slowly fizzled out, but somewhere I still have his photograph. A little memory of that ten year old girl and her first holiday romance.

Dinner was a set meal at the same table every single night. It was always some kind of Majorcan soup to start, then a meat and vegetable dish for main, followed by various types of desserts. It was simple, but it was always rather tasty.

In the early days, it was just us and the nuns, and at dinner they used to knock three times on a water glass, which meant it was time to stand up and pray. My sister and I couldn’t help getting the giggles as we weren’t used to anything like that at all.

One evening, my father decided water wasn’t enough and he fancied some wine, so off he went to find some. Thankfully there was wine in the bar, so he brought it back to the table, and after a few glasses he and my mother became a little merry.

My parents then decided they would knock the wine glass three times themselves, just to see what would happen. The nuns, used to their prayer routine, stood up ready for a second round of prayers that night, while my sister and I tried desperately not to laugh.

Needless to say, they were probably not too impressed, but it was rather amusing to us.

I remember the friendly waiters and waitresses, all members of the same family, who would greet us every year like old friends. I remember the dining room being boiling in the height of summer, the constant hum of chatter and laughter, and most of all, the feeling of being surrounded by my family.

And now, all these years later, I am here again.

Sitting on the balcony overlooking the same beautiful bay with my soulmate Tim beside me, writing these words and watching other children running into the very same sea. Parents sitting on the beach, sun umbrellas scattered around, families laughing and playing, exactly as they might have done fifty years ago.

Of course, the years have passed. There are a few more wrinkles now, and I don’t spend hours jumping into the sea or diving off platforms like I used to, but somewhere inside I am still that little girl Georgina.

And success wasn’t quite what I imagined it would be when I was six years old. Perhaps it wasn’t about the things we are often told are important.

It was about finding my soulmate Tim, raising our four wonderful children, all the adventures we have had, especially in Bennie, and of course our fabulous Charlie Brown, who I am missing terribly.

Because sitting here now, looking out over the same turquoise sea where that little girl once played, I realise how lucky I am. I got to come back.

Back to the place where my father threw us into the sea as we screamed, “More, Daddy, more,” where he taught me to dive, where I had my first little holiday romance, where my sister and I laughed until our stomachs hurt, and where some of my happiest childhood memories were made.

That little six year old girl could never have imagined everything that was waiting for her. The love, the laughter, the challenges, the tears, the adventures, and all the stories she would one day have to tell.

But perhaps, deep down, she never really changed.

Sitting here, looking out across Cala Mondrago Bay, I will treasure these memories and hold them close to my heart forever. 🌹

If you’ve enjoyed sitting with me for a few minutes and would like to support my writing, you can buy me a coffee, or maybe today a little sangria overlooking Cala Mondragó 🍷

Seriously, I honestly think it was true.

Or maybe I am going a little bit crazy in my old age.

We came back from Calais to freezing conditions; coats, jeans, jumpers and rain. Lots of it. Then, literally overnight, it was a heatwave. That was when our flat on the sea really was incredible. And it wasn’t just one short day, it was a whole week of clear blue sky, flat calm sea and not even so much as a gust of wind.

Now, that is really saying something. Most days on the South Coast, it is almost impossible not to get blown off the balcony, let alone open the door to get on to it.

However, there was one slight problem. Just before we had gone on our adventure down to Spain in Bennie, Tim had thrown away our rusting patio table and chairs (which were literally about to disintegrate) and had thrown away the whole of the stained rusty patio tiles in anticipation of replacing them, but of course that had never happened.

So, sitting on our balcony wasn’t an option as there was nothing to sit on. But Bennie came to the rescue once again, or at least the little white table and chairs on the back of his bike rack did.

And with the plastic floor mat we had only ever used once in all our days travelling in Bennie because it was too wet or too much of a hassle, finally we found a use for it. We laid it out on the patio, table and chairs on top, and just like that, we had a perfect place to sit, eat our meals and watch the world go by on the first heatwave of the year.

It was perfect.

Our new bungalow project was keeping Tim busy, so when it was just too hot to sit outside, he started to put together some detailed plans while I filled in the legal documents. It was so exciting to know that we finally had a way to make some money again.

After everything that had happened with the hotel, it felt good to finally have a project. Something we understood. Something we could get excited about.

The only slight problem was that the lovely elderly couple we were buying it from still had to find somewhere for them to move to. I suppose they didn’t want to get their hopes up on somewhere if they hadn’t sold their bungalow first.

Thankfully, only a week later, the agent called to say that they had found somewhere and that their offer had been accepted.

Tally ho, full steam ahead, I thought to myself.

Of course, the heatwave didn’t last more than a heartbeat, and literally overnight the temperature dropped from over thirty degrees to sixteen! That is the thing with the British weather, it is totally unpredictable. The only option is to have every type of clothing on standby, just in case.

And of course Charlie Brown didn’t care what the weather was doing. Sunshine, rain, wind, or whatever else the British skies decided to throw at us, she was just happy to be back running along her beach, chasing stones, looking for squirrels and living her best doggy life.

After everything we had been through, watching her so happy doing the simplest things always reminded me what really mattered.

But I had noticed Charlie Brown’s little lump on her bald patch on her back had started to get a little bigger, so I booked her into the vet just in case.

Years ago, she had a couple of lumps removed on her side which were tumours and the vet had warned us there might be more. I hoped it might just be a bit of fatty tissue, but the moment the vet looked at it, examined it and spoke, I could tell from his expression that it wasn’t good news.

“I’m sorry, but I think this is probably another tumour. It’s not urgent, but I think we should remove it just in case and send it off for tests.”

I looked over at Tim and felt a little bit sick in the stomach.

“Oh no,” I said to the vet.

I hated the thought of my poor little baby having to go under the knife again. She was nearly nine years old and it seems a lot of dogs get tumours as they get older. In human years that is around 60 to 65 years old, only slightly older than Tim!

And she certainly doesn’t seem like an old granny yet; the way she gallops along the beach, jumps over the groynes like she is an athlete and chases after the stones Tim throws as if she were a professional stone catcher.

The thought of anything happening to my Charlie Brown was unthinkable.

The vet interrupted my thoughts. “Shall we book her in in a couple of weeks?” he asked me as he gave her a little treat.

Of course, she had no idea whatsoever, wagging her little docked tail like the vet was her favourite person in the world, not the person who would soon be operating on her.

We put a date in the diary and I left the vet holding Tim’s hand feeling a little bit sick.

My poor, poor Charlie Brown.

She was more than just a dog. She was my baby. My companion. The one who had been next to me through some of the most stressful times of my life.

Tim’s open heart surgery, losing the hotel, then facing bankruptcy after that. She had been by our sides all over Europe in Bennie, together in our little home on wheels. In our flat, on the beach, in the New Forest.

Nine full years together.

Nine years of cuddling up on our laps, following us from room to room, squeezing herself into the smallest spaces just to be close to us and curling up beside us at the end of another adventure.

But it was those dark brown eyes that said it all. Charlie Brown didn’t need words. She didn’t need to speak. She just had to look at me and somehow I knew exactly what she was saying. I could feel her soul.

Sometimes I wished she could speak. That on those dark and dreary days, when everything was falling apart around us and there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it, she could somehow reassure me that it was all going to be alright.

But maybe she didn’t need words. Maybe those wise, dark brown eyes were telling me everything I needed to know. It was almost as if she had seen it all before. As if she knew something I didn’t. That eventually, somehow, it would all come to an end.

Because everything does in life. The good times, the bad times and the moments we think we will never survive. And through it all, there she was, my Charlie Brown.

And maybe this sounds crazy to some people, but I honestly think we have been together before. Perhaps she was my dear cat Daisy, who I loved so much and who was tragically run over on the road many years ago.

It took me months and months to get over losing Daisy. The pain of losing an animal you love is impossible to explain to anyone who hasn’t felt it. But something strange happened the evening she passed. I smelt flowers. Beautiful flowers. There was no explanation for it, but it felt as if she was letting me know she was still there somehow, in another dimension perhaps. Still around me, just not in the way I had known before.

And then, years later, Charlie Brown came into my life with those same wise eyes.

Maybe our animals find their way back to us. Maybe love really does continue in ways we don’t fully understand. I don’t know, and maybe I never will, but what I do know is that Charlie Brown has been one of the greatest gifts of my life.

Isn’t that the cruellest thing about having a pet? Knowing that one day they will leave you and go to doggy heaven. We all know every living creature has a beginning, a middle and an end, but that doesn’t make saying goodbye to something you love any easier.

So for now, I am not going to think about goodbye. I am going to think about all the adventures still to come. More beaches, more walks, more journeys in Bennie and more memories that we haven’t even made yet.

Although, there was one small problem.

We were about to head off to Majorca for a week and this time Charlie Brown couldn’t come with us.

It had all happened completely unexpectedly. We had been asked to sell a beautiful cliff top villa off market, something we used to do before our lives turned upside down, so we booked our flights and accommodation ready to go and see it.

And then, just after everything was arranged, they changed their minds.

Typical.

But by then everything was booked and paid for, so it seemed crazy not to go. Maybe, after everything, a week of relaxing and not travelling around in Bennie might actually be good for us before we start the renovation.

There was only one thing making me feel awful though. Charlie Brown.

The funny thing was, she used to love going to the kennels. She would run in excitedly without even looking back, ready for her own little holiday and all her doggy friends.

But that was before Bennie.

For over two years she hadn’t needed to go because wherever we went, she came too. France, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Greece. Thousands of miles across Europe, just us three in our little home on wheels.

So as I dropped her off at the kennels this morning, of course she had to give me one last look with those big dark brown eyes. The sort of look only a dog can give you. And my heart sank.

I knew she would be looked after. I knew she would probably remember how much she loved it there and, knowing Charlie Brown, she was probably happily sniffing around five minutes later while I was the one sitting there feeling awful.

But try explaining to Charlie Brown that this time, for once, the adventure was one she couldn’t come on.

I wish I could explain to her that we are only away for a week. That we haven’t left her. That we would never leave her.

And soon enough, we will be walking back through those doors, her little tail will be wagging like mad and she will be back exactly where she belongs.

With us.

So, as I sit here now on the aeroplane waiting on the runway, delayed and apparently having to refuel, I look out of the window and do the only thing I can do.

I pray.

I pray to my angels to love her, protect her and watch over her while I am away, and always.

Please God, please angels.

Please 🙏🌹

If you’ve enjoyed sharing our journey, the adventures, the memories, and of course Charlie Brown’s story 🐾, you can always buy me a little coffee while I write the next chapter ☕️

Thank you for reading and coming along with us 🌹

As we stood side by side in the driveway with Maria and the agent, I glanced across at Tim. Years of living together and spending virtually every minute of every single day side by side meant I could tell exactly what he was thinking, and it was the same with him.

The look on his face told me everything I needed to know.

“We’d like to put in an offer,” he said to the agent as we made our way back towards the cars.

The agent smiled.

“I thought you might.”

I wondered if we had seemed too keen. Then again, what did that matter?

“We have worked out our numbers carefully and would like to offer what we think the bungalow is worth.”

The agent stood opposite us listening.

“And we’d rather just be upfront with you,” Tim continued.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“We’d rather not spend the next week going backwards and forwards with offers,” said Tim.

The agent nodded.

“Fair enough.”

“We know we could start lower,” I added, “but it just doesn’t feel right. They’ve lived here for most of their lives. This isn’t just a property to them, it’s their home. It’s obviously a difficult move and we’d rather just be fair.”

“We’d like to offer them the maximum we’re prepared to pay and let them decide,” said Tim. “If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.”

The agent smiled.

“I think they’ll really appreciate that,” he replied. “I’ll let you know what they say, hopefully within a couple of hours.”

As he walked back into the bungalow and we spluttered off up the road in Landi, I turned to Tim with a huge smile on my face.

“This is the one, isn’t it?”

“Yep,” he grinned.

From the back seat Maria laughed.

“I actually really liked it too,” she said. “I can really see what you could do with it.”

Coming from Maria, who was usually far more sensible than me and less likely to decide we were buying a house before we had even stepped through the front door, that felt like another little sign.

All we could do now was wait.

Or at least that was the theory.

In reality, I spent the next few hours carrying my phone around like a newborn baby. It went everywhere with me. Into the kitchen, onto the balcony and even into the loo. Every time it buzzed, I nearly jumped out of my skin. Charlie Brown followed me around too, like she knew I was waiting for something important.

“Will you stop looking at it?” laughed Tim.

“I can’t.”

“They’ll call when they’re ready.”

“I know.”

But I couldn’t help myself. I had my fingers and toes crossed and was probably driving my angels mad with the number of prayers I was sending their way.

Then, when the phone finally rang, my heart started pounding as a Bournemouth number flashed up on the screen. Convinced it was the agent calling with a decision, I answered immediately.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t him at all.

It was another estate agent asking whether we were still looking for renovation projects. And typically, just as I was talking to him, my phone beeped to tell me there was another incoming call.

I glanced down at the screen and immediately recognised our agent’s number.

Oh no.

There he was, trying to call me with what I hoped was the decision, while I was already stuck on the phone to somebody else.

I didn’t want to be rude and simply hang up on the poor man I was already speaking to, so I tried my best to bring the conversation to a polite but fairly rapid conclusion whilst staring at the screen and willing the other call not to stop ringing.

But by the time I finally got off the phone, to my immense frustration, it was too late. I’d missed him.

I rang back immediately and a lady answered.

“He’s on another call at the moment.”

Typical!

Now he was talking to somebody else.

She assured me he would call me back shortly.

Those next few minutes felt far longer than they really were. I paced around the flat, picked up my phone, put it down again and then picked it straight back up, as if staring at it hard enough might somehow make it ring.

To my immense relief, eventually it did.

This time it was him.

“Tim!” I shouted as he was busy drilling and banging about in the hall, turning Maria’s old box ottoman into a filing cabinet.

By the way, I had absolutely no idea that was what it was called until Tim told me. To me it was simply Maria’s old blanket box that she no longer used. Slightly dented, a little battered and now apparently destined for a new life storing our endless piles of paperwork.

We had always been told we needed to keep everything for at least six years, just in case, and after everything we had been through there seemed to be rather a lot of it.

We had finally admitted that random boxes and piles around the flat probably weren’t the best filing system in the world.

We had decided that if this really was going to be the start of our next chapter, perhaps it was time to get organised.

“It’s them. Quick!”

Tim abandoned whatever he was doing and hurried into the living room while I answered the call, deliberately letting it ring a couple more times, so it didn’t look as though I’d been sitting there waiting for it, even though of course I absolutely had.

“Hello, Georgina and Tim speaking,” I said, trying my best to sound calm.

Then I waited.

We exchanged the usual pleasantries, and I could feel my heart pounding.

“I am delighted to tell you that your offer has been accepted.”

For a moment I wasn’t even sure I had heard him properly.

“Sorry, what was that?” I laughed.

“Your offer has been accepted.”

We looked at each other in disbelief.

“That’s fantastic news!” we both said at exactly the same time.

As I thanked the agent, I found myself doing a little skip across the living room.

We said our goodbyes and ended the call. I threw my arms around Tim.

“Yippee! We’ve done it!” I shouted, doing another little skip around the room.

“Our very own next renovation project. The next stage in our new life.”

The relief was enormous. Finally we had something to focus on.

For a moment we simply stood there grinning at each other, both knowing this wasn’t just about a bungalow. It felt much bigger than that.

I had spent months scrolling through Rightmove, dragging Tim around viewings and trying to find somewhere that gave me that feeling I couldn’t quite explain. There was always something wrong. Too expensive, a road that was too noisy, a garden that was too small, or a ceiling price that meant the numbers simply didn’t work.

And, of course, there was the small matter of the black flies and the rather unsettling musical box.

That one was definitely not meant to be.

And then somehow this little bungalow appeared.

I truly believed my angels had been giving me little signs that this was the one. The gentleman being an engineer like Tim, the workshop where he had spent years making his beautiful little model steam engines, and the way Tim’s face lit up the moment he stepped inside.

The bright red steam engine sitting proudly in their window and even the old RAF memorial scroll hidden away in the loft all felt like little pieces of a much bigger story. Perhaps they were all just coincidences.

But I have never really believed in coincidences.

Of course, life still wasn’t entirely straightforward. There were still loose ends from our old hotel days and a few legal matters that hadn’t quite disappeared. Every now and then they would resurface, reminding us that although we were desperately trying to move forwards, the past wasn’t quite finished with us yet.

But that was a problem for another day.

That afternoon, I wandered out onto the balcony and looked across the sea. The rain had finally eased, and a pale patch of blue was beginning to appear on the horizon. Below me, the waves rolled steadily onto the shore, just as they had through every twist and turn of our journey. Through the excitement of buying the hotel, the heartbreak of losing it, and the long months when our future had seemed so uncertain.

I thought about the little bungalow and the lovely couple who had spent more than half a century building a life there. I wondered how they felt now the decision had been made. Whether they were sitting at that tiny kitchen table for two, talking about us, wondering if they had made the right choice and preparing themselves to say goodbye to the place that where they had lived so many of their lives.

I hoped they knew we had seen more than bricks and walls.

We had seen the workshop where he had spent years creating his little engines, the horse pictures on the walls, the old oak tree watching over the garden, their excited little dog and all the memories tucked away into every corner.

We had seen a home. A home that had been loved and cared for.

And perhaps, after everything we had been through, we understood more than most how hard it was to let go of something you had put your whole heart into.

We weren’t just buying a bungalow.

I closed my eyes and said a little prayer that everything would go smoothly for everyone concerned. That the bungalow would become ours. That wherever they moved to would be perfect for them. That they would find happiness in their new beginning, and that maybe we would finally find ours too.

Then I opened my eyes and looked back towards the sea.

For the first time in a very long while, I could almost see a future waiting for us again. 🌹

For the first time in a very long while, I found myself counting down the days.

Just two more sleeps until the viewing.

The bungalow we had driven past on our way home had lodged itself firmly in my mind. Every time I thought about it, I became more convinced that it was the one.

Tim, naturally, remained far more sensible.

The only question was whether Landi would even start after being left for so long while we had been away in Bennie, but thankfully he fired up first time when Tim tried him on the Sunday.

Beamie, meanwhile, was tucked away in the basement. His MOT had expired whilst we were travelling and Tim still had a long list of jobs waiting for him now that we were home. In fact, I don’t think there has ever been a point in our lives when he hasn’t had something that needed fixing, repairing, building or improving.

As for me, I simply thanked my angels that he has the skills to do it all. I know I am a very lucky woman.

I, on the other hand, haven’t got a clue when it comes to most things mechanical. Although I did feel rather proud of myself yesterday when I helped him fit a new bulb into Beamie. My hand was about a third of the size of his, so I was the only one who could squeeze it through the tiny gap to reach it.

So, I do occasionally have a practical use after all.

One of the other fantastic things about this bungalow was that the sat nav said it was only eight minutes from the flat.

Tim had spent hours fixing Landi in the basement before we went away, replacing the brake discs and pads and goodness knows what else, but for some reason he had developed a new fault and refused to pull away properly when first started.

Unfortunately, Tim had completely forgotten about this little problem and so had I.

As we pulled out of the flat car park, Landi crawled forwards at little more than a snail’s pace. I looked up just in time to see a small blue Mini coming towards us far faster than I would have liked.

“Tim!” I shouted, looking over his shoulder as the Mini got closer and closer.

Even Maria, my daughter looked alarmed from the back seat.

Tim gripped the steering wheel, revved the engine and muttered through gritted teeth, “Come on Landi, you can do it.”

Thankfully, Landi suddenly decided to cooperate and lurched forwards just in time. A few seconds later we were safely on our way, having narrowly avoided an accident that would almost certainly have made us late for what I had already decided was the most important viewing of our lives.

“Well, that was an exciting start to the journey,” I said as we made our way across Tuckton Bridge beneath yet another grey and drizzly sky.

Where on earth had summer gone?

Nine minutes later, the extra minute no doubt caused by Landi’s reluctant departure, we pulled up outside along the road opposite our bungalow.

Yes, I know it wasn’t technically ours yet, but I firmly believe there is something to be said for positive thinking. If you spend all your time focusing on what might go wrong, life can start to feel very heavy indeed.

Besides, in my mind, this was already our bungalow.

All I had to do now was convince Tim and somehow make it actually come true.

I had exactly the same feeling of excitement I’d had when we first did the drive-by on our way home in Bennie a few days before.

It looked strong and solid, sitting proudly in the middle of a large plot, not too close to any of the neighbouring bungalows. The road was quiet and lined with other lovely, converted bungalows, which I took as a very encouraging sign. The huge roof looked perfect for converting into more bedrooms and, from the photos, I already knew there was a large rear garden with plenty of room for an extension.

“This has got to be the one,” I said, staring out of the windscreen like a love-struck teenager.

“We haven’t even been inside yet,” said Tim, giving me a look that suggested he was questioning my sanity.

“I know.”

“You said that about the last one.”

“Yes, but this one doesn’t have a cliff leading up to it and hopefully no black flies or weird musical boxes.”

I opened the door and stepped out onto Landi’s running board.

That reminded me of another disaster we had narrowly avoided. Whilst lying on his back fixing Landi’s brakes before our trip away, Tim had discovered that the running boards beneath the doors had completely rotted away. We had no idea. Had one of us stepped on it at the wrong moment, we could quite literally have gone straight through.

Another narrow escape.

The middle-aged estate agent was already waiting for us on the driveway.

“Good morning, Mr and Mrs de Glanville. Lovely to meet you,” he said, greeting us warmly.

“Hello. This is our daughter, Maria,” I replied as we all shook hands.

He handed me a set of particulars which I immediately decided needed to be kept safely in our filing cabinet as a future memento of the transformation we would hopefully be undertaking. Another little piece of evidence for the dream I was already building in my head.

As he led us around the side of the house towards the front door, he explained that the owners had lived there for many, many years and that sadly the gentleman had Alzheimer’s.

“The garden has become too much for them,” he told us, “And they need to move somewhere smaller and closer to where the lady keeps her elderly horse.”

“Oh, that’s such a shame,” I replied. “This must be very difficult for them.”

As we stepped through the front door, an elderly couple were standing waiting in the hallway to greet us.

“Lovely to meet you,” said the lady warmly, extending her hand.

“Lovely to meet you too,” I replied, shaking it gently.

The gentleman smiled and shook our hands as well. He was smartly dressed in a blue and white patterned shirt and dark blue jeans.

“I’ve lived here fifty-five years,” he said, with what I thought might have been a hint of sadness in his eyes.

“Gosh, that’s a long time,” I replied, looking around the hallway. “You must have really loved it here.”

“Yes,” he said. “It’s been a lovely home for us.”

His wife smiled.

“I’ve only been here forty-five.”

“Only forty-five?” I laughed.

That got a smile from everyone.

“It’s not much to look at,” she said, “but it’s been a wonderful home.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” I replied. “It looks lovely to me.”

“Come through,” said the lady.

We followed them into a large hallway with a warm but dated interior. It smelt clean and fresh and, to my immense relief, there wasn’t a single black fly in sight.

Thank goodness.

After our previous bungalow near-purchase disaster, black flies had become something of a red flag.

And definitely weird-looking musical boxes.

The lady led us through into the lounge at the back of the bungalow, where their little Jack Russell was waiting patiently on his lead, his tail wagging so enthusiastically that his whole body seemed to be shaking.

Maria immediately bent down.

“Oh, how cute,” she said, stroking him on the head.

The little dog started grunting, wriggling and trembling with excitement as though he hadn’t seen a new visitor in years.

“Oh dear,” laughed the lady. “He does get excited.”

“I can see that,” laughed Maria, giving his tummy a tickle.

The little dog seemed delighted by the attention.

The room itself was very dated, but spotlessly clean and beautifully cared for. A large sofa ran along one wall facing the television, which was quietly playing in the background. Beside it sat an old fireplace and beyond that a large conservatory looked out over the garden.

There were horse pictures on the walls, family photographs dotted around and all the little signs that this wasn’t simply a house. It was a much-loved home.

Sitting proudly on one of the windowsills behind the sofa was a bright red model of something mechanical looking, which immediately caught Tim’s eye.

“Is that a model steam engine?” he asked, walking over for a closer look.

The gentleman smiled and walked towards it too.

“Yes, I made it. I used to make quite a few of them.”

“That’s incredible,” said Tim, leaning in for a better look.

“I even sold some over the years.”

I could see he was fascinated.

“It still works too,” said the gentleman proudly.

“Does it really?” asked Tim.

“Oh yes.”

The two of them seemed to hit it off immediately.

Before they could disappear completely into the world of miniature steam engines, the agent gently broke the spell.

“Shall we go and have a look at the rest of the bungalow?” he asked.

Maria stayed behind in the lounge, clearly enjoying the little dog’s company, while the rest of us made our way back into the hallway.

There were two decent-sized double bedrooms at the front of the bungalow.

One was clearly their bedroom. It contained a simply made-up double bed with fitted furniture built around it and a little pill box sitting on one bedside table, which I assumed contained the gentleman’s medication. The room was neat and tidy, but very old-fashioned.

Strangely, standing all on its own in one corner was a shower cubicle which looked completely out of place.

Tim got out his tape measure and began checking the dimensions while I found myself thinking about the dear old couple having to leave the home they had lived in for so many years.

It made me think of my own parents and whether one day they too might have to leave our family home because they could no longer manage the stairs or maintain such a large property.

Although, knowing my father, probably not.

“If it comes to that, we’ll just put a lift in,” he had once told me.

Which was such a typical response and possibly where I get some of my more ambitious ideas.

The second bedroom next door was almost identical, although this one had clearly become a storage room. There were boxes everywhere, an ironing board, huge bags of what I assumed was horse feed, along with a bridle and saddle.

The wallpaper was peeling in places, and it certainly wasn’t pretty, but none of that mattered to us. We would be stripping everything out anyway.

The important thing was that the bungalow felt solid.

We moved on to the bathroom, which had obviously been refurbished fairly recently. It was surprisingly modern and contained only a bath and sink. Next door was a separate toilet.

The couple joined us again in the hallway and explained that she preferred a shower while he preferred a bath, which was why they had ended up with both.

It made me smile.

Even more so when he asked all of us what our preferred method of getting clean was.

The kitchen was very old-fashioned, with a curious little dividing wall running through the middle, an ageing cooker and a tiny round table laid for two beside the back door.

I found myself imagining them sitting there together day after day, eating breakfast, lunch and supper. The table was so small their knees could probably have touched underneath it. One day gently merging into the next as the years slipped by. There was something rather lovely about that.

But the most exciting part of the bungalow, at least for me, was the loft.

The gentleman helped us pull open the hatch and Tim carefully climbed up the pull-down ladder.

I followed behind, determined to inspect it for myself, despite feeling slightly nervous about the climb. To be honest, I was relieved when I finally made it to the top in one piece. Being somewhat accident-prone, I was taking great care not to miss a step and end up in a heap on the landing below with yet another injury.

Thankfully there was a light, so we could see around it properly.

The loft was enormous.

Dark timber beams stretched from one end to the other and the roof seemed to go on forever. Apart from a few old magazines, a battered suitcase and various forgotten odds and ends, it was almost completely empty.

All I could see was possibility. Potentially a couple of bedrooms with ensuites.

And then I saw something leaning up against the timber in the middle of the attic.

It appeared to be some kind of frame. I probably shouldn’t have looked, but I couldn’t help it.

Kneeling, I switched on the torch on my phone and shone it towards it.

It was an old, framed memorial scroll, yellowed with age and covered in a thin layer of dust.

Carefully brushing some of the dust away, I began to read.

It commemorated a young RAF aircraftman who had died during the Second World War and honoured him as someone who had served King and Country and given his life to save mankind from tyranny.

As I read it, a lump came into my throat.

“Tim,” I called.

“What?” he replied from the other side of the loft, still busy inspecting beams and measuring things.

“Come and have a look at this.”

He walked over and crouched down beside me.

“Goodness,” he said as he read it.

“The gentleman and his wife share the same surname as the airman on the scroll,” I said. “I wonder who he was. His father? An uncle?”

Tim looked at the scroll for a few moments.

“Who knows,” he said.

“But why isn’t it hanging on the wall downstairs”?

“Perhaps it’s been up here for many years and was forgotten about”, he replied getting up and going back to his measuring.

I got up and nodded. What made me sad was that it was up there at all.

Here was a young man who had given his life in the war. Someone had clearly cared enough about him to have his memorial professionally framed, yet now it sat in the attic amongst old magazines and forgotten possessions.

Perhaps I was being sentimental. Perhaps it had once hung proudly on a wall downstairs for many years before finding its way up there. I would never know.

But I decided there and then that if the bungalow became ours, or perhaps I should say when the bungalow became ours, because by this point I had more or less moved us in already, and the scroll was still there when they moved out, I would bring it downstairs and hang it proudly on the wall once again.

Perhaps it affected me even more because Tim’s son Tom has dreamed of becoming an RAF fighter pilot since he was a little boy. Seeing the name of a young airman who had once had his own hopes, dreams and family waiting for him suddenly made the faded piece of paper feel much more real.

I didn’t say anything to Tim. I didn’t need to. I think we both understood the sadness behind finding something like that hidden away in an attic.

I brushed the last bit of dust from the frame, took one final look at the young airman’s name and carefully placed it back exactly where I had found it.

Standing there amongst the old beams and dusty magazines, it suddenly struck me that this bungalow wasn’t just full of rooms, it was full of stories.

When Tim had finally measured up, I was equally relieved when we both made it safely back down the ladder.

“I haven’t been up there in years,” the lady told us as we joined them in the hall.

“Anything interesting?” she asked.

“Yes, there are several very old model engineering magazines up there. Probably collectors’ pieces,” said Tim, brushing the dust from his clothes. “You could probably sell them.”

The gentleman smiled.

“I’d forgotten all about those.”

We didn’t mention the memorial scroll we had found.

“Well, you’re welcome to keep the magazines,” said the lady smiling at Tim.

I knew he would thoroughly enjoy reading them. Just his cup of tea.

Finally, having inspected every corner of the bungalow, it was time to explore the garden.

It was far bigger than I had imagined from the photographs. A little pond sat off to one side, a greenhouse stretched along the boundary and right, at the very end, stood a magnificent old oak tree. There was more than enough room to extend the back of the house and create a large open-plan kitchen, living and utility area with bi-folding doors opening onto a new patio. Perhaps even a summer house positioned perfectly to catch the evening sun. I could already see it clearly.

But it wasn’t the extension potential that immediately caught Tim’s eye.

Tucked away beside the greenhouse was what looked like a huge shed.

“This is my workshop, where I made the engines,” said the gentleman, opening the door. “I was an engineer.”

“So is Tim,” I replied proudly.

I smiled to myself. In my world, little coincidences like that never go unnoticed. The fact he was an engineer too, with a workshop full of tools and half-finished projects, felt strangely fitting. Almost as if the bungalow was slowly introducing itself to us.

Tim disappeared inside before I could even blink.

I followed them in. The workshop was packed with tools, machinery and half-finished projects. It wasn’t messy at all, everything seemed to have its place. The gentleman showed Tim various projects he had worked on over the years and pointed out where he had built the little steam engines.

“I spent a lot of time in here,” he said.

“I can imagine,” replied Tim, looking around with obvious admiration.

I knew exactly what he was thinking. For years he had dreamt of having a proper workshop of his own, somewhere he could spread out his tools and projects instead of trying to work down in the basement beneath the flat.

In fact, we had recently been banned from him using the parking space as a mini workshop. Apparently angle grinders and power tools weren’t considered appropriate apartment block equipment. As a result, we had been forced to rent a garage in Christchurch to store all his engineering paraphernalia, which was already crammed full, with barely enough room to squeeze through the door.

Looking around, I could see that this workshop wasn’t just somewhere to store tools. It was the gentleman’s happy place. Somewhere he had spent years building, fixing and creating things.

Judging by the look on Tim’s face, he was already imagining himself doing exactly the same thing.

The only slight problem was that the workshop sat precisely where we wanted to build the extension. I decided it might be best not to mention that part just yet.

I could feel my hopes rising. I tried to remind myself that nothing was certain yet. We still had to make an offer, the owners still had to accept it, and a hundred different things could go wrong along the way.

But standing there watching Tim in that workshop, surrounded by tools, engines and half-finished projects, it was becoming harder and harder not to believe that perhaps this little bungalow had somehow found its way to us for a reason.

We thanked the lovely couple and, as we walked back towards the driveway, I found myself thinking about all those years they had spent there together, sharing their little double bed, sitting at the tiny kitchen table, tending the garden and living their lives side by side.

Fifty-five years in one home. The workshop, the garden, the oak tree, the memorial, the old magazines, the bright red steam engine and all the memories that must have been made there.

It suddenly struck me that we weren’t just viewing a bungalow.

We were walking through somebody’s life.

A life they were preparing to leave behind.

As we made our way back towards the front of the house, I looked around one last time. I thought about the elderly couple who had loved it for so many years and how hard it must be to close the door on such a huge part of their lives.

But perhaps that is the strange thing about homes. They are never really ours forever. We simply look after them for a while before handing them on to somebody else.

And standing there on that driveway, outside a bungalow I had already completely fallen in love with, I found myself hoping that perhaps this time, it might be handed on to us.🌹

For anyone who missed the beginning of this next little adventure, it all started when we came home in Bennie after our travels and tried to work out what on earth we were supposed to do next.

And if you are wondering why black flies and a rather strange musical box have suddenly become important considerations when buying a bungalow, that little disaster is here 😂

Thank you so much for reading and following along with our slightly unpredictable journey. When I first started sharing our story, I had no idea anyone other than a few friends and family would read it, so every comment, message and person who comes along for the ride still means the world.

I spend hours writing these chapters, usually sitting by the sea with Charlie Brown asleep beside me, a cup of tea going cold and Tim wondering what on earth I am still typing.

If you enjoy my stories and would like to support my writing, you can buy me a coffee here ☕🍷

https://buymeacoffee.com/georginadeglanville

Thank you, as always, for being here 🌹

Being back at the flat was, let’s just say, more comfortable.

Bennie, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry, but it’s true.

Just the kitchen alone was bigger than the whole living space on Bennie and being able to have a proper shower without wrestling with the shower head in his tiny bathroom was a luxury in itself.

But if I’m being completely honest, the real highlight was the fact that we had our very own toilet.

Yes, I know. Not exactly a glamorous discussion, but it’s a fact.

After weeks of supermarket toilets, many without loo seats at all, French campsite washrooms, service stations and the occasional cubicle where hovering felt like the safest option, being reunited with our own private toilet was a joy I can’t adequately describe. Plenty of toilet roll. No strange noises from the next cubicle. No wondering what horrors might be lurking beneath the seat.

Just peace, privacy and a proper loo.

I always thought some of the campsites had the right idea when they played music in the toilet cubicles. At first, I assumed it was to create a relaxing atmosphere, but after a few visits I became convinced it served another purpose entirely. Let’s just say it helped preserve a little dignity and masked certain sounds that most people would prefer to keep to themselves.

And whilst we’re on the subject of toilets, if you’re considering the Bennie lifestyle yourself, I feel I should be honest about one of the few downsides.

Sorry Bennie.

As regular readers will already know, we have a strict number one only policy on board. Number twos are generally discouraged unless there is no other option, in which case, needs must.

Technically the chemicals break everything down perfectly well, but I still feel a little sorry for Tim when it comes to his blue job of emptying the cassette.

I made the mistake of watching him empty it once after a rare number two emergency.

The contents disappeared into one of those mysterious disposal points found on campsites, but the brief glimpse I caught before averting my eyes was more than enough for me.

There are some things you simply cannot unsee.

Anyway, let’s change the subject to something a little more pleasant.

I thought that now might be the time to give you a bit of background to our penthouse flat, the incredible place we now call home. It sits along Southbourne beach, between Bournemouth and Hengistbury Head, and is one of only nine flats built directly beside a huge golden beach stretching for over ten miles, with no road between us and the sea.

It is gorgeous.

The golden sand and blue sea beyond stretch out towards the horizon and the sound of the waves drifts through the open doors. As I write this now, sitting on our balcony in the shade at our little white camping table, with Charlie Brown curled up at my feet, it is yet another glorious day without a cloud in the sky. I still feel incredibly lucky that somehow, we were led to such a wonderful home.

It had always been my childhood dream to live by the sea. We lived in a cottage in the Buckinghamshire countryside, and I used to peer out of my bedroom window and wish that the cornfield behind our house was the sea. On windy days, when the corn swayed back and forth, I would imagine it was the ocean rolling towards the shore.

I am a Pisces and for as long as I can remember I have been drawn to water, the sound of the sea and its calming presence.

Little did I know that my dream of living by the sea would eventually become tangled up with another passion entirely.

When Tim and I first got together over fifteen years ago, we embarked on our first house renovation project in Bicester, converting a modest two-bedroom bungalow into a four-bedroom chalet bungalow. When that sold, we moved on to a small, detached house in Haddenham. By then we had well and truly caught the renovation bug. We loved taking tired old properties and giving them a new lease of life.

It was while searching for our next project that I stumbled across our penthouse flat, which at the time was simply meant to be another renovation.

It had been sitting vacant for a long time, and the photos online didn’t really do it justice, but the moment I walked into it and saw the incredible sea views and heard the sound of the waves crashing on the shore below, I fell in love with it.

I knew that even if we only kept it whilst renovating it, I would still have the luxury of living there for a little while, watching the sea on a calm summer morning or during a winter storm when the waves crashed against the beach.

To me, it felt like a little piece of heaven.

Tim, being the sensible one, wasn’t convinced, but I begged him and he finally agreed if we could get it well below the asking price.

So, the very next day, Tim went in with a low offer and, because the flat had been sitting empty for so long, no doubt because it had originally been priced too high, against all odds we managed to secure it.

I couldn’t believe our luck.

Although, between you and me, I think I had already decided it was meant to be ours the moment I first walked through the door.

That was over ten years ago and somehow, even after losing our hotel and facing the very real threat of bankruptcy, I still have no idea how we managed to keep it.

Looking back now, I still can’t quite believe it. There were times when I genuinely thought we would lose it. But against all odds, we didn’t.

I have always made a habit of looking at properties that have been sitting on the market for a long time. Most people assume there must be something wrong with them, but quite often they were simply overpriced when they first came on the market, which means buyers lose interest and stop looking.

That is usually when you have the best chance of getting a good deal.

When we first got the flat, we had very little furniture because it was in addition to our family home in Buckinghamshire, so you might say we camped in it on the weeks when we didn’t have the children.

Back then, we shared their care with our ex-partners on a week on, week off basis, and I was always ridiculously excited when it was our turn to escape to our little place by the sea.

We slept on a double mattress on the bedroom floor, ate off a garden table that could be carried inside or outside depending on the weather, and sat on my father’s old leather office sofa, which looked completely out of place.

Most evenings we would carry our glasses out onto the balcony and sit there huddled beneath blankets for hours, watching the sun set, the people wandering along the beach below and the waves rolling onto the shore. We had very little, but somehow it felt like everything.

And even after all of those years, we haven’t done a single thing to it. It still has the original kitchen and bathrooms from when it was built twenty-three years ago. The same golden carpet remains underfoot, now threadbare in places where you can almost feel the concrete beneath because the underlay has completely disintegrated.

The black and silver curtains we inherited with the flat are still hanging there too, faded by years of sunshine with hems dangling here and there.

But somehow, the view steals your attention long before you notice any of that. The moment your eyes drift through the huge patio doors and out across the stunning blue sea, come rain or shine, none of those things seem to matter.

You’ll be pleased to hear that we do now at least have a modern reclining leather sofa, which is exceptionally comfortable. Charlie Brown is particularly pleased about this development. Every evening, as soon as we sit down, she launches herself onto her throw between us, lets out a huge grunt and settles in for the evening. I suspect she was every bit as pleased as we were to discover that Britain’s Got Talent was still on when we got home.

As lovely as it was to be back, reality wasn’t far behind. We were thrust straight into the task of finding our next renovation project.

Still, the second bungalow we had driven past on our way home, the one without the cliff, looked absolutely perfect to me.

It was only two more sleeps until our viewing and I couldn’t wait.

Unpacking Bennie was the usual exhausting feat; clothes shoved into Tesco shopping bags as usual, fridge emptied, water emptied, toilet emptied (Tim’s favourite) and the whole inside swept and cleaned with floor wipes.

We always tried to keep him shipshape whilst travelling, so that part wasn’t too difficult. It was more about getting everything ready for our next adventure because, believe it or not, we already had another trip planned just a few days later to visit friends for the night.

Charlie Brown was thrilled to be home again. The first thing she did was charge into the living room and roll around on the good old faithful orange carpet, making strange grunting noises as she wriggled about on her back. She looked completely bonkers.

Thankfully one of our lovely neighbours, Dianne, had watered my plants every week and my orchids looked incredible, all in full bloom.

But, before I even unpacked, I opened the patio doors and stepped out onto the balcony.

The view was every bit as breathtaking as the very first time I saw it, even though it was still raining. The sea stretched out towards the horizon and the sound of the waves instantly made me relax and feel at home again.

I stood there for a few moments, took a few deep breaths and said a little thank you to my angels for letting us keep this fabulous place, our special place beside the sea.

After such a long journey back from France, we were absolutely exhausted, so the thought of cooking a meal was completely ruled out.

“Shall we go for a curry?” I said to Tim as we filled up the fridge with what was left from Bennie’s and emptied the Tesco clothes bags into piles on the bed; some to put away and others to wash.

There always seemed to be an alarming amount of washing when we got home from travelling and guess whose job that was?

Well, I suppose it was only fair considering Tim had driven Bennie over three and a half thousand miles around France and Spain and amongst other things, had the toilet emptying job too.

“Sounds good to me, Boss Hog,” he replied without a moment’s hesitation.

We had no idea whether any of the cars would even start after being left for so long, so we booked a taxi for half an hour later.

Before we knew it, we were crunching on poppadom’s and sipping a glass of French Chardonnay that had somehow survived the journey home in Bennie’s fridge. It was a bring your own alcohol restaurant, which suited us perfectly.

The next day was spent up in Winchester meeting our son Tom for a lovely long walk. It was wonderful to catch up with him and hear what he had been up to whilst we had been roaming around Europe in Bennie. I took a photo of Tim and Tom on a bridge, and I am sure that Tom is now the tallest. Although Tim had an excuse that he was bending down on one side! Mmm, that old chestnut.

The afternoon was finished off by sharing a huge roast beef lunch in a pub nearby. The portions were enormous, and I could hardly eat even half of mine, but of course the boys managed to polish off every last bit of theirs. And Tom managed to help me finish off mine too! Oh, to be 17 again!

Seeing Tom made me miss the other kids even more. Jamie was away on one of his special need’s holidays, having adventures of his own, but I knew I would be seeing him not long afterwards.

We were also due to visit Sara and her boyfriend at their new flat a couple of weeks later, so we knew we would be seeing all the children again soon, and that was all that mattered.

And the following day Maria arrived for three full days and nights.

It was so lovely to see her again and we spent the next couple of days catching up, sharing stories from our travels and settling back into normal family life. I still find it hard to believe that I am a ‘mother’, it’s all rather surreal.

The viewing for the little bungalow was on the Monday morning and I couldn’t wait.

🌹

Thank you for coming along on this journey with us.

When Tim and I first set off in Bennie, I never imagined that so many people would end up travelling alongside us from their own homes, cheering us on through the good days and the difficult ones.

Tomorrow I’ll be sharing the story of our first viewing of the bungalow that I was already convinced was perfect before we’d even stepped through the front door. Whether my intuition was right is another matter entirely.

If you would like to support my writing and the books I am working on, please consider becoming a paid subscriber or buying me a coffee at:

buymeacoffee.com/georginadeglanville

Your support means far more than you will ever know and helps me keep sharing our story.

With love from George 🌹

As Bennie trundled along the motorway, I had one eye down on my computer writing my latest article and the other nervously scanning the motorway ahead, wishing both eyes would stay down as looking up only made me panic. Cars were overtaking us at breakneck speeds, the usual motorway lunatics weaving from one lane to another, causing far more danger than was ever necessary.

Tim held the steering wheel steadily, but if I am honest, he looked exhausted. The lines under his eyes looked darker than usual and every now and then he stretched his shoulders against the seat as if his whole body was aching.

I think part of it was also everything that had been hanging over us again since the phone call the day before. Even after weeks away travelling, it was amazing how quickly worry could creep back in and settle itself beside you. Even my daily meditations hadn’t seemed to work.

For a little while in France and Spain we had managed to forget about all of it. Or at least pretend to.

My attention snapped back to the motorway as Tim suddenly slammed on the brakes to avoid a huge lorry pulling straight into our lane.

“Oh my God!” I shouted, grabbing hold of the side of my seat.

“You idiot!” muttered Tim as the lorry carried on regardless, most probably on his phone and without a clue Bennie was even there.

Bennie lurched slightly and somewhere in the back the stale emergency baguette we had forgotten about launched itself across the motorhome like a missile, flying clean over Charlie Brown’s head.

Remarkably, she didn’t even open her eyes, completely oblivious to the fact we had nearly all just died.

“I think the baguette’s just tried to kill the dog,” I gasped.

“That’s probably the most action that baguette’s had in three weeks,” said Tim, looking at me laughing.

Charlie Brown finally lifted her head slightly, looked around as if we were all making far too much fuss and then immediately went back to sleep.

Meanwhile my own heart had gone completely haywire.

I took a deep breath, feeling thankful all over again that Tim had never expected me to drive Bennie.

As I have said before, there was simply no way on earth I would ever be able to do that. Even the thought of it makes me feel completely terrified. He might only be six metres long, but to me Bennie feels more like an articulated lorry mixed with a small cruise ship.

I can barely reverse Bennie or Landy properly without nearly crashing into something, especially since Bennie’s motion detectors are still broken. Another thing on Tim’s ever growing list to fix. Honestly, I have no idea how we’re even going to have time to do a full renovation as well. So the idea of me driving Bennie properly in real life is honestly impossible. In fact, I would probably be a danger to mankind.

The reality was that Tim had driven every single one of those three thousand plus miles himself. Narrow mountain roads, chaotic Spanish cities, endless motorways, campsites with impossible entrances and tiny French villages where Bennie barely squeezed through the gaps. When I really thought about it, I honestly had no idea how he had managed it.

But he had. He always did, somehow.

Charlie Brown was laid out in the back, as she always was, stretched out in exactly the same position every single time, her nose resting against the side of the seat, her eyes firmly closed, still apparently completely oblivious to the fact we had nearly all just died a few minutes earlier.

There were moments when I wished I could swap bodies with her. Being driven all over Europe, sleeping through near death experiences, eating whenever you fancied and not having to think about legal threats, mortgages, bungalow floor plans or what fresh disaster might be waiting round the corner.

Just being fed, watered, cuddled, taken for walks and loved unconditionally without having to prove yourself to anyone, answer emails, deal with banks or spend half your life staring at Rightmove.

Just living one day at a time. Not worrying about tomorrow, next week, next month or even next year.

Maybe that was why we were searching so desperately for this bungalow. Not just for a project or a business opportunity, but because I think we were craving some kind of stability again. Something solid for once.

A huge part of me had wanted to stay away for longer. To carry on driving through Spain, drifting from one place to another without any kind of itinerary or plan.

Waking up in the mornings and deciding there and then where we fancied going next. Chasing a bit of sunshine one day or pulling over somewhere random simply because we liked the look of it.

There had been something unbelievably liberating about living like that.

Just us, Bennie, Charlie Brown and the freedom of making it all up as we went along.

But we couldn’t just carry on with our Bennie adventures forever. Much as I wished we could, reality was still sitting there waiting for us back home.

We had to find a way through somehow. A new beginning and a way to start making some money again.

We were on our way to see a bungalow that I truly hoped might be the one. After the near disaster project with the black flies, cracks in the walls and the weird haunted-looking musical box, I prayed this place might actually work.

Looking back, I am sure it was my guides and angels trying to warn me off it. Let’s face it, could they really have tried any harder to put me off it?

Well, I suppose they could have filled it with maggots, if they had really wanted to. Nothing would surprise me any more.

In the end, thank goodness Tim had looked properly into the crack he had spotted in the wall before we had instructed solicitors and got completely carried away. Once underpinning was mentioned, along with who knows what else, the whole thing started to feel like a very narrow escape.

I had been so desperate to find something before we went away. Something for us to come back to. I had hoped we would have had the legal process ticking away in the background by then. Otherwise, I would have delayed the ferry once again. But the company had already let us change it over and over again, and time had finally run out. It was either take it in April or not at all.

As we turned off the busy motorway, we were back onto the A roads.

“Don’t forget to drive on the other side of the road!” I shrieked, bracing myself against the seat as Tim instinctively swung Bennie towards the wrong side of the road.

“Oh bloody hell,” he muttered, immediately correcting himself while an oncoming car flashed its lights.

How many more near misses were we going to have? We had spent so many weeks driving through Europe that both of us had almost forgotten we were home again and driving on the other side of the road.

Honestly, it would have been just our luck. We had somehow managed to drive thousands of miles across France and Spain without so much as a scrape, only to come home and nearly have an accident on our very first day back in the UK.

I have always wondered why on earth countries all have to drive on opposite sides of the road anyway. Can’t we all just agree on one? It feels like another ridiculous thing humans have created to make life more complicated.

I gave a big sigh. Grey skies, potholes, familiar roads and reality creeping back in again.

Before we had gone away, we had looked into every single type of business we could think of. Boutique hotels, lodges, campsites, storage, all sorts. But after what had happened with the hotel, finance for almost anything was impossible. And let’s face it, we would probably have been completely mad to go back into hospitality again anyway, wouldn’t we? It would be just our luck if another pandemic hit and closed us down again.

So we always ended up back at our good old faithful past. House renovations. Being entrepreneurial seemed to end in disaster for us, so perhaps it was best to stick with what we knew for now and avoid huge stress at all costs. Why we hadn’t just done that in the first place, we honestly don’t know.

As we got nearer to the bungalow, despite the call from our lawyer the day before of yet another demand to pay money, I could feel a little tinge of excitement creeping back in again. Maybe this could finally be the beginning of something new.

I had already mentally redesigned the whole thing about twenty times in my head before we had even arrived.

Finally, after nearly a three hour journey from the tunnel, plus another forty five minutes out of our way to go and see the little bungalow, the sat nav, deciding to behave for once, navigated us into a quiet residential street lined with neat hedges, slightly overgrown front gardens and the sort of bungalows that all looked as though they had belonged to the same people for decades.

The bungalow was situated on our left, only a short way along the road, marked by a slightly weather beaten for sale sign swaying gently in the wind.

The bungalow itself actually looked quite sweet in an old fashioned sort of way. Dark wooden cladding across the front, two huge windows staring out over the road below and a little strip of grass running down towards the pavement.

“Oh my goodness,” I said to Tim as I looked out of Bennie’s side window. “The pictures don’t show it’s actually on the side of a cliff!”

Not literally, but the little bungalow was perched halfway up an incredibly steep hill, with a sloping front garden and a driveway that looked as though you would need full acceleration just to get up it. In ice or snow? Well, the whole thing would have been an absolute nightmare.

In our heads, we had already turned it from a run down two bed bungalow into a modern three bed with an open plan kitchen and living area opening out into the garden. Perfect for an elderly couple looking to downsize.

But here’s the thing. They would need a stair lift to get themselves up the driveway, let alone a car.

We parked up Bennie anyway, so we could stretch our legs and let Charlie Brown have a wee wee. It was spitting with rain, and all the excitement I had built up on the journey seemed to drain away in seconds.

After hauling myself out of Bennie, I practically needed climbing equipment just to pull myself up the steep driveway before eventually reaching the little patch of grass at the front of the bungalow, slightly out of breath and wondering who in their right mind would buy a bungalow halfway up Mount Everest.

There was no way I could even properly peer into the windows. They were far too high up.

“Why don’t you go and get the little steps I bought you?” Tim said cheekily.

He had bought them so I wouldn’t have to keep asking him to reach everything in Bennie. Needless to say, I had not expected my special little steps to come in handy for viewing bungalows on cliff edges.

I turned around and glared at him while he stood there trying not to laugh.

The bungalow next door was almost identical, but the mess outside of it was terrible. Vehicles parked everywhere, old pieces of furniture stacked up by the side and the driveway was a mix of concrete and earth. Truthfully it was an eyesore and definitely wouldn’t help curb appeal.

We had built so much hope around this little bungalow. The right price, the perfect little project, ready to become part of our new chapter.

“I’m sorry darling,” Tim said, seeing the disappointment on my face.

“No, I’m sorry, for dragging you this extra distance. I should have known it was too good to be true.”

“There will be another one. There always is. We just need to make sure that this time it’s the right one.”

“I know. And in fact, there is another one I’ve booked us in to see next week. We almost go past it on our way home. Shall we have a drive by?” I asked, feeling a flutter of hope.

It was more expensive, but it was in a stronger area, closer to where we lived and I liked the look of it from the photos. We got back into Bennie, belted Charlie Brown into her bed in the back and headed towards home while I pulled up the listing on my computer.

It really did look promising. Two large windows at the front, a high pitched roof which could be big enough for a loft extension, a huge back garden and the inside looked dated, but clean and tidy. I suddenly had a funny feeling. Could this be the one?

We carried on driving, windscreen wipers on full blast, any hope of returning to a warm spell disappearing by the minute, and a wave of complete exhaustion washed over me.

Exhaustion from the latest legal shock, the weeks of travelling without ever really stopping properly to rest and the feeling that life was always waiting to throw something else at us. I was dreading opening the post at home, just in case there was some fresh nightmare waiting for us on the doormat.

Sometimes I wondered why we always seemed to need to get in Bennie and just escape. In Bennie we hadn’t watched the television once. No news, no films, just enjoying each other’s company in almost a different place every single night. Was it a subconscious way of running away from life for a while, or was it actually the only time we ever properly slowed down enough to feel like ourselves again?

I studied the floor plans, imagining how we could change the layout, flicked backwards and forwards through the photos and even checked its positioning on Google Maps. Please angels, let this one be the one.

We turned off the main road into Christchurch into a quiet suburban road. Row upon row of modern houses and converted bungalows greeted us.

We drove along slowly, scanning the numbers and looking out for the for sale sign.

And there it was on our right, sitting behind a little wall, with mature bushes and trees sitting in front of it. Just like the photos had shown.

“Now this feels much more our cup of tea,” I said to Tim. “And at least it’s not on the top of a cliff like the last one,”

He looked over at me and laughed.

It was solid and attractive looking, even in the rain. And do you know what, I could actually imagine us living there. That was always the final question for me. If the answer was yes, then it was likely to be a goer.

We would live in it while we finished off renovating it, dressing it properly like a real home rather than just another flip. I had kept so much of our old family home furniture and belongings stored away in my parents’ barn all these years and suddenly I could picture us using it all again.

Our old dining table. Beds. Lamps. Cushions. Pictures. All the little bits and pieces I could never quite bring myself to get rid of.

Maybe subconsciously I had always known we would end up doing renovations again one day.

And the thought of not having to trawl through Rightmove listings every spare second of the day made the whole thing feel even more exciting. But I had to pull myself back to the reality of the situation. We hadn’t even seen inside yet and who knew what might be waiting for us in there? At this point I was praying for white feathers, certainly not black flies.

Tim pulled over Bennie opposite and we stared out of the window.

I crossed my fingers and said another little prayer. “Please Archangel Raphael, please Jacob, let this be the one.”

“This looks quite promising,” said Tim, looking at me with a little smile.

“How come it hasn’t sold?” he asked, breaking the spell somewhat.

“I think it might be due to the fact that the loft has spray foam loft insulation and mortgage companies don’t like it.”

“That’s fixable,” Tim said.

And I felt myself relax a little, because for the first time ever, I really did feel that we might have found the one. And the strangest part was that I didn’t even feel the need to go inside it. I could tell just by looking at it from the outside.

Something deep down inside me already knew. Not because it was perfect, because it wasn’t. It needed work. Plenty of it. But I could already picture us there. Living there. Renovating it. Sitting out on the patio surrounded by pots of flowers with a glass of wine at the end of the day.

Perhaps it really was meant to be ours.

All we had to do now was get it, which was always easier said than done.

Normally we would have parked up and wandered over to have a look outside, but in this case there were still people living in it, so I thought it might look a bit suspicious. We would probably have looked like a couple of potential burglars casing the joint, so we would just had to wait until our viewing a couple of days later.

We carried on driving up the road while I did some research on resales of the other houses and bungalows. The resale figures I was finding looked very encouraging indeed.

If the inside felt as right as the outside had, and we could secure the bungalow at the price we hoped for, this really could become the first Peacock transformation.

A loft conversion. A rear extension. Turning it from a two bed into a four bed, with a huge modern kitchen and living area leading out into the garden through bi folding doors.

Maybe even a little summer house for outside entertaining.

Now all we could do was wait until we could finally see it properly a couple of days later. Frustratingly, the next day was Sunday, so there was absolutely nothing we could do apart from wait a little longer.

It felt strange pulling up outside our flat by the sea again, as if we hadn’t been gone at all. The familiar block with our apartment at the top. My sanctuary whilst we had been fighting against being made bankrupt.

I looked over at Tim.

We had literally been together morning, noon and night for the last five weeks. Cuddled up in our drop down bed, sharing our elaborate breakfasts on our little white table outside when the weather permitted, driving miles and miles, stopping for the night in so many different places, even wild camping up a mountain with not another soul in sight.

And somehow, instead of driving each other mad, we had become even closer.

And do you know what? I had loved every single minute of being with him.

But I said another little prayer anyway, just in case.

“Raphael and Jacob, I really hope you’re listening. That little bungalow already feels like ours somehow. We really need this one, please.”

Because after everything that had happened, all the chaos, fear and uncertainty, for the first time in a very long while, this finally felt like a new chance.

So… do you think this could finally be the one? I would love to hear what you all think. 🌹

If you’ve been enjoying following along with our adventures, thank you so much for being here. 🌹

🍷

What is it about the beginning and end of our trips in Bennie always seeming to arrive hand in hand with some kind of bad news, as though life cannot quite let us disappear peacefully into our little world on wheels without reminding us of everything waiting back home?

When we set off on our very first trip in Bennie, the bank started issuing proceedings to make us bankrupt on the very same day we left. Then, on the final day of our journey, just as we were reluctantly making our way home after being accused of absconding, we had to arrange for the bankruptcy papers to be delivered to our flat the following morning, as though the real world had been sitting there waiting patiently for our return.

Yesterday, as we slowly made our way back towards Calais, having planned a couple of peaceful nights in Boulogne sur Mer staying in a little aire perched on the cliffs above the sea, we received a call from our lawyer just as we were walking back from the beach. Charlie Brown had been racing wildly between us across the sand, beside herself with excitement after finally getting a proper run again following several days of shorter walks, completely unaware that within moments the mood around us was about to change entirely.

Seeing her name flash up on my phone made me feel physically sick. I felt dizzy for a moment, wondering what on earth she was going to say. I quickly put the call onto loud speaker so Tim could hear too. She would never call us out of the blue unless something was wrong, and in that split second before answering, I think part of me already knew our little bubble of freedom was about to burst.

She told us she had received a letter from a creditor connected to one of our old companies, demanding a large amount of money and threatening court proceedings if we did not pay it back. Just like that, standing there with sand still on our shoes and Charlie Brown panting happily beside us, we were dragged straight back into the world we had been trying so hard to recover from.

I could feel my heart beginning to thud, my mouth went dry and my legs started to wobble beneath me. The wind whipped around us as we walked back along the pathway towards Bennie and at first I could hardly hear what she was saying over the gusts blowing across the cliffs. But when her words finally became clear, I nearly burst into tears.

“I’m so sorry. I thought it would be better if I called you first, rather than you just seeing an email suddenly arrive in your inbox,” she said kindly.

She explained the situation as carefully as she could and asked if we wanted her to act on our behalf. We had no choice really. Of course we needed her help, but all I could think about was more lawyers’ bills, another monthly cost to somehow cover when we were already stretched thin.

The wind coming in off the cliffs felt suddenly colder somehow and as we walked back towards Bennie, I remember feeling completely exhausted by it all. How many more letters, lawyers, threats and demands could there possibly be before this nightmare finally ended?

We had only ever tried to do the right thing. Keep the hotel afloat. Keep the staff’s wages paid. Keep everybody going through Covid whilst pouring every last bit of ourselves into trying to save something that was already beginning to sink beneath us.

“Shall we just go home tomorrow?” I said quietly to Tim as we walked back towards Bennie through the relentless wind, wrapped up in our winter coats again and dodging shower upon shower. The warm sunny walks further south were already starting to feel like a distant memory, both of us stunned into silence and neither really knowing what else there was left to say.

“Yes, we may as well,” he replied, squeezing my hand, his voice sounding as tired as I felt.

He looked just as shocked as I was. It was one of those things we had secretly hoped might somehow disappear by itself, rather like Tom’s outstanding school fees, lingering there in the background whilst we tried our best to keep moving forwards. But these things never do, do they. Once money is involved, kindness and understanding can disappear remarkably quickly and people become ruthless.

Life doesn’t always feel kind or fair. Sometimes it feels as though no matter how hard you try to keep going, to stay afloat, to do the decent thing, another wave comes rolling in behind the last one before you have even had time to catch your breath.

Shortly after we got back to Bennie, just as she had warned us, the lawyer’s email arrived in my inbox. The familiar feeling of dread engulfed me instantly, that same sickening pull in my chest that had followed us through the collapse of the hotel and the long, relentless lead up to bankruptcy.

There was nothing we could do except go through the process once again, opening emails, speaking to lawyers, collating evidence and somehow trying to hold ourselves together whilst another problem slowly unfolded around us.

As we sat there trying to work out what on earth we were going to do next, my mind suddenly drifted back to the bungalow in Wimborne I had been watching online for weeks. I had already arranged a viewing for the following Monday, but then I suddenly realised that if we managed to get back the next day, and as it was a Saturday, perhaps they might be able to fit us in that afternoon instead. The property had recently been reduced to a figure that finally looked as though it might actually stack up.

At least it would give us something else to focus on when we got back. Somewhere deep down, I think I wanted to believe this bungalow might finally be the thing that gently changed the direction of our lives a little.

I gave the agent a call and felt a small flicker of relief when she said they could fit us in mid afternoon. I just hoped and prayed it would turn out to be “the one”, with no haunted musical boxes, structural horrors or swarms of flies waiting for us this time.

I had rustled up a chestnut mushroom pasta dish with fresh garlic, butter, white wine and parmesan for our last supper in Bennie. It was delicious, even though I say it myself, but I could hardly eat any of it.

All I could think about was coming home to yet another legal battle.

“Sometimes I wonder if we should have just been made bankrupt,” I said to Tim eventually.

We had fought so hard not to go bankrupt, eventually agreeing a settlement with help from my parents because we were terrified of losing absolutely everything we had left. The problem with bankruptcy was not just the shame or fear surrounding it, but the reality that afterwards your credit rating would become practically worthless and trying to get loans, mortgages or even something as simple as a credit card could become almost impossible for years. After everything we had already lost, the thought of rebuilding our lives from that position had felt overwhelming.

And they would have taken everything. The flat overlooking the sea, waking up to the sound of the waves rolling in through the bedroom doors at night and even my diamond engagement ring, which I still catch myself turning around my finger whenever I feel anxious, searching for comfort in its familiarity.

The thought of losing that felt unbearable. Tim and I had bought it together from Grays Antique Market in London when we got engaged, not really being able to afford it at the time, but him wanting to give me something truly special. It was one of the very few pieces of jewellery I still had left after we had been robbed and our safe stolen from our previous family home, the one we had later been forced to sell just to stay afloat while the hotel collapsed around us.

But what we had realised following the collapse of our business was that getting any kind of lending had become virtually impossible anyway. Even when lenders were prepared to consider us, the rates they wanted to charge were so exorbitant that most projects simply no longer stacked up unless there was a huge amount of headroom in the deal. It felt deeply frustrating after spending years building businesses, employing people and working ourselves into the ground, only to suddenly find ourselves viewed as a risk by almost everyone.

“At least we didn’t get the call halfway through our trip,” I said to Tim, sipping a cold glass of Mâcon Villages, feeling the wine warm my cheeks and calm me ever so slightly.

“I suppose so,” he said, looking over at me with tired eyes. “But when will this bloody nightmare finally end?”

The same bright blue eyes I had fallen in love with all those years ago, only now they looked darker somehow in the late afternoon sunlight streaming through Bennie’s windows. Tired. Worn down by years of one problem after another, whilst two empty wine glasses sat beside us on the table.

I looked over at Charlie Brown and she was watching us carefully. She always seems to know when something is wrong, almost as though she absorbs our stress herself. Her little bald patches had finally started improving again and I silently prayed to my angels that all of this would not make them return.

When I read the letter again, it was not nearly as aggressive as the kinds of letters we had become used to receiving before. They appeared to be asking for some kind of settlement plan. We could probably manage that, just as we had with Tom’s school fees, but it was another noose around our necks and another monthly payment hanging over our heads for years to come.

By that point neither of us really felt like staying in Boulogne any longer. The excitement and little bit of magic we had hoped to stretch out for a couple more nights had suddenly drained away, replaced by that familiar knot of worry sitting heavily in my stomach as our minds drifted further and further back towards England and everything waiting for us there. All we wanted now was to get home, deal with whatever was unfolding and somehow start figuring things out again. We hoped that if we turned up at the Channel Tunnel the next day, they might let us board early if things were quiet enough.

And, if I am honest, the thought of a proper shower suddenly sprang into my mind too. Bennie’s tiny little shower is perfectly manageable for quick washes, but hair washing days are another story entirely. Elbows banging against the walls, conditioner bottles falling over, trying not to flood the entire bathroom whilst somehow attempting to rinse shampoo out of longish hair in a space barely bigger than a wardrobe. By the end of it, I usually emerge looking slightly deranged, with bits of hair sticking up in strange directions as though I have been electrocuted.

But most of all, I was looking forward to a proper toilet again. One where I could do number twos without immediately feeling guilty afterwards.

And then there was the dishwasher. Five weeks of washing up in Bennie’s tiny sink suddenly felt quite enough for one trip.

I was ready to go home.

I know Tim felt exactly the same way.

We sat chatting for a while, trying our best not to spiral too deeply into everything again, but eventually the conversation began going round in circles. After we had finished the wine, washed up the pasta bowls in Bennie’s tiny sink and closed the blinds against the cold evening outside, we decided the best thing we could do was simply go to bed.

We had been away for nearly five weeks by then, which is a long time to live in a six metre motorhome together, yet I can honestly say that travelling in Bennie and exploring the world as we do has become one of the most incredible and liberating ways of living I have ever experienced.

It still amazes me how our little house on wheels can carry us from one place to another with everything we need already tucked inside it. Our clothes dumped on the shelf above the cab because there is never quite enough room anywhere else, permanently creased because there is obviously no iron. Charlie Brown’s bed squeezed beneath ours, wine chilling in the little fridge and pasta bubbling away on the hob whilst the world outside constantly changes around us. Somehow, in the middle of all the uncertainty, Bennie has become the one little place that always still feels like home.

Not needing to book anything ahead.

No real need to plan every stop before we get there.

Just existing for a while, without the next job, the next deadline or the next problem already waiting for us.

So different from our old hotel life where every day revolved around board meetings, requests for yet more money, staffing problems, maintenance issues, guests, endless emails and constantly feeling as though there was never enough time. Bennie has somehow taught us how little we actually need to feel free.

I’ll be honest, a part of me has felt guilty escaping like this when we do not even have a renovation project waiting for us back home, as though we should somehow be doing something more sensible, more productive, more grown up with our time. But another part of me feels deeply relieved that we never went ahead with the haunted musical box bungalow, because sometimes walking away from the wrong thing is just as important as finding the right one.

It honestly feels as though we have been away forever now, as though normal life back home has slowly started fading into the distance whilst life in Bennie somehow became our entire little world.

And now it is suddenly going to come to an end. Just like that.

We have not done anything particularly lavish, apart from a couple of lovely meals out here and there, and even then they have felt like little treats rather than major extravagances. Most days have simply been food and wine from supermarkets, baguettes from bakeries and whatever we can rustle up in Bennie’s little kitchen. In fact, I think I might actually turn into a baguette if I eat another one. Somehow, even with the fuel costs, we worked out that living in Bennie can almost be cheaper than living back home in the UK. Everything just seems to cost a little less, and perhaps we need a little less too.

This whole adventure has felt like a complete whirlwind really.

Constantly moving from one place to another, barely staying still long enough to leave things out properly before we were off exploring somewhere else again. I think we only managed to get the outside floor mat out once, which probably says everything about the pace of the trip.

The longest we have stayed anywhere has only been a couple of nights, but I think that is because we are explorers at heart. Part of the joy of travelling in Bennie is never quite knowing what we might find next or where we might end up next, discovering the world as we go rather than staying still for too long.

Seeing new things we would never normally see.

Experiencing different cultures, foods and ways of life.

Finding little hidden places we never expected to stumble across and somehow knowing they will stay with us forever.

We have sat together in the cab of Bennie, me writing or searching for projects whilst Tim drives with that calm, dependable look on his face, navigating motorways, low bridges, winding country roads far too narrow for comfort and cliff edge passes with sheer drops beside us. Somehow he has managed to avoid Bennie toppling over on cliffside campsites, get us on and off the crocks without incident and perform what has probably amounted to at least ten thousand ten point turns by now. He has listened to book after book through his headphones whilst keeping both me and Charlie Brown safe wherever we go.

We have travelled over three thousand miles through vineyards and ancient towns, seen beautiful waterfalls, slept high up in the mountains, stayed in car parks beside rivers and on the shores of some of the most beautiful coastlines imaginable.

We have woken to church bells echoing across little French villages and walked around one of the oldest Roman amphitheatres in the world, imagining perhaps we had once stood there before in another lifetime.

We have watched Charlie Brown charging wildly across beaches hunting for the stones Tim throws for her and stood outside Bennie at sunset with glasses of wine in our hands, wondering how life in Bennie had somehow become ours.

We have slept for a whole thirty five nights in Bennie’s little drop down bed, cuddled up together as we always are, with Charlie Brown grunting away in her little bed below us. We have used his tiny shower room, cooked almost every evening in his little kitchen and somehow shared this tiny little space together day after day without ever once having an argument. When you think about it, that probably says quite a lot.

We have laughed at our surprisingly lavish breakfasts outside Bennie whenever it has been warm enough to sit at our little white table, with other campers glancing over at our rather excessive spreads while they sat with a bowl of cereal or a bit of baguette, probably wondering what on earth we were doing.

Then there were the evenings, when it was warm enough to sit outside, with the table laid as though we were in our own tiny little restaurant. China plates, proper stainless steel cutlery, wine cooler and proper wine glasses. Who says when you camp you can only use plastic? Certainly not me.

We have worried endlessly about the future and what that might eventually look like for us once this strange little chapter in Bennie finally comes to an end.

We have embraced the here and now in a way I do not think we ever managed to before, feeling connected to the land beneath us, the changing skies above us and this beautiful planet that is ours for such a fleeting time.

And do you know what? In all that time we have not got the barbecue out once. Either it was too windy, too cold, too many flies buzzing around or it simply felt like too much hassle after a long day driving and exploring. And as for Tim’s drone, that has remained buried at the bottom of the cupboard for nearly the entire trip. Funny really, the amount of things we imagine ourselves doing before these trips that never actually happen once real life takes over. Charlie Brown hates the drone anyway, so she was probably delighted.

Whilst packing Tesco bags in the flat before we left, I had tried to be strict with myself.

George, do not take too much this time. You packed far too many clothes last trip.

And yet somehow, despite all my good intentions, I still managed to bring far too much, just in case. I think I wore about one sixth of what I packed. Goodness knows why I thought six dresses and three bikinis would be sensible for a motorhome trip across France in May. I wore a dress once, one bikini perhaps three times and the shorts and T shirts became completely pointless the moment the temperature dropped back into single digits.

In fact, by the end of the trip it felt less as though we were travelling towards spring and more as though we were slowly driving backwards into winter again, wrapped up in coats once more whilst icy rain hammered against Bennie’s windscreen.

Yesterday we drove through a hailstorm so fierce I genuinely wondered whether Bennie’s windscreen might shatter altogether, the hailstones hammering against his roof so violently we could hardly hear ourselves speak over the noise. At one point a couple of cars had even pulled over beneath a bridge for protection, so my concerns were clearly not completely irrational. The motorway afterwards looked almost white with ice and hail, completely surreal for the middle of May.

At one point Bennie even gave a little skid beneath us, which did not feel quite so amusing at the time as it does now.

I must have woken up several times during the night, fidgeting beneath the duvet while my mind endlessly went over the legal documents and all the different ways things might unfold once we got home. I tried to push the thoughts away and prayed to my angels for help and guidance, but nothing seemed able to properly calm me down.

If I had been back at the flat, I would probably have given up on sleep altogether, wandered into the lounge wrapped in a blanket and made myself a cup of tea whilst doing a little writing to settle my mind. But obviously that is not quite so practical in Bennie when someone else is sleeping a couple of feet away from you.

So instead I just lay there looking down through the windscreen below our bed, listening to the faint patter of rain against Bennie’s roof and watching the faint glow of the car park lighting outside. The whole aire felt strangely still apart from the wind and rain, whilst my mind carried on racing regardless, wondering what this life is really all about and why we are tested in the ways we are. By six o’clock I had completely given up on the idea of any more sleep and was more than ready to get up.

“Are you alright darling?” Tim whispered softly into my neck as I lay on my side watching the little clock ticking beside us, every second somehow feeling precious and fleeting all at once.

“Not really,” I admitted. “I just can’t believe we are having to go through all of this again.”

“We’ll get through it. We always do,” he whispered back, holding me tightly, as though he was somehow trying to pour strength and love back into me.

I made myself do a whole half hour meditation that morning, in between sipping the hot cup of tea Tim had lovingly prepared for me. Part of it talked about gently pushing anxious thoughts away rather than allowing them to consume you, but the anxious thoughts kept creeping back in regardless. So instead I focused on my breathing, listening to the wind outside Bennie and slowly breathing deeper and deeper until eventually, I must admit, I did begin to feel a little calmer.

After a final Bennie shower, we took Charlie Brown for one last windswept walk along the cliffs before breakfast, then slowly packed Bennie back up again, securing cupboards, wiping everything down and getting him ready for the journey home. It always amazes me how quickly Bennie can go from feeling like a tiny little apartment on wheels back into travelling mode again. Before long we were driving the short distance towards the tunnel, neither of us saying very much, both of us knowing this fun, chaotic, wonderful little adventure was drawing to a close.

Thankfully we managed to get onto the train early. We had to pay an amendment fee, but by then it felt worth every penny. The thought of having to stay another day, with the legal letter hanging over us and our minds already halfway back in England, felt almost unbearable. Plus, it gave us a little more time to see our kids, which we were especially excited about after being away for so long.

And now, as we chug slowly along the M25 in Bennie, heading towards the bungalow viewing before eventually returning to the flat, the inevitable nightmare unpacking of Bennie, mountains of washing, the Waitrose delivery and normal life once again, I am trying my best to reassure myself.

Things still feel uncertain and we still have no idea what the future really holds for us, but when I look back over everything we have already survived together, I suppose this is simply another chapter we will somehow find our way through as well.

We have already lived through divorce, the heartbreak and exhaustion of raising a disabled child and nearly losing ourselves during Covid whilst desperately trying to save our beloved hotel, which eventually went into administration when we simply could not afford to keep financially supporting it any longer. Then came the constant fear and humiliation surrounding bankruptcy and the possibility of losing almost everything else.

And yet somehow, despite all of it, we are still here.

Still together.

Still laughing over glasses of white Burgundy in Bennie.

Still finding beauty in little French and Spanish villages, windswept beaches, sunsets and ridiculous breakfasts laid out on our tiny white camping table.

Life is never one easy ride, is it. So many of us go through things we never imagined we would have to face. Losing people we love, losing businesses, losing homes, losing health, losing parts of ourselves along the way.

But I honestly think the human spirit is far stronger than most of us realise whilst we are actually in the middle of the storm. As I always say, there is always a beginning, a middle and an end. Nothing lasts forever, no matter how impossible or never-ending it might feel at the time.

Sometimes all you can do is take one tiny step at a time, get through the next day, the next letter, the next problem, the next difficult conversation and somehow, eventually, you find yourself breathing again. That is one of the most important things I constantly have to remind myself.

And pray to your angels a lot too.

At least I do.

And perhaps that is all any of us really can do in the end. Keep going, love the people around us as deeply as we can and trust that doing our best is enough.

And as we come off the motorway and onto the roads leading towards the bungalow, with Charlie Brown asleep behind us and the familiar sound of Bennie’s engine humming beneath our feet, I realise there is still nowhere else I would rather be. Whatever waits for us next, we will face it together, just as we always have.

🌹

If you enjoy my writing and would like to support me as I continue sharing our story going forward, you can always treat me to a glass of lovely white Burgundy here: 🍷

Thank you, as always, for reading and travelling alongside us. 🌹

We slept peacefully in our front-line pitch overlooking the beautiful Mediterranean Sea, protected by the prison-like looking fence.

I was relieved we hadn’t wild camped along the road. I had read about people being broken into, and the thought of someone forcing their way into Bennie while we were fast asleep, perhaps threatening us with a knife, or even a gun, God forbid, was not something I ever wanted to have to face. There was enough aggression going on in the world all around us without something so horrific happening in our very own home on wheels.

Strangely, the immediate disaster of not finding any paella the night before, or any other type of food for that matter, had not really disappointed me. More to the point, we had surpassed our usual on-the-dot 6km walk by double digits. Maybe the angels had wanted to give us an extra workout to burn off the wine and crisps.

After a wholesome breakfast outside on our little white table, scrambled eggs, Italian ham, edam cheese and a fresh baguette, looking through the tiny holes in the six-metre-high wire fence at the sea beyond, we packed up to head off somewhere special.

Although, for most of the trip, we had simply left it to the guidance of Archangel Raphael and Jacob, I decided that on this occasion, seeing as we knew we would be heading back up the north coast of Spain, I may as well do some Googling and see what I could find.

I found what looked like a splendid campsite, perched on a cliffside, nestled in a lush green cove, with three tiny bays below promising turquoise sparkling water and pale sandy beaches with the whitest sand. And, to my excitement, there was still a sea-view pitch available. Booking it, as ever, took a few goes, but I got there in the end.

After a bumpy journey in Bennie, with everything rattling about in the back to Tim’s annoyance, made worse by the occasional clifftop ramp in the middle of the road, we eventually pulled off the main road and made our way down a steep hill into a little valley, before finally arriving at the campsite.

The whole place seemed to tumble down towards the sea in terraces between towering Mediterranean pine trees, every road twisting and dipping as though someone had simply carved it into the cliffside years before and hoped for the best. Through the trees were sudden flashes of sparkling blue sea, so bright at times it hardly looked real.

The roads were far steeper than they had looked online. Sitting in Bennie from the top and looking down almost made my knees wobble, the narrow lanes disappearing between the pines towards tiny hidden coves below. It was beautiful, but there was also something slightly precarious about the whole place, as though nature rather than humans was still truly in charge there.

As always, Tim pulled over while I checked in. To my dismay, there were hundreds of schoolchildren milling around outside a huge marquee just behind the reception, and I wondered if they had followed us from the other campsite we had left a day early due to their screaming and shouting right in front of our pitch. But it was a huge campsite and, as we had booked one of the best pitches, surely we would be further down, nearer to the little bays.

The man took the passports and did his business, then circled our pitch on a little map of the site and showed me how to get there.

“Just down there on the right,” he told me, pointing in the direction of where the children were all queuing up outside the marquee for lunch, I supposed.

“Gracias,” I said, as I left the reception and climbed back into Bennie.

I always try my best to converse in the local language, although more often than not I accidentally say it in the completely wrong one. Thankfully, this time I was spot on, seeing as we were, in fact, still in Spain.

I handed Tim the map and we made our way down the hill, passing the children on our left, and then, to our shock, our pitch was literally directly opposite the huge marquee.

It had sea views through Bennie’s windscreen, although whilst outside I would probably have needed to stand on the little step ladder Tim had bought me a couple of days before. And there was no denying it, the place itself was beautiful, but it was certainly not the peaceful, idyllic setting I had set my hopes upon.

What was even stranger was that we were the only ones parked there. Surely they must have made a mistake. If I’m honest, I felt a little disappointed.

“Perhaps pre-booking pitches isn’t my forte,” I said to Tim, as we pulled into it before heading back into reception.

“Let’s have a little wander down the site a bit, so we can see what the other pitches are like,” he said to me, as I unbuckled Charlie Brown and we stepped out of Bennie to have a look.

It was agreed that we would rather go somewhere totally different than be parked next to a whole load of over-excited schoolchildren. It seemed a very strange place to set up a marquee for a school trip, immediately opposite a row of sea-view pitches that you had to pay a premium for.

We wandered down the hill a little further and could see there were several sea-view pitches sitting empty. Why on earth had they put us where they did?

We wandered back up to reception, bickering about who was going to speak to the receptionist.

“Can you go and speak to them?” I said to Tim as we trudged back up the hill.

“No, you booked it,” he replied immediately.

“Yes, but I’m always the one who does it.”

With a big huff, he handed me over Charlie Brown and marched off towards reception clutching the little map.

I hid around the corner like a naughty schoolchild whilst he went in, peering round every now and then trying to work out from his body language whether we were about to be homeless for the night, all the while silently praying there would be somewhere else a little calmer and further away from the chaos.

A few minutes later, Tim came out with a tense expression on his face.

“It’s this or nothing,” he said, looking straight into my eyes.

“Oh, really? What did they say?” I replied, annoyed that my praying hadn’t done any good at all.

“Only kidding,” he said almost immediately. I don’t think he’s very good at keeping up pretences for very long.

“He’s suggested two other spots. Told us to go and have a look and see which one we like the most.”

We studied the little map together. One of them was facing the same way as we were then, but several bays further down the hillside, just far enough from the marquee not to hear any noise, and the other one was right down at the bottom of the site, closer to the sea, where hopefully I might even get a little bit of wave noise if I was lucky.

As it was such a long way to walk down the steep hill, we decided to drive in Bennie. The spot furthest away would surely be the best, so no time like the present.

It was a really steep descent in Bennie and I had to hold my breath in places as we slowly wound our way further and further down through the pine trees. Every now and then there were little flashes of sea through the branches, although I was trying not to look too closely because some of the drops beside the road looked genuinely terrifying.

When we finally reached the pitch, it was the very last one in the row, completely on its own with nobody else anywhere near it. At first glance it looked idyllic, tucked amongst the trees with tiny glimpses of sparkling sea below. But the more I looked at it, the more nervous I became.

The pitch itself was narrow and sloped awkwardly towards the cliffside, with what looked like a huge drop hidden behind the trees and bushes on the driver’s side. You could not properly see how far down it went because the vegetation disguised most of it, which somehow made it feel even worse.

“Surely this can’t be a pitch for a motorhome?” I said to Tim nervously, assessing the size of it.

“It’ll be fine,” he replied in that calm engineer voice of his, although I noticed he was gripping the steering wheel a little tighter than usual.

It was the sort of pitch where one wrong move would not simply mean scraping Bennie against a hedge.

We had no option but to go head first into it and, with the pitch being so narrow and the road beside it barely any wider than Bennie himself, there was very little room for error. One wrong turn of the wheel and you certainly would not have wanted to discover exactly how far down that hidden drop beside the trees went.

Still, we convinced ourselves it would all be worth it once we were parked up peacefully with that sea view and hopefully the faint lapping of the waves below to lull me to sleep.

But as Tim pulled forward into the space, Bennie’s front wheel suddenly dropped down into a rut and I honestly thought we were about to topple over.

It was the suddenness of it that frightened me most.

One second we were edging carefully into what looked like the perfect little pitch, and the next Bennie lurched sideways as if the ground had simply given way beneath him.

My hand flew to the door handle and, without even thinking, I leaned the other way, as if my tiny eight and a half stone body had any hope of saving a motorhome from tipping over.

“Tim!” I shrieked, still gripping the door handle. “Are we going to tip over?”

He revved Bennie’s engine and tried to pull us forward and up out of the rut as quickly as he could. I could see that he was also leaning over towards me and his usual calm demeanour looked slightly alarmed.

Of course, it all happened in seconds, but in that moment those seconds felt like hours. The front wheel came up, but almost immediately the rear wheel dropped into the same rut and Bennie lurched sideways all over again.

I held my breath and leaned hard to my left once more, as if that would make the slightest bit of difference, until finally we came to a stop.

How Bennie stayed upright, I honestly have no idea.

But we made it. Bennie was now parked in the pitch, but in no way level. Tim would need to mess around with chocks, and that in itself stressed me out in such a small space, right beside the hidden sheer drop behind the trees.

And even if we did manage to get him level, we knew we would have exactly the same problem when we tried to get out again the next day.

And me knowing me, and Tim knowing me, I would be worrying about it morning, noon and night.

I do think that the immense stress we have been through over the past few years has compounded my fight or flight instinct, but what I do know is that when there is any threat or potential danger, I would rather deal with it immediately than push it away for another time.

“Were you worried too?” I asked him, as we sat there in silence, looking out over the lush green vegetation, with a tiny glimpse of the beautiful sea still a long way below.

“A little,” he said, looking over at me with concern in his eyes. “I don’t show it on my face when I’m worried, because it only makes you worse.”

Charlie Brown was now sitting upright behind us in her little bed, looking slightly bewildered, as if she too was wondering what on earth had just gone on.

“It wasn’t just the little rut,” Tim continued. “It was the whole angle of the slope as we drove in. I think the fact we had a full tank of water might have helped. Plus, there is a lot of weight at the bottom.”

“It just doesn’t feel right,” I said. “I’ll be worrying all the time about how we get out again.”

“I agree,” he said, looking over at me with the tiniest of smiles. “Let’s go back up to the one near the top. At least it looked pretty level to get in to.”

For some reason, whenever we get into any kind of danger in Bennie, and I’ll have you know there have been many of those, which you can read about in one of my later books, I always find it better if I get out of Bennie, making excuses that I am trying to help him reverse, guide him and all that, so that is exactly what I did.

I got out.

As I stepped out behind Bennie and wandered back onto the little track, I took a big deep breath and prayed to any and all the angels everywhere to protect Bennie and not let anything bad happen. The fact we had made it in surely meant we would make it out. Wouldn’t it?

The reverse lights went on and back he came. Down, down, down towards the rut again. Bennie leaned over, further than even I had felt from inside. Was he going to fall over? Oh my goodness gracious me, this was worse than watching a horror film.

First the rear wheel had to climb back out of it, then the front one would have to follow. I shut my eyes, as if that would make it all better, like I used to as a child, and when I opened them again, Bennie was still moving, still leaning, still somehow upright.

Then, suddenly, he was out.

Safe.

Still in one piece.

We were safe.

I could feel my heart beating quickly and my mouth felt dry, but after a few deep breaths I was okay again.

You are probably reading this and thinking, how pathetic. It was only a little rut.

But you have to remember that when someone goes through so many periods of stress in their life, not just losing the hotel, the bankruptcy threat, finding out your firstborn child is disabled and needs one-to-one care all his life, going through a divorce, and childhood trauma too, the slightest little thing can set you off.

Plus, if Bennie had toppled over, he could have ended up thundering down the cliffside with Tim and Charlie Brown trapped inside. And writing this now, even imagining what might have happened makes my stomach turn. Once again, thankfully the angels were looking out for us.

After all the stress of watching Tim reverse Bennie out, and after Tim having to perform what felt like a five hundred point turn to somehow turn him around on the tiny track, I realised we would still have to make our way back up the extremely steep road we had come down. But there was no other option. I got into Bennie, my legs feeling a little wobbly, but relieved we had got out without disaster.

“Are we really going up there?” I said to Tim, as he dropped Bennie into first gear and revved the engine, glancing nervously at the no entry sign at the side of the road.

“Well, I don’t see any other way,” he said, as we peered up the steep, narrow lane pointing the other way.

“Aren’t we meant to be going up the other way?”

“It looks too narrow. I’m going back up the same way we came down,” Tim said, as he revved up Bennie’s engine and we made our way up the extremely steep, single-track road.

“I hope no one’s coming the other way,” I said, as I closed my eyes for the third time that afternoon and prayed once again to the angels.

Thankfully, they were clearly in agreement that us meeting another motorhome on a one-way, extremely steep, single-track road would not be a good outcome, and with Bennie’s clutch burning, we made it up unscathed. I whispered a little thank you and we carried on up the road, which was thankfully now clearly two way.

You’ll be relieved to hear that the other spot was not down a steep lane, had no ruts and no dead drops beside it. It was a simple kind of in-and-out manoeuvre. Except that, of course, we were in no way level. Tim, being an engineer, will absolutely not put up with Bennie being unlevel. Even when we are wild camping, he finds some clever way to put something under the tyre, be it a stone or some gravel.

So it was out with the chocks, me FaceTiming him to show him how far up he could go before the tyres would fall straight over the top. And believe me, that has happened a couple of times in the past. We did the usual Bennie dance, with Tim moving the chocks backwards and forwards by what looked like mere millimetres whilst I performed my official role as slope supervisor, with other campers looking at us like we were a couple of British lunatics. Finally, after around ten attempts, Tim stopped climbing out of the driver’s seat scratching his head and giving me that “I’m not happy” glare, and I knew that, at last, we could relax.

It was time to create ventilation in Bennie. I’m sure you remember about that little stool Tim bought me from the huge French supermarket to help me reach the top hatch in the little kitchen? Well, I enthusiastically used it and proudly opened it the other day, only to almost break it by clicking it into the wrong latch. Tim was clearly not impressed, although by this point he was quite used to my accidental Bennie-related disasters, so he didn’t even say anything at all. Just fixed it there and then.

So, you’ll never guess what. My little stool has been downgraded. It is now officially only for stepping out of Bennie. Opening that hatch has reverted back to a blue job after what Tim still refers to as “the latch incident”.

Now that Bennie was finally level, tempers had settled and no one had nearly plunged off a cliff for at least twenty minutes, I suddenly remembered the man at reception telling me there was a little beach bar and restaurant open on one of the coves below.

“Shall we go and explore down to the beach?” I said to Tim while he was plugging us in. “Apparently there’s a beach bar open down there.”

“Okey dokey, Boss Hogg,” he said to me, grinning through Bennie’s little kitchen window.

We clipped on Charlie Brown’s lead, locked up Bennie and made our way down the little lane towards the bays. We must have been fifty metres up and the steps down weren’t for the faint-hearted. It was like walking off the north face of the Eiger.

Charlie Brown was in doggie heaven, sniffing here, there and everywhere, seemingly convinced this was the greatest holiday destination on earth whilst Tim and I had spent the last hour fearing death on cliffside roads. Tim had the lead, of course, as it would be just my luck if she pulled me over and I went tumbling all the way down head first.

It was stunningly beautiful, the sunlight dancing off the sea and creating tiny little diamonds, and we could see the beach getting closer and closer through the lush green trees, mixed with that gorgeous sweet smell of pines. The whole cove felt tucked away from the rest of the world, hidden beneath the cliffs as though only a handful of people had ever discovered it.

The water changed colour constantly depending on where the light touched it, pale jade around the rocks nearest the shore, then suddenly deep sapphire further out, with silver sunlight shimmering across the surface.

I could feel myself beginning to relax once the never-ending steep steps had finally come to an end.

As we turned out onto the little white sandy beach, there was the most magical-looking little restaurant, laid out with several tables under huge palm trees, with low soulful music playing and a row of tables practically on the beach itself.

The tables were so close to the sand it almost felt like you could be eating directly on the beach itself, the palm leaves rustling above us whilst little waves rolled lazily onto the shore only a few feet away. The white wooden tables looked almost too perfect against the pale sand and turquoise sea, like something from a travel magazine, except this was real and we were actually there.

“Wow, look at that,” I said to Tim as we made our way closer to it.

The little sign outside said they were serving food and drink until 5pm that day.

“Why don’t we treat ourselves to a late lunch here?” Tim said, smiling at me with those gorgeous blue eyes. “I think we deserve it after last night’s paella fiasco and today’s near death experience trying to park Bennie on the side of a cliff.”

“Oh yes. This place is beautiful. And the food looked good too”.

There was a young couple sitting at one of the tables, who had clearly had a lovely long lunch, sipping glasses of wine while finishing off what looked like baby squid and some kind of salad.

It looked delicious and they looked so happy together. It reminded me of the times we had spent in the early days on the little Greek island of Corfu, sitting at a table on the beach, eating Greek salad and baby squid, watching the sun go down, holding hands and looking into each other’s eyes. Where had all those romantic moments gone? I think a lot of them had been lost through what we had been through. I so wanted to get that feeling back.

Thankfully, there was one table right at the front left that was free, so we sat there and I silently thanked Raphael and Jacob for leading us to such a wonderful place. Perhaps that had been their plan all along. Maybe we were never actually meant to find a restaurant to eat paella the night before. Perhaps this was what we were meant to experience instead.

Had we eaten out the night before, we probably would never have allowed ourselves two meals out in a row. That would have felt far too extravagant for the two of us.

But after the day we had had, and after nearly launching Bennie off the side of a Spanish cliff, I think we had earned it.

And a treat it was.

A bottle of sparkling water and a lovely bottle of Albariño, sipped with delicious goat’s cheese salad and deep-fried baby squid to share, alongside a portion of tomato bread which the friendly waiter recommended.

It was exquisite. Probably one of the nicest beachside restaurants I had ever been to.

Thankfully, we had taken our sweaters, as there was a chilly wind blowing off the sea, but it was simple and unpretentious.

There were other people happily eating and drinking around us, also enjoying their own little pocket of happiness in that beautiful cove.

Charlie Brown lay by our feet, our loyal doggy friend.

Tim gazed over at me and took my hand.

“I love you, darling,” he said to me.

“And I love you too. I’m so glad we were led to this fabulous place. It’s breathtaking,” I said to him.

“And so are you.”

The waves were gently lapping onto the shore only a few feet away and, in that moment, I honestly wanted time to stand still. I wanted that precious little moment to last forever.

Eventually the sun began slowly disappearing behind the cliffs above us, casting long shadows across the little cove whilst the sea turned from bright turquoise to a deeper shimmering blue.

Our wine glasses were almost empty by then and the restaurant had grown calmer, the late afternoon softness settling over everything.

Neither of us wanted to leave.

As the jolly waiter came over to clear away our plates, we got chatting and he told us that he worked there in the summer and in a monastery during the winter months. Somehow that did not surprise me at all. Beneath his cheerful smile, there was a calmness about him from the moment we met eyes, like one of those rare people who seemed completely content with life. An old soul, enjoying his little corner of this beautiful world.

Eventually, with the sun almost gone and after Tim insisting it would probably be safer to head back before we drank any more wine, we slowly made our way back up the steep path towards Bennie.

The sound of the waves gradually faded behind us whilst the evening light softened across the cliffs above. Charlie Brown looked utterly exhausted after what had clearly been, in her opinion, the greatest holiday destination on earth.

I didn’t want the moment to end, but as always, it did. I suppose that is the bittersweet thing about life itself. None of us can hold onto those precious moments forever.

Perhaps what this whole experience reminded me of was this: when something does not go to plan, or does not turn out in the way we wanted at the time, there is often a reason why.

It might be a job that comes to a sudden end, the loss of a business, or the break-up of a relationship. But what is most extraordinary is that out of what feels like a loss, or something going wrong, can often come something far better than anything we could have ever imagined.

As they say, when one door closes, another one opens.

So next time something appears to go wrong in your life, take a deep breath and believe that perhaps, just perhaps, it may be leading you to where you were always meant to be.

If you enjoy my writing and would like to support me as I continue sharing these stories from the road, you can always treat me to a glass of lovely French wine here: 🍷

Thank you, as always, for reading and travelling alongside us. 🌹

We didn’t have a scoobie doo where we were going next, except that it was north in the direction of Lloret de Mar. So we put it into Bennie’s sat nav, which was always an absolute necessity for me because our phone sat navs nearly always tried to send us under low bridges or down roads barely wide enough for a bicycle. Now that Bennie’s sat nav was programmed as a ten tonne truck, I was a very happy bunny indeed.

Now it was over to Raphael and Jacob to show me the way. Literally.

With Tim at the wheel, Charlie Brown contentedly stretched out in the back and Andy McNab booming through Tim’s headphones, I got out my computer, connected myself to the hotspot and started my research.

The next campsite we had booked was around two and a half hours away, just beyond Lloret de Mar, so naturally I became determined to find somewhere magical to stop before that.

Easier said than done.

I searched and searched. The only campsites I could find with frontline pitches either hadn’t opened yet or were completely full. And half the drive involved passing around Barcelona which definitely wasn’t where I wanted to stop.

But did I give up? Nope. Of course not. I couldn’t let either of us down.

Finally, after about an hour of finding absolutely nothing, I stumbled across somewhere with pitches directly beside the beach. The website showed an aerial photograph of motorhomes lined up right beside the sea and it looked idyllic.

But when I tried to make a booking, it said minimum two night stay only.

“Ahhhh!”

“How are you getting on?” Tim shouted over from his manly Bennie driving position.

“I’ve found somewhere right on the beach, but it says minimum two nights. So annoying. I’m going to ring them and see if they’ll let us stay just one.”

“Okey dokey,” he replied casually as Bennie thundered along the motorway.

If I’m honest, writing and searching for campsites while we drove the boring stretches probably stopped me constantly panicking we were about to crash. I’m sure Tim was relieved not to hear me repeatedly shrieking things like “Watch out!” or “Slow down!” every thirty seconds.

I dialled the number from the website and went straight through to a message.

“We will be with you shortly.”

Mmm.

After a couple of minutes the call cut off. Typical. I tried again. Same thing. Then again.

“The phone keeps cutting off. How on earth do they expect to do any business?” I muttered. It used to drive me mad when the girls on reception at the hotel didn’t answer immediately. At that stage we needed every booking we could possibly get.

I took a deep breath and tried once more.

“Hola, can I help you?”

Success.

I asked whether he spoke English and thankfully he did, so I explained we were looking for a frontline beach pitch for just one night.

“No problemo. You just turn up and we give you a space.”

“I don’t need to reserve it?”

“No no. Just turn up.”

“Ok thank you. My name is Georgina, so perhaps save me one.”

I wasn’t taking any chances. Frontline motorhome pitches seemed to be rarer than gold dust.

“Yippee!” I shouted across to Tim, who looked over at me as though I had finally lost the plot.

“I’ve found us a frontline pitch right on the beach,” I said smugly, secretly relieved that I could finally stop searching and get on with writing yesterday’s article.

I typed the campsite into Bennie’s sat nav.

Two and a half hours.

“Okey dokey,” I said to myself. “Let’s just hope nobody gets there before us.”

I said a quick thank you to Raphael and Jacob and got back to work.

Eventually we pulled off the motorway into Blanes.

The roads became busier almost instantly. Scooters buzzed past Bennie from every direction while palm trees lined the central reservations and huge faded apartment blocks rose up against the hillsides beyond.

Every roundabout seemed to have another giant hotel looming beside it and the traffic crawled slowly towards the coast.

I kept craning my neck trying to catch sight of the sea between the buildings.

Nothing.

Just more concrete.

Not exactly the idyllic little Spanish coastal town I had been imagining.

We couldn’t even see the sea.

Still, we followed Bennie’s sat nav obediently towards Camping Bella Terra.

There was even a sign outside.

Tim expertly drove Bennie up to the barrier while I gathered our passports ready to leap into reception and secure our wonderful beachfront pitch.

Nothing happened. No barrier movement, no buttons, no reception. Nothing.

Very odd.

Tim opened his window and looked down at me with a puzzled expression.

“I can’t even see a reception,” I said.

Just then, a middle aged man on a bicycle appeared out of nowhere.

He glanced at our registration plate.

“You are at the wrong entrance,” he said in almost perfect English.

“That’s strange,” I replied. “The sat nav brought us here.”

“Follow me and I show you.”

He pressed something beside the barrier and suddenly it opened.

We followed him through the site, left and then right, back across the road and towards another entrance where there was indeed a reception directly ahead.

“How peculiar,” I said to Tim as I climbed out.

Inside reception there was one man sitting quietly behind the desk and not another soul in sight.

“Hola,” I said cheerfully. “I’m Georgina. The lady who rang earlier asking about a seafront pitch.”

He looked slightly confused but took our passports anyway, asked for our address and telephone number and then handed me the largest campsite map I have ever seen in my entire life.

He circled pitch 1064.

Good grief.

How many pitches did this place actually have?

I paid the bill which, at £42.03, was officially the most expensive campsite pitch we had stayed on so far.

Still, I suppose you pay for the best plot in town.

The bicycle man then guided us through the campsite.

There were caravans everywhere, many of which looked almost permanent, all lined up across huge gravel avenues beneath scattered pine trees. Families sat outside in folding chairs drinking beers while children cycled around and people wandered about in swimsuits heading towards the beach.

And then I saw it.

The fence.

A gigantic criss cross fence standing directly between the campsite and the beautiful turquoise sea beyond.

This one really did feel strangely fortified.

There were even three strands of wire running along the top which genuinely made it look electrified.

What a contrast to the stunning beach beyond it.

Still, our pitch was absolutely perfect. Frontline. All we had to do was look through the fence.

Honestly, as long as I could hear the waves, I was happy.

We didn’t bother with the usual full Bennie setup because we were only staying one night and had decided to treat ourselves to dinner out in the seaside town.

So we parked up, poured ourselves a quick little tipple, got changed into some of the many holiday outfits I still hadn’t managed to wear yet, took Charlie Brown out for a final wee and then set off hand in hand through the security gates towards the promenade.

I was ridiculously excited about having dinner out.

The evening was beautiful, the sun slowly dropping behind us while the sea shimmered deep blue beside the promenade.

“What do you fancy eating, darling?” Tim asked.

“I don’t mind. What do you fancy?”

“How about seafood paella? It would be rude not to in Spain.”

“Sounds perfect to me.”

So off we went. And on. And on.

The further we walked, the more built up everything became. Huge hotels and apartment blocks towered above us and I realised we had already walked well over a kilometre before reaching the first restaurant.

Shut.

We looked at each other.

“There’ll be another one,” Tim said reassuringly, squeezing my hand.

“You look gorgeous tonight,” he added, kissing me gently.

And suddenly the endless walk didn’t seem quite so bad.

“So do you,” I replied.

Tim had on his smart pink shirt and beige chinos while I was wearing my long green tailored shorts, little green and white top, denim jacket and my brand new trainers which I was beginning to suspect had not been properly broken in.

I had been so looking forward to this meal.

We had barely eaten out at all the entire trip apart from the magical château stay.

Eventually we reached a row of restaurants overlooking the beach.

At last.

I could practically taste the seafood paella already and imagine us sipping a lovely chilled bottle of white Rioja beside the sea.

Except every single restaurant was closed. Every one.

We googled other places nearby and carried on walking.

My feet were beginning to ache by this point.

Surely we must have walked at least two kilometres.

We even wandered down to the marina hoping something there might be open.

Nothing.

“It’s a Wednesday evening in early May,” I said to Tim. “Surely somewhere must be open?”

I silently asked Raphael and Jacob to guide us towards food.

My stomach had started rumbling and I was beginning to feel slightly disheartened.

“We’ll find something,” Tim kept reassuring me.

But we didn’t.

We wandered through the old town. Nothing.

Tiny side streets. Nothing.

Back towards the promenade. Still nothing.

“I don’t think this is happening,” I finally admitted sadly. “Let’s just go back to Bennie and eat there.”

By then we must have walked at least three kilometres there and another three back on top of the huge walk we had already done earlier with Charlie Brown.

I was beginning to wish we owned a Tardis.

Eventually we stopped outside a little bar with tables outside.

“Wait here,” said Tim hopefully.

Seconds later he returned.

“They don’t open for another hour.”

Far too late for us old cronies.

So that was that.

“Never mind,” I said. “At least we’ve saved some money. We can rustle something up in Bennie and go out another time.”

And so we marched all the way back.

Finally we reached the campsite, punched in the security code and made our way towards our faithful Bennie with Charlie Brown patiently waiting inside.

You would honestly have thought we had abandoned her for a month judging by the welcome we received.

So the lavish seafood paella and lovely bottle of white wine never happened.

Instead it was leftover gazpacho soup, heated up crusty bread, avocado and tomato salad with balsamic vinegar and the last little scraps of French cheese we had left, all served on Bennie’s little white table with a lovely bottle of Macon Village.

Perfect.

🌹

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Our angels guided us back to the east coast of Spain. I know they did. Mine is Archangel Raphael and Tim’s is Jacob. We laugh about it sometimes because during one of our spiritual channelling sessions, when we were trying to work out who was helping us through everything, mine turned out to be an Archangel and Tim’s didn’t. He still hasn’t quite got over that.

During some of our darkest moments over the last few years, we would actually talk to them. Beg them, really. Asking them to somehow help us find a way through everything that was happening. Sadly, they didn’t completely fulfil their obligations, although I am sure they tried their hardest.

Anyway, as you probably know by now, I am a bit of a yo yo sort of woman. Completely incapable of sticking to a plan for very long. So when I announced over dinner that I thought we should drive all the way back to the east coast of Spain after spending two days driving from there to the west coast of France, you can imagine Tim’s reaction.

The weather looked better over there. No rain. Or so we thought.

Two days later, after illegally camping beside a lakeside in the absolute middle of nowhere somewhere between France and Spain, with torrential rain hammering down on Bennie’s roof, the weather warnings still flashing on my Met Office app, we were woken by a local man in a van repeatedly hooting as he drove past us.

We flew into action.

Clothes on. Beds up. Cushions shoved about. Tim muttering under his breath while trying to find his shorts. Charlie Brown looking deeply confused.

We had to move before we got ourselves into trouble.

It all seemed rather unnecessary really because we were causing absolutely no hassle whatsoever. No tables and chairs outside. No awning. No barbecue. Not that we could have used any of it anyway with the storm overhead.

Bennie was packed up within minutes and we drove off looking, no doubt, like a pair of slightly deranged Brits fleeing the scene of a crime.

It was all a bit of a farce if I’m honest.

Eventually we found somewhere nearby to stop and made ourselves egg and bacon baguettes for breakfast, much to Charlie Brown’s delight, who spent the entire time drooling hopefully beside us.

We had wanted to head up towards the Costa Brava, north of Barcelona, but when I checked the sat nav it was going to take well over four hours from where we were.

Then I suddenly remembered the rather prison like campsite we had stayed at before, directly on the beach south of Barcelona.

“Darling, you know that slightly jail like campsite right on the beach?” I asked.

“The one where we had washing hanging all around Bennie like we were running a laundrette?”

“Yes, that’s the one,” I laughed. “Well if we go there first and then work our way up the coast afterwards, it’s only about two hours from here.”

“Why not,” he said. “We liked it there really, didn’t we?”

“Yes, and we can do more washing,” I replied.

Charlie Brown’s bed was already looking slightly grubby.

We rang the campsite and they simply told us to turn up.

So that’s exactly what we did.

At check in they gave us a pitch only a couple away from where we had stayed before and it was perfect. I was thrilled. Unfortunately the rain had followed us yet again, but by late afternoon it finally cleared and we ended up having the loveliest evening.

We sat outside Bennie, our little white table laid out as though we were in a tiny beachfront restaurant of our own, kitchen roll folded up as napkins, china plates and bowls of course, balsamic vinegar drizzled over the Parma ham and melon and even proper knives and forks.

No plastic anything in Bennie. We even had proper wine glasses. Ensuring they didn’t get broken was a challenge in itself, but I had discovered that if we stored them in the cardboard packaging they came in, they survived surprisingly well. If Bennie had a little dishwasher fitted in, life would be even more perfect. It is on Tim’s to do list to find somewhere to squash one in.

We looked through the criss cross fencing towards the beach beyond, eating gazpacho soup with little chopped up bits of tomato, pepper and cucumber sprinkled over the top to make it look as though I had lovingly made it from scratch in Bennie’s little kitchen, which if I’m honest, I absolutely hadn’t, with fresh baguette and a lovely bottle of rosé for a change.

The only sound was the crashing waves and I instantly relaxed.

The next morning, after a beautiful walk along the beach with Charlie Brown charging after stones as though she remembered every inch of the place, then up through the pine trees and little sandy coves, we decided to stay another night before continuing north.

During our huge eight hour mammoth schlep back through Spain, I had done some research and realised that many of the really lovely beachside frontline camping pitches along the Costa Brava either didn’t open until the middle of May or were already fully booked.

So I spent most of that morning trying to find somewhere special because you know me, I won’t give up until I find the one.

The sun had turned Bennie into a greenhouse and I was wrestling with the world’s worst internet connection. Half the campsite websites wouldn’t load properly, so eventually I gave up and used my iPhone hotspot instead. Tim of course was busy doing one of his Bob the Builder jobs, fitting a little retaining rail inside my cupboard above the sink, hopefully stopping everything flying out every time we opened it.

I looked everywhere, but couldn’t find anything that fitted the bill for the following night. In the end, I managed to book somewhere about two and a half hours north near Lloret de Mar for the night after, and then another one a couple of hours further north after that. Both promised direct frontline sea views, which made me very happy indeed.

“I can’t find anything for tomorrow night,” I sighed, wrestling once again with the diabolical internet. “Everything nice either isn’t open or it’s fully booked.”

Bang. Crash. He carried on, completely in his own little world.

“We may as well stay here another night,” I said eventually. “It’ll make life easier and we can do one final massive wash before heading home.”

“I’m thrilled,” said Tim finally. “Looks like the Bennie laundrette is reopening again.”

“That got you thinking,” I said, laughing as I carried on searching.

“I don’t know how you have the patience to do that”, he said to me while putting the jars and mugs back in the little cupboard, looking pleased with his work.

“What do you think?” he said as I wandered over the entire length of Bennie to have a look.

“Perfect of course,” I said as we both carried on with what we were doing.

That afternoon was blissfully relaxing. We had done all our little jobs and could finally sit back, relax and perhaps even get a little bit of sun.

We sat out on our recliners with Charlie Brown sprawled at our feet, staring out at the sea. It was the middle of the afternoon and lovely and hot, but there was a gentle breeze coming in off the water which made it bearable. For the first time all trip I even put on my bikini, subtly trying to hold my stomach in every time Tim glanced over at me. Why is it that when you hit your fifties, things suddenly start heading south?

Dinner wasn’t quite as lavish as the night before; leftover roast chicken served with salad and toasted fresh baguette, along with some of the French cheese and chutney we had picked up on our travels through France. But of course we sat at our little white table and pretended we were in a tiny restaurant of our own.

By half past eight we were tucked up in Bennie’s drop down bed while Charlie Brown snored below us. Late nights are forbidden in Bennie. Also no TV, no news, no movies. Just a few G and T’s here and there for Tim and V and T’s for me, not forgetting the fabulous bottles of French and even Spanish wine. Whether our livers survive this trip remains to be seen.

I fell asleep almost immediately with the soundtrack of the waves in the background, but woke up in the middle of the night tossing and turning.

I kept thinking about going home and needing to sort out Charlie Brown’s tapeworm treatment, knowing we would need to work out some kind of route back so we could stop at a vet.

If I’m completely honest with you, were it not for the children and my parents, I think I could probably carry on living like this forever.

There is something unbelievably liberating about complete freedom. Waking up and deciding where you want to go that day. Changing plans on a whim. Following sunshine instead of routines.

The only campsites we have actually booked this entire trip are the ones for the next few days, simply to make sure we get beautiful spots.

At one point during the night I looked up through the skylight hatch and saw the half moon shining over the sea. It made me think about all the other souls in the world also looking up at that very same moon. Different lives, different stories, different worries and concerns.

There was not a cloud in sight. If I had been home I would have got up and stood out on our balcony to have a good look, not quite so easy whilst in Bennie. But it was absolutely stunning and I thought how lucky we were to be experiencing all of this together with Charlie Brown in our faithful motorhome, Bennie.

Finally after a few more tosses and turns, to the annoyance of Tim, I finally managed to get back to sleep.

At exactly seven o’clock the next morning one eye slowly opened, followed by the other, and I saw the time glowing on my little bedside clock.

We have become like clockwork on this trip. I genuinely don’t think we have slept later than half past seven once.

Tea made by Tim, every single morning.

Quick wee wees and poo poos for Charlie Brown outside while Tim proudly paraded around the campsite in his grey dressing gown and black Crocs.

This is one of the great luxuries of Bennie.

At home in the flat we take it in turns making tea, emptying the dishwasher and taking Charlie Brown down to the field for her morning toilet duties. Whilst in Bennie, it was purely a blue job. Bliss.

Meditation was abandoned this morning because we wanted to walk Charlie Brown before it became too hot.

Quick Bennie shower. Dressed. Fresh baguette collected. Apple Watch on. Poo bags in pocket.

Off we went.

Charlie Brown was beside herself with excitement the moment she hit the beach, desperate for Tim to throw stones for her.

The sea was a beautiful aquamarine colour, completely calm beneath a cloudless blue sky.

We wandered along the sand while Charlie Brown lunged after stones, squealing with excitement.

Then it was time to climb up the little cliff path.

After my fall a few days earlier, I felt more nervous than usual because it was incredibly steep and the only access point onto the coastal path.

Tim took the lead just in case Charlie Brown pulled me over.

We practically scrambled up the first section of rockface, over shiny limestone steps and onto a steep hill beneath the pine trees, roots twisting across the ground everywhere.

At one point Tim walked straight into a low hanging branch which thankfully didn’t knock him unconscious.

Eventually the path levelled out and turned into a beautiful coastal walk running beside the cliffs with the sea sparkling beside us.

Large villas sat to our left while joggers and other dog walkers passed us enjoying the morning, nodding a simple “Hola” as they went by.

Eventually the path disappeared into a pine forest, so we wandered through the trees, swapping the lead exactly on the kilometre as dictated by my Apple Watch, before looping back through little side roads towards the campsite.

As we approached Bennie again, we noticed the wind had picked up and in the distance we could see what looked like a swarm of school children heading towards the beach. By the time we reached our pitch there must have been fifty of them, bags dumped directly outside Bennie, screaming, shouting and charging about all over the sand.

It appeared to be some kind of school camp and, for reasons known only to them, they had chosen the exact stretch of beach directly in front of us despite the coastline stretching for what felt like half a mile in either direction. Their leaders seemed to be actively encouraging maximum noise levels as whistles blew and children screeched with excitement.

Tim and I looked at each other.

Neither of us even needed to say it.

Time to move on.

We checked out, enjoyed a quick breakfast of scrambled eggs, Italian ham, mushrooms, tomato and baguette outside Bennie on our little white table of course. While the children continued screaming joyfully in the background. Then we packed everything away, ensured everything was shut securely, refilled Bennie’s tanks and headed off once again.

Off towards another unknown place.

Another adventure.

Somewhere hopefully magical.

And once again it was up to me to find somewhere truly special.

I prayed to our angels to help me.

Would I find the perfect spot?

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Finding our way back to ourselves

It’s been three weeks away in Bennie, and I can finally feel what the last seven years have cost us. Stress, stress and more stress. Luckily Tim and I were going through it together, so we could love and support each other. Not once have we blamed one another. This break has given us a chance to really switch off and enjoy another adventure in Bennie before the next chapter in our lives.

A couple of days ago, we decided we would start to head back up through France to be home for the weekend, but the weather forecast was terrible. So that night, over a dinner of roasted chicken, fresh asparagus and new potatoes, cooked in Bennie’s little kitchen while it poured outside, we had one of our little chats.

“The weather forecast looks terrible. We would be driving up through France in the pouring rain. I’ve had a look at the met office app and the weather is sunny back on the East coast. We could go and explore the coast north of Barcelona this time?”

“Yes, why not, darling. We may as well enjoy this time while we can,” Tim said with that look he gives me when I randomly change my mind, yet again. Although secretly I think he quite likes it!

And just like that, we changed our plans. Typical me, always coming up with one harebrained idea or another. Poor Tim just goes along with it, as usual.

And why not stay a little longer? The kids are all busy anyway. And as we always say, it would be rude not to. That’s the beauty of Bennie, we can go wherever we like without even having to think about booking anywhere. Not sure it would be the same in the middle of the summer, but early May seems fine.

Looking back I know that we tried to save the hotel, we really did. We did everything, ploughing every single penny we had left into it. But the reality was that no matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t. The salaries alone were over £50,000 a month, and that was before everything else.

Sometimes I wonder why we ever did it in the first place. Why we put all our savings, and Tim’s hard earned pension, into becoming investors in a large hotel in Bournemouth.

It almost sounds ridiculous to me now, but we weren’t to know that the whole world would be shut down for so long.

I remember one morning early on in the process, while we were still trying to get it. I was having nightmares and waking up feeling something was going to go wrong, and looking back I can’t help but wonder if my guides had been trying to warn me, if only I had only listened.

And yet I know now it wasn’t really about the hotel at all. It was about who we thought we had to be. Successful. Secure. The kind of people who had finally made it, who could provide a steadier life for our family. Getting older and wanting life to slow down a little, to be able to take the kids on a nice holiday now and then, somewhere abroad perhaps. But sadly, that never became a reality.

The whole story of what we went through is written in my book, G and T on the Rocks, which I am still putting together, but to sum it all up as Tim always says, it takes minutes to get into something and decades to get out, which is the other skeletons in the closet I spoke of in my last post.

Thinking back, when we finally got the hotel, we were thrilled, optimistic about the future, finally we would have a secure income, and then Covid hit, literally two months later.

After that, it became survival mode, just trying to keep the doors open, the staff paid, and the lights on.

After the initial bounce back, when Covid had gone, the cost of living crisis, the rise of interest rates and the aftermath slowly destroyed it.

And then, after trying to find an investor and another way to save it, eventually, nearly two years ago today, we had no other choice but to put it into administration.

In the moment we signed the final document, everything went. No warning, no gradual fading, just gone. There wasn’t even time to understand it, let alone accept it. It wasn’t only the business we lost, it was the life we had built around it, the future we thought we were securing, wiped out in a single stroke.

And then they came after us for our personal guarantees.

The next year was spent facing bankruptcy. It was during that time that we bought Bennie, hoping we could start a small business buying and selling motorhomes.

I wrote a piece about Bennie here, if you are interested:

No one wanted Bennie, so we kept him and ran away for a couple of months, down through Spain and into Sicily. Yes, it was a learning game, plenty of things to fix for Tim, usually with me passing him the wrong tool, but for the first time in our lives, we actually felt freedom.

Our children told us it was the first time they had seen us laughing in years, and how we must have seemed to our friends, our family, our kids, for all those years of facing such immense pressure.

Trying to keep it all together, smiling at people, taking Charlie Brown for walks along the beautiful beach, and hardly even noticing it, while barely able to breathe, to function, to believe that after everything good we had done in our lives, we had to experience something quite so horrific.

Looking back, it felt like we weren’t even really there.

But we got through it, together. I just kept praying it would be over eventually, reminding myself: “There is always a beginning, a middle and an end”.

And on this trip, I have realised I need to stop worrying about what might or might not happen. I know it sounds easier said than done. But when I let go of that constant pull towards the future, life feels a great deal lighter.

It has taken us nearly a whole year to start to feel a little less stressed. More able to function in the here and now. More able to feel that perhaps we are finally ready to try again.

What I have realised on this current adventure in Bennie, through France and into Spain, is that when you experience such a deep and profound level of stress and anxiety, it doesn’t just go away when you are released from it.

It takes time.

Far longer than anyone tells you. The body holds onto it long after the moment has passed.

The last three weeks have given me something I didn’t even realise I had lost. A sense of peace. I have allowed myself to release some of the blame I had been carrying for what I might not have done right.

And I have allowed the angels to guide me wherever we were meant to go.

There have been nights pulled up by stunning bright blue lakes, just sitting there watching the light fade over the water. Nights in random city car parks with the blaring noise of a concert going on into the early hours, keeping me awake of course with Tim not hearing a thing. A night up in a closed ski resort where the sat nav had taken us for no good reason, not a single human in sight. Nights by the sea with the waves crashing, my all time favourite. And a walk through a huge waterfall, with Charlie Brown not sure at all, marvelling at the beauty of nature.

Daily walks with Charlie Brown, wandering through all sorts of places, never quite knowing what we’d find, always on the lookout for cats and geckos, and then a couple of days ago I tripped over a stone and went head first onto the gravel, cutting my knees and hurting my elbow, helped up by the kindness of a stranger.

This feeling of having no agenda, nowhere to go, no one to prove anything to, feels like a life we are not meant to rush. You just get to be in it.

But I know we cannot live like this forever. We need money to live. We need a project to earn money. We cannot live off fresh air. We need, we need. The typical human condition.

And so as we drive back through the Pyrenees in Bennie towards Spain, home can wait a little longer. I am not ready to go back yet. And I have been thinking, had we not lost our hotel, I would not be sitting here in Bennie writing this post on Substack. I would not have written G and T on the Rocks and I would not have met you.

I would not have travelled through Europe three times with Tim, my soulmate, and Charlie Brown, our beautiful German Shorthaired Pointer, in Bennie, experiencing the most incredible places along the way.

And so this is where my life has brought me. Not where I planned to be, but exactly where I am meant to be. And I know I am so lucky.

Bennie has become my second home. Tiny, slightly chaotic, but somehow perfect. The wheels that have carried us to places I could never have imagined might exist.

Last night, sleeping beside a lake with no camping signs, which we hadn’t seen until the morning, I felt lighter than I had in months. We will head towards Barcelona for a few days and then we will make our way back into France and up towards home.

We will see our kids, my parents and friends, and probably look at a few renovation projects, and I will embrace the next chapter of our lives with you, if you want to join me.

Thank you for reading 🌹

Love George x

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After a couple of days on a front line pitch that some people on social media had likened to a jail, thanks to the criss cross fencing separating Bennie from the white sandy beach, I started looking for another beachside spot further down the East coast of Spain, before we headed inland to explore some historical places.

It wasn’t quite the wild, barefoot, wander straight into the sea dream I had in mind, more like a nice little prison with a lovely view. But I loved it anyway. Anything with crashing waves did it for me, fencing or not. And the added bonus was that we got two lots of washing done. The fencing was perfect for hanging our socks.

Easier said than done. I couldn’t find anything directly on a beach. Most of the campsites were absolutely massive, with rows of pitches in neat straight lines, not even a glimpse of the sea, let alone a front line pitch.

I sat inside Bennie looking for ages, blinds down, windows open to try and keep him cool. We had already taken Charlie Brown for her early morning walk, well before breakfast, before the heat had surged.

Being late April, the temperature was actually rather pleasant, in the early twenties, and we agreed that exploring in Spring was so much nicer than late summer. The days were longer and instead of being stuck in Bennie late afternoon, because it was either too cold, or there were too many midges, or wasps, we could actually sit outside. No pesky mossies, except for the one that buzzed around Tim’s ear early on in our trip, but avoided mine for some reason, and not a glimpse of wasps, thank goodness.

Being one to never give up, I kept on looking. I opened my Google Maps app on my computer, typed in campsites near me and went through them one by one. It was painstakingly slow, but to my delight I finally found one that showed a photo of a motorhome, parked sideways directly on a beach, with no fencing in sight.

Meanwhile Tim was outside fixing something else in Bennie. I’m not entirely convinced anything was actually broken.

“I’ve found something,” I said to him excitedly, through our internal cupboard which housed our drinks cabinet, underwear drawers and bedding shelf. It linked up to his external man cupboard, which housed Bennie’s spare tyre, electricity cable and hose, and I could see him concentrating on goodness knows what, with screwdrivers and other bits I couldn’t quite make out.

“Sounds good,” he responded, not sounding in the slightest bit interested. But that was my Tim, always relaxed and ready to go with the flow.

“I’ve found a pitch right on the beach with no jail bars,” I said as I rushed back to my computer laid out on Bennie’s dining room table, ready to book it before they sold out.

Even though it was only early in the season, some of the other campsites I had found had already sold out their front line pitches. Possibly because there were so few of them.

When we first went camping and I heard they were called ‘front line pitches’ I thought it most peculiar, but now that we are seasoned campers, I totally get it. I am one of those people who would happily pay a few extra pounds to get a sea view. I’m a Piscean you see, and there is nothing more therapeutic than falling asleep to the sound of the waves. The rougher the better. Which is why I fell in love with our flat in the first place back at home.

“What are you doing in there anyway? You’ve been in there hours.”

“I’m securing some hooks so I can hang up my bits and pieces.” He loved tinkering and was always so handy with his odd jobs.

“I’m booking it before they sell out.”

Again, easier said than done. It wouldn’t accept my credit card number and I had images of the last spot being taken by someone else. Charlie Brown was laid out in her little bed next to me, content after chasing stones on the beach earlier, and time was running out.

Finally, after praying to angel Raphael, it went through and we had our next home for the night booked. I had learnt that pre booking for longer than one night was not always a good idea, as you never quite knew what you were going to get. One time in Croatia I booked three nights because it was right on the beach and it turned out there was a full blown music festival the entire time. Absolute disaster, and they had no interest in giving us our money back. Needless to say, we didn’t stay there.

So this time, I kept it simple. One night, see how it felt, and take it from there.

It was only just over an hour down the coast, heading towards La Ràpita, and with the weather so glorious it made perfect sense to stay by the sea for just a little longer.

With Bennie packed up, floor swept with my little dust pan and brush, hatches fastened, windows secured, Charlie Brown fastened into her little bed, we were off. I always said I felt like a little air stewardess, going round clinking the hatches and securing everything for the ride. Once everything was in place and I was satisfied nothing was about to launch itself across Bennie, we could finally relax and get going, although I must admit there have been a few times I have forgotten one thing or another.

Quite often you could choose a pitch when you got to the campsite, so we decided to head off, get there earlier and for Tim to do all his blue jobs when we got there. I was so hoping it would live up to its expectations.

One of his blue jobs was to change the toilet cassette, which was thankfully not mine. The rule is simple, only number ones in Bennie’s toilet, unless there is a number two emergency, of which we have had a couple if I’m honest. If it were me emptying it, knowing my accident proneness, I would almost certainly end up slopping it all over my feet. That was my excuse not to do it anyway.

Bennie’s sat nav did its usual ‘nope I don’t know where that is’ routine, which by now we had come to expect and distrust in equal measure, so we plugged in the nearest town and then I could direct him from my phone when we got nearer. After so many hair raising near collisions and moments of being stuck in a street too narrow in Italy, I had insisted we programme it as if we were a ten tonne lorry. I don’t think Tim was very impressed and he wouldn’t do it at first, but after he had to reverse a mile and a half down a dead end road, he finally agreed.

The drive itself was thankfully uneventful and for once nothing flew out of the cupboards. I could never quite understand why they built those huge ramps in the road. A couple of times Tim hasn’t noticed them and we’ve gone flying up and down with bits and bobs launching themselves out of the cupboards. I do sometimes wonder what fate might befall us should we have a crash, but I stop myself before I get too carried away thinking about it.

As the road settled again after a few of those ridiculous bumps, Tim navigating them with slow precision so as not to cause any disruption inside Bennie, Charlie Brown was laid out in her usual position getting a good kip, completely unaware of the potential cupboard chaos around her. I started to notice the landscape opening up. To our right there were mountains in the distance, slightly hazy, almost blending into the sky, with the light catching bits of them here and there.

But on the beach side, it was a very different story. Our view wasn’t picturesque at all. Rows and rows of huge apartment blocks lined the coastline, concrete stacked high, balconies empty, shutters mostly down as though they hadn’t quite woken up for the season yet. It felt closed, a little lifeless, nothing like the open, natural stretch I had imagined when I’d seen the photos. I began to wonder whether they had not told the whole truth.

When the sat nav finally got us to the town, I switched on my phone Apple Maps and we followed the rest of the route.

“It’s looking very industrial,” I said to Tim as we passed what looked like a huge factory by the water’s edge. “I really hope this place is nice.”

It had almost turned into one of my own little challenges. Finding the best spot I could, every single day. But the truth is, as long as I am with Tim, cuddled up in my drop down bed in Bennie with Charlie Brown snuggled below us, I am happy anywhere. Perhaps not the hard shoulder of a motorway, but almost anywhere else.

We edged our way down the road towards the entrance. More apartment blocks, most of them shut up like it was still winter, and then finally the entrance. I held my breath and shut my eyes for a moment, praying it would be as good as it had looked on its website.

Camping Alfacs.

Large terracotta posts warmed in the sun welcomed us in and then a clean, modern building to the right, all pale stone and glass. A row of motorhomes sat right on the shoreline, white and silver against the deep turquoise of the sea, the water shifting from clear aqua at the edge to darker blues further out. No fence at all, just the sparkle of the sea, flecks of light dancing across it, and the sky stretching on above in that soft, washed spring blue. It was perfect.

“Wow, this looks amazing,” I said to Tim, filled with relief, as he pulled up by reception and I hopped out like a spring chicken, passports in hand ready to check in.

A friendly woman with a kind smile greeted me and checked us in. She handed me a site map, showed me where our pitch was and the facilities for Tim to do his blue jobs.

It was a very neat and well laid out site. Shingle on the ground and large pine trees scattered around. All of the pitches behind the front line were empty, and I found myself wondering what it would be like there in the middle of the summer. I was delighted to see we had been given a pitch right on the front.

While Tim was getting Bennie ready for the night ahead, I hopped into the back and used my brand new stool to open the top hatch. It felt like a major life achievement, finally not having to shout for Tim to come and do it for me. I balanced there for a second, quite pleased with myself, as if I’d just installed it rather than simply climbed on it, while Charlie Brown hovered at my feet waiting for the next move. I clipped her lead on and we went to have a look at our little pitch for the night.

As I approached, three large dogs from the motorhome next door started aggressively barking at us. Typical, I thought. That wouldn’t be very relaxing.

Looking around the campsite, I could see that there were still other front line pitches available, so I went back to reception and the kind lady said I could choose from three up the other end.

I had a little wander through the trees up to the other end of the campsite, listening to the gentle movement of the waves against the beach. A breeze moved through my hair and I felt so lucky to be in such a beautiful place at this very moment in time, alive, happy and with my soulmate and best friend Tim.

All three spaces were quite close to each other. One was next to a caravan where two dogs barked at us as we approached. The next one was quite tight with the trees overhead and we didn’t want any more knocks and bumps and then the last one was next to a gun metal grey transit van with a very funky looking off road trailer. It was set up with a large awning, with a little table and a chair and a very friendly smiley looking man. I wondered what his story was. He appeared to be alone, but just looked so content.

That’s the one, I thought.

I smiled back at the man and went to tell Tim about our new spot for the night.

“Okey dokey, boss hog,” he said to me as he was finishing off putting our hose away. “Show me the way baby.”

Then it was time for the usual Bennie dance. We must look like complete and utter nutters. Adjusting here, adjusting there, making sure we were in the perfect position, facing the right direction, side door opening out onto the view and of course, Tim always wanted us to be level.

What followed was a slow, careful shuffle that only Tim could manage. Forward a touch. Back a touch. Full lock. Straighten. Pause.

He didn’t even get out to check. He just trusted me. I stood behind him, guiding him into what felt like an impossibly small gap between the two trees, one eye on the electricity hook up, convinced at any moment we were going to take it out completely.

“You’ve got loads,” I said, even though I wasn’t entirely sure we did.

It took him about six moves, maybe more, inching Bennie in with what felt like millimetres to spare on either side, but somehow he did it. Perfectly.

Bennie slotted in like he had always belonged there.

I have no idea how he manages to drive such a huge vehicle with that level of precision. There is absolutely no way I could do it. Bennie would be no more if it were up to me.

But he did it, just to make me happy.

We set everything up as we always do. Table out, chairs in place, windows open, mosquito nets down just in case.

I took some gambas I had bought when we were in France out of the freezer and it was decided what we were having for dinner. A nice salad with fresh bread and garlic butter gambas.

Then I sat on the steps of Bennie’s door and savoured the view. It was stunning. I was so glad I had found it.

The smiley man came over and introduced himself.

“Hello, hello,” he said, pointing back towards his set up. “I fish… all day. Every day.”

That rather explained the abundance of fishing rods around his little table.

“You like fish?” he asked, smiling. “I catch… very fresh. You take, yes?”

It was so unexpected I almost laughed.

“That’s incredibly kind,” I said. “We’re hoping to stay a couple of nights, so perhaps tomorrow?”

“Yes, yes… tomorrow good,” he nodded, clearly pleased. “I bring you. Very good fish.”

“Fancy a beer?” Tim said, glancing over towards the little bar we had spotted earlier.

I didn’t need asking twice.

“All of this hard work deserves one,” I said, smiling. “It would be rude not to.”

We wandered over to the bar, hand in hand, with Charlie Brown trotting along beside us, still grinning at each other and marvelling at how we had ended up finding such a beautiful place. The bar looked straight out over the sea, the view framed by palms and pots of flowers, the water stretching out endlessly beyond. It was one of those spots where you could sit for hours and not really say very much at all

But just as we sat down, something huge and black buzzed straight past my face. I shot up, did a little involuntary dance and squealed.

“What on earth was that?” It came back again, hovering far too close for comfort.

“Relax,” Tim said, far too calmly, “it’s just a bee.”

Just a bee. It was easily three times the size of a normal one, more like a small helicopter, and certainly not something I wanted anywhere near my face. I nearly slopped my huge glass of beer everywhere as I jumped up, arms flailing, chair scraping back, the whole performance completely out of proportion to what Tim insisted was perfectly harmless. Thankfully there was only one other customer and he didn’t even look up, which made it all the more ridiculous. I kept half an eye on it, ready to leap up again if it came anywhere near me.

I have never really been a pint person, far too gassy for me, but I do try now and then. I was already feeling full of air and couldn’t understand how men go out and drink pint after pint after pint. I would literally blow up.

Thankfully the huge bee like thing had disappeared from sight. We were thoroughly enjoying ourselves, nibbling on the huge bowl of nuts the waitress had given us, so after Tim had had a couple and I had one and a half, we called it a day and wandered back to Bennie.

The fisherman wasn’t anywhere in sight. I thought he might be out fishing, or perhaps having an afternoon nap somewhere in the shade. We put our towels out on the recliners and settled down for a little rest. Well, I did. Tim carried on pottering about, finding something else to fix on Bennie.

That evening, Tim expertly fried the prawns in Bennie’s little kitchen while I sat outside savouring the view, probably not helping very much at all. Charlie Brown looking for cats.

The smell of garlic butter and white wine filled the whole of Bennie. Later, as we sat outside eating it with our bottle of French white Bordeaux, it was decided there and then that he had created one of the most delicious prawn dishes I had ever eaten, and I was so happy to be there, in that moment with Tim and Charlie Brown. Meals were never something we didn’t bother with just because we were in Bennie. They were just as eventful, perhaps even more so than at home.

That night, I fell asleep in Tim’s arms to the gentle sound of the waves lapping against the rocks outside our little window. Charlie Brown snoring gently in her little bed below us.

Sometime in the early hours, I woke. It must have been around four.

At first I thought it was something inside Bennie. The fridge. The heating. A faint, low hum that didn’t quite belong. I lay there for a moment, half asleep, trying to ignore it, but it didn’t fade. It grew. Slowly at first, then more insistently.

I reached over Tim and switched off the hot water heating button just in case, then I lay back down, trying to block it out. The sound didn’t stop. If anything it got louder.

So I lifted the blind beneath the drop down bed and peered out. The sea looked completely still. The wind had dropped and there was barely even the usual movement of the water against the rocks. No waves to speak of, just a flat, dark stretch with the faint outline of land across the bay. A few tiny lights, maybe boats, but nothing that matched the noise.

It got louder, deep and constant, building in a way that made it impossible to ignore, until it was loud enough to wake Tim.

“What on earth is that?” I whispered.

He pulled the blind back a bit further and looked out. “I’ve no idea,” he said, as he turned over and went back to sleep. Noises never seemed to annoy him like they did me. He would happily sleep on a motorway if he had to.

By this point my mind had wandered into all sorts of ridiculous scenarios. It sounded so loud that for a moment I was convinced it was a huge ship off course and about to ram straight into Bennie, or perhaps a UFO was about to land on top of us. In my mind, anything felt possible.

There was no point trying to go back to sleep. Usually Tim made the morning tea, his blue job, but this time I made it.

I was wide awake by then, just past 6am. I pulled down the little kitchen blind and stood there a moment, watching the sun come up over the water. It was so beautiful it almost made me forget about the noise.

As I put the little whistly camping kettle on, I realised it was fading, not gone completely, just drifting further away somehow.

We did our usual morning routine, cup of tea in bed, meditation, well I did it, Tim was probably googling how to fix something, Charlie out for a quick wee, then a shower in Bennie’s little bathroom, dressed, poo bags in pockets.

There was a time, before I became this seasoned and highly experienced traveller, when I used to stagger up to the communal shower blocks in my fluorescent white dressing gown and bright red Crocs, clutching a little zip and seal bag with all my toiletries and looking rather bedraggled, hoping no one would see me.

I have no idea why. Bennie’s shower is perfectly acceptable, although it does take a certain technique, especially when one has to wash and condition their hair.

Those days now felt like a distant memory.

With Bennie locked and the blinds down to keep the morning sun out, I set my Apple Watch to record our walk and off we went on what looked like a path leading south along the coastline.

The path was uneven, winding through greenery, wild flowers, and little hidden sections of coastline. Charlie Brown led the way as always, completely unfazed by it all.

Every time my Apple Watch announced another kilometre, we swapped the lead. It had to be fair, not a minute more and not a minute less. I liked to remind Tim that after his heart surgery I had done all of it myself for quite some time, but he just ignored me and carried on as if he hadn’t heard a word.

About two kilometres into the walk, we could see it clearly. It must have been the factory I had seen the previous day. It stood in stark contrast to the beauty of the landscape, all straight lines, hard edges and industrial shapes where everything else around it felt open and natural.

It was a working industrial plant, sitting across the bay. We thought the noise had probably come from a huge tanker delivering oil. We googled it and found out it was responsible for that low hum carrying straight across the water.

The very same hum that had woken me in the early hours. I wondered if it made that same noise every night.

We stood there for a moment, taking it in. It hadn’t ruined the place, but it had explained everything, and somehow, knowing what it was made it feel different. Not mysterious anymore, just there.

At exactly three kilometres on the dot, we turned back towards Bennie, Charlie Brown still happily trotting ahead, and as we walked, I found myself noticing it again, that faint hum drifting across the water, now that I knew what I was listening for.

But when we got back, and saw Bennie sitting there, perfectly positioned by the sea, the breeze drifting in and the light dancing on the water, it still felt like a little piece of paradise, just one with its own soundtrack, whether we liked it or not.

Just as we were unlocking the door, our friendly fisherman neighbour walked over carrying a small bag with what looked like a couple of fish.

“Good morning,” he said, lifting the bag slightly. “For you… very fresh.”

“That’s so kind,” I said, a little taken aback. “You really don’t have to.”

He smiled and shook his head. “I catch too many. You enjoy.”

Tim looked at me and grinned. “Well, that’s dinner sorted then.”

“Thank you,” I said again, taking the bag from him. “We’ll cook them tonight.”

He nodded, pleased, and wandered back to his spot by the water, rods already set, as if he’d been doing the same thing his whole life.

I thought how many kind people there are in this world, and it meant more to me than he probably realised. That a complete stranger would give some of their carefully caught fish and share it with us. It almost brought a little tear to my eyes.

But as beautiful as it was, and as much as I wanted to stay, I knew I couldn’t risk another night of that low, relentless hum creeping in from across the water. It had taken the edge off something that should have felt completely peaceful, and once that thought had settled in, it was hard to ignore.

So we decided we would move on.

After a delicious breakfast outside Bennie in the morning sunshine, avocado, tomatoes and coriander served with boiled eggs and fresh baguette, we packed up Bennie and got ready to set off.

I felt a little sad to be leaving our new friend, as I think he had hoped we would have stayed another night to give him some company. So I shared my Substack link with him, in the hope that he might one day read my story. We waved him goodbye like a long lost friend, and then off we went again, a little further south to our next adventure.

If only we had known what would come next… 🌹

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Wild camping at Lake Yesa (Embalse de Yesa), Northern Spain, was my all time favourite place we have ever parked Bennie, and I don’t say that lightly after all the places we’ve tucked ourselves into over the years.

We’ve been travelling for almost two weeks now and I can honestly say that being away from all the usual stresses and strains brings something back I’d almost forgotten. A feeling from an earlier time, when things were simpler, before everything became so complicated, before it all started to go wrong.

When I really think about it, it is not just about escaping, it is about remembering what it feels like to wake up without that weight constantly on top of you, to move through the day without being pulled in ten different directions, to just be where you are without your mind constantly running ahead to what might or might not happen next.

I know there are still skeletons in the closet which may or may not come back to haunt me, but somehow being away makes them feel more distant, less immediate, like shadows that don’t quite reach you.

We have been crossing the very northern tip of Spain towards the East coast and then further down, and unlike last time we went travelling in Bennie to Croatia and into Greece, we promised ourselves that this time, instead of hurtling down the motorways, narrowly avoiding pile ups and stressing myself out at the sheer speed everyone was bombing along, we would take it slow and easy.

I am sure Bennie, if he could feel such things, would be relieved too. Two hours a day, ish, maximum. And so far we have kept to our word. No itinerary, nothing planned, just me, Tim, Charlie Brown and Bennie, wondering what magical place we might find next.

Travelling through France was wonderful. It took a good few days, as it always does, to get into the rhythm, but once we did, I could feel myself start to relax. I still had that nauseous feeling when an email dropped into my inbox, wondering what it might be, but I found myself starting to believe that everything will work out in exactly the way it is meant to.

After the narrow escape of the bungalow with the spooky musical box, the same agent told us there was an even better one coming onto the market. He said he would show us around it on Facetime and if we liked it, then Tim could fly home to do a proper viewing so we could make an offer.

The first promised viewing was last Saturday, and then it was last Tuesday and still nothing. Our calls and messages are being ignored.

We agreed that we wouldn’t worry about it. Waiting another month until we got home would be fine and I would carry on saving anything that looked suitable in my Rightmove file. Perhaps that one is just not meant to be. There will always be another.

And that got me thinking, why did I worry so much? Was it what others might think about us swanning around Europe in Bennie, without a solid plan to come back to? And actually, did it really matter what others thought anyway? Now that’s a question for us all.

A few days ago, we left our clifftop campsite in Zarutz on the north west coast, where we had booked a front line pitch and been promised spectacular sea views. Sadly, when we arrived, there weren’t really any. The hedge had been allowed to grow so high that the only way to see the sea was from the drivers windscreen inside Bennie, or perhaps from his roof if he had happened to come with a little upstairs patio, which sadly he didn’t.

That morning before breakfast, we took Charlie Brown down the steep path for a run along the beach and then made our way back up well over 300 steps, my Apple Watch heart monitor bleeping with the sheer effort of it all, so by the time we sat down we were more than ready to eat. That morning’s delicacy was scrambled eggs, Italian ham, mushrooms and toasted baguette, eaten with a glimpse of the blue of the sky through Bennie’s side window, not quite what I had imagined, but perfect enough.

After that, we made sure Bennie was ready for our wild camping across Spain. He was fully filled with water, toilet cassette emptied and an empty grey waste tank, everything in its place, before we set off again and made our way to a lake I had found two hours east.

Lake Yesa.

It promised deep blue water and pine trees surrounding it, but nothing quite prepared us for the scale of it when we actually arrived. And the colours. Wow.

The road curved gently and then suddenly it opened out and we saw it first through Bennie’s windscreen, the lake stretching wide and low between soft, rounded mountains, the colour shifting between deep blue and a milky turquoise where the light caught it.

From the side window it felt closer, even though the water was far below us. The colour made it look almost within reach, with pale bands of shoreline showing like rings, as if the lake had risen and fallen over time.

Pine trees were scattered along the edges, not thick forest, just here and there, each one throwing a long shadow across the dry, stony ground. The land felt raw and untouched, chalky dust underfoot, bits of broken rock and scrub, all of it warmed by the sun and completely still.

And then the sky. Huge and open, the kind you only get where there’s almost nothing around to break it up. No buildings, no real sense of life, just layers of blue above us and the water below. The only thing cutting across it were the power lines stretching from one side of the lake to the other. They felt out of place against the softness of the mountains and the stillness of the water, a reminder of the world we had come from running straight through it.

I was not just struck by its beauty, I was slightly taken aback by it, as if we had stumbled into a secret piece of paradise, waiting just for us.

But what stood out to me the most was how there was hardly a soul about. No houses, no people, barely any vehicles. Nothing. It felt like the world had stood still and we had slipped into a place untouched.

Although wild camping is not officially allowed in Spain, we had read that if you keep yourself to yourself and respect where you are, it is tolerated. So now all we had to do was find somewhere we could settle for the night.

I was relieved to find the road was well made up, so my previous images of us winding along narrow hairpin bends like we had around the lakes in Italy were thankfully avoided. It was the middle of the afternoon, 22 degrees, and the water was catching the light through Bennie’s windows, making me feel like I wanted to jump straight in.

As we carried along the lake, I did a little research. It was a man made reservoir, which spoilt my illusion a little, but I told myself, what did it matter. It was still spectacular.

There was a track, apparently, which would take us right down to the water’s edge, but when we got to it, it was little more than a tractor path across a rough field and I could already picture it, us stuck halfway down, wheels spinning, no way out. I was adamant it was too dangerous for us in Bennie.

“We can’t go down there,” I said, staring out of the window.

“It’ll be fine,” Tim said, pulling over Bennie and leaning forward slightly, eyeing it up.

“No, it won’t,” I said straight away. “Look at it. That’s not a road, that’s a field.”

“We’ll just go slowly,” he said.

“And when we’re stuck halfway down with the wheels spinning, what then?”

He smiled, that look he gets when he thinks I’m overreacting but isn’t quite ready to argue the point.

I could see him still weighing it up, probably thinking it would be fine, and he was probably right, but it was just too risky. I knew I was probably being a complete spoil sport, talking him out of it before he had even really had a chance to try, but I just didn’t want any unnecessary dramas.

Tim being Tim would normally have gone for it anyway, a bit of adventure, a bit of risk, but this time he didn’t. Whether it was because he agreed, or just couldn’t be bothered with my protest, I am not entirely sure, but we carried on.

And then we saw it. The perfect spot. A layby at the edge of the road, overlooking the whole lake. Rocks sloping down to the water, a few pine trees dotted about, nothing else. Just space, stillness and the sound of birds and the water moving gently. There was just one slight problem. Another orange van was already parked there. Still, it was big enough for both of us, just slightly disappointing that they had the best front line position.

We did our usual Bennie dance, trying one way, then another, then another. But nothing quite worked. If we parked head on, we could not sit outside tucked in behind Bennie. If we went side on, the grass was too high to see the view properly.

In fact, if I am honest, I closed my eyes for a moment and asked my angel Raphael to let it just be for us. When I opened them again, I smiled to myself, half wondering if I was being completely ridiculous, and carried on hoping they might move on anyway.

The one thing that has been frustrating to me is that I cannot reach the hatch above my head in our little kitchen. Being five foot four, even on tiptoe, it is impossible. If I am honest, I had quite liked our little pink and blue jobs. For every trip we have done, it has always fallen to him to open and close it. So you can imagine my shock when he proudly produced a little foldaway step from a French supermarket. He even had to show me how to use it and I nearly fell backwards the first time I tried.

Still, at least I can now do it all by myself.

Hatches opened using my new piece of kit, we pulled down the back blind to keep the afternoon sun out and made our way down to the shoreline.

The ground was strange underfoot, pale broken stone and compacted fragments, as if it had all been crushed and laid back down again. It felt almost lunar, uneven and textured, shifting slightly as we walked. Little bits of stone kept getting into my jesus sandals and I had to keep stopping to flick them out.

Then we saw them. A young couple sitting by the water’s edge, and we guessed they must belong to the orange van. They were cuddling and kissing and I felt a little guilty, as if we had wandered into their special place.

The slope down was steep and slippery, so Tim took Charlie Brown’s lead in case she pulled me over. It would be just my luck to find the most beautiful place on earth and then slide down the side of it on my backside.

As we got closer, the water below came into focus, that same deep turquoise we had seen from above, but up close it felt different, clearer, cooler, impossible to ignore.

We sat on the rocks for a while, just taking it all in. The couple smiled and left us to it.

Charlie Brown, of course, had other ideas. Tim started throwing stones into the water and she jumped after them every time, splashing about, turning in circles, having a whale of a time, then lifting one paw in that way she does, ready for the next one.

I looked up and could just about see the orange van above us, and found myself hoping they might be leaving, saying another prayer to Raphael, not wanting to spoil their fun, but wondering if perhaps they had stayed the night before and were ready to move on.

After a while my bottom had begun to go a little numb and Tim said he felt the same, so we decided it was probably time for a drink and made our way back up to Bennie.

He was still there waiting for us, as always, slightly dusty now from the road, but solid and familiar. I stood there for a moment just looking at him, our little home on wheels, and it made me smile.

It still surprises me how we can be so content in such a small space. It is not the smallest, but small enough that everything fits and we know where things are without thinking. And yet, strangely, I do not miss the flat at all. I do not miss the space or the things or even the view. There is something about living like this that strips everything back to what you actually need, and somehow it turns out to be far less than you ever thought.

Back to the reality of the moment, we still had not worked out where we would park for the night and just as we were about to begin another round of manoeuvring, the man from the van came over and, in broken English, told us they were leaving.

I was absolutely delighted.

I looked at Tim and grinned as he climbed back into the driver’s seat.

Within minutes they were gone and Tim carefully pulled Bennie into their place, adjusting him back and forth until he was level. Our side door opened onto a small patch of grass and the lake stretched out in front of us, catching the last of the afternoon rays.

And now, somehow, it was ours for the night.

As the sun began to dip, the colours softened, the blues deepening and the greens darkening, the rocks taking on a soft golden glow. We opened a bottle of white Burgundy and sat side by side by the little door, Charlie Brown beside us, looking out through it at the stunning view. The water stretched wide in front of us, catching the last of the light.

I found myself thinking about home, about the flat, about everything tied up in it, and for once it didn’t feel heavy. Just a bit further away than usual. Something to deal with when the time came, not something I had to overthink all the time.

We cooked in Bennie, me in my tiny kitchen, Tim helping where he could. A lasagne warming through in the oven and one of Tim’s amazing salads, put together with whatever we had, finished off with my Italian dressing. Charlie Brown curled up beside us, exhausted from her swimming and stone chasing, letting out the occasional contented grunt as she settled.

As it got darker, the colour drained from the lake until it was just a dark stretch in front of us, with the first few stars beginning to show above. No streetlights, no glow from anywhere, just us all alone in one of the most beautiful places I had ever been.

We climbed into our drop down bed, me and Tim cuddled up together as we always did, Bennie moving ever so slightly in the breeze, and I remember thinking how simple it all felt in that moment.

Nothing needed to be figured out in that moment. It was time to just be there, exactly as it was, as if it might be the last time 🌹

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did writing it 🌹

If you would like to buy me a nice glass of rosé in the sun, please click here:
https://buymeacoffee.com/georginadeglanville