The maiden journey is now in the bag, and it’s starting to seem like a distant memory. But now what? When we decided that we wanted to buy a van and transform our lives into this semi-nomadic lifestyle, we knew it would be challenging to make the time within our reasonably full lives, but we committed to making it happen.

Easier said than done, right? We didn’t realise at the time how difficult it was to pick the initial weekend to get away, and now we’ve done it and yearn to hook up and head off somewhere new and do it again, we are spending more energy pondering about the when, than we are about the where. So in addition to the now what question, we also face the harsh reality of when? And this is frustrating.

Between family commitments, special events and simply cleaning up and finishing jobs around the house, it is just difficult to allocate the necessary 2 days within the calendar. Working fulltime doesn’t help, but with Ros working in a school, you would think that planning days during the holidays would make it a little easier. However, working for a business that still prefers a model where staff are tied to a desk in a centralised location, which completely rules out the “work from anywhere” flexibility that modern technology strives to deliver, only adds to the conundrum we’re in.

The van is booked in for the initial service on June 30th, a Wednesday, so there will definitely be days allocated to get away across the following days. But we wanted at least to get 1 or maybe 2 other weekends away in the meantime. I actually feel like we’re letting down our fellow campers and vanners with the lack of commitment to the cause, believe me it’s not intentional.

Why would we not want to wake up somewhere different, eating breakfast and having coffee sitting under the awning watching the world go by, or strolling on a beach and coming back to a cheese platter and wine, as the world appears to have halted just long enough for us to appreciate just how good it is to be in the upright position?

Please do not take any of this as a complaint or looking for any sort of sympathy. What I am trying to highlight is that despite all the plans and good intentions of moving our lives in a slower, more peaceful direction, that there are forces working with the momentum of the day to day and our normal routines that keep pulling in the opposite direction. I suspect that like breaking a habit, this will take much time to alter the course of our existence, however, I am confident that it will happen and when it does, how good is it going to be?

But in the meantime, as we start the process of change, we will continue to plan, probably frustrate ourselves and ponder – now what?