There has been a series of events which have suddenly produced a dramatic change in our lives.
April 16th we went to our favourite campsite in Silverdale. I expressed my anxiety at driving Oakley, and how this made it difficult to enjoy setting off. The driving was always hard work and I was always worried about breakdowns accidents etc. On out way there; on the M6 near Lancaster I swear a lorry missed our back end by a couple of feet, because he didn’t realise quite how slow we were. We were doing 35 but we could have been matchwood. We arrived in Silverdale and had trouble getting to park where we usually like to be and ended up somewhere else with special permission to park sideways so we could get the view. They wanted us to line up with all the other vans and caravans which meant we would be looking at the luton.
Whilst we were there we had an awkward interaction with the stewardess who should have known who we were because of the conversations we had had in parking, and who challenged whether we were campers or not, and she couldn’t be too careful because of gypsies. Did she think we were gypsies, what did she think? What did other people think?. We dont normally care, but this got to us.
Whilst there we also questioned whether Oakley met our needs. Sandra needs a toilet. We explored how we could adapt Oakers to accommodate. It would nt be easy, but the conversation led to us deciding it was time to sell. We agreed to sleep on it but the next day we felt the same. So we had a look round some of the campers we could see from our window. An Autosleeper and a Talbot. We learned alot!
We got home of Friday (the Good one) and talked about what we would like. I have long wanted a Hymer and one was for sale in Hipperholme. Saturday we went to look at that and a few others. The Hymer was outstanding for me but LHD, smelt a bit and was a bit pricey. Monday we looked at another in Denholme and despite it being very similar to the Hipperholme one, Sandra loved it and we put a deposit on!!!
So selling Oakley – we composed an ad and placed it on Classic cars site for £15,000, then put it on e-bay for 9,995 with a buy now of 15k. We had an offer of 7k unseen, but when she saw it she was back-pedaling and we didnt like her anyway, not her 3 year old. Other than that the auction came and went. The last few seconds were very stressful, very very stressful, but nothing happened. In the meantime we emailed a load of Glamping places to see if they might be interested and had 2 responses of sorts. Second aution was 5,995 with buy it now at 7995. We had 4 people interested in viewing plus one offer of 4k and the 7k woman we didnt like offered 5.2k despite having said she wasnt interested, by taxt before we relisted. We told her to bit. Another request to view came from someone form the classic cars site who wanted us to hold it for her. We encouraged her to bid and she did, with 14 seconds to go. We had both talked to her on the phone before and liked her and she was saying all the right things. She paid her deposit and we arranged collection. We met Lizzie on Saturday, gave her a thorough tour and instructions and did the deal. Oakley has gone to a good home and it was an incredible wrench to see him being driven off by someone else. I realised I had never seen anyone drive him anywhere. Very sad, but a good decision, leaving me wondering how such a major decision could have been made an executed in such a short time – 3 weeks and one day.
We havent got the Hymer yet … thats another chapter!