Our Motorhomes

Jan the Van 

aka The Behemoth or The Beast - November 2012 to current.

I really must get around to updating this part.

Vanessa 2007-1012

Is that a glass of whiskey I see there?

 This page is devoted to our travels with Vanessa, 2007 to 2012  -

Based in the Midlands we have spent a lot of time visiting my husband's disabled son who lives in a care home near Cheddar, so many of our journeys are back and forth to there.  But we do try to balance that with other holidays and the map shows a summary of where we have managed to get to.  None of these trips were for more than 2 weeks so we spent a fair amount of time on the road. Two trips to Cologne (sorry if it's not on the right place on the map) were mixing business with pleasure.

While I'm mentioning Cologne, we stayed in a great campsite on the banks of the Rhine.  I thought it would be lovely for me and The Smelly One to enjoy some river walks while the Boss went to work, but we landed in the middle of the July GOTH festival in Cologne.  We spent more time watching them than we did the river.  Just wish we'd had some more time with the goths, they were a fantastic sight.

 

 and here are some of the unusual outfits that we saw on the campsite.

Back to the purpose of the page - Vanessa

Vanessa is a 2005 Benimar Aereo 6000 (6m) on a Fiat Ducato 2.8 diesel.  These are quite rare to come by and to be honest are a really good van, the quality and fitments were excellent. If we ever came across another Benimar it was like bees round a honey pot. We would flock together and discuss the vans and their build quality.


In brief:-

2007 - Ireland
2008 - the Loire and Normandy
2009- Ireland
2010 - Cologne and the French Mediterranean coast. (two trips)
2011 - Northern France including Ypres etc and then the up the Moselle Valley to Cologne.
2012 - the Vendee - then we were off to do Normandy and Brittany but the weather forecast was bad so at the last minute decided to go back to the Loire.

In between times we usually managed  a two week break around England and got away as many weekends to shorter destinations in between. A motorhome is a very expensive ornament if you don't use it. I suppose we averaged 5k miles a year in Vanessa.

During this time Vanessa was beginning to look a little tired and dated so I gave her a quick re-upholster to brighten her up.  This included all cushions, drivers and passenger seats, curtains and bedding.  What do you think?  I'm a bit of a dab hand with the sewing machine but I had never tackled car seats before (no loose covers here).

Before

After 

Before

After

as you can see the dog has to get involved at all stages and to issue her approval to the quality of any works being undertaken.

 and we were still practicing for the day when we would sell our house and become full-timers.

Last year I had an endowment pay out - after the shortfall it was a good job it was no longer attached to a mortgage.  Then the Boss had a brilliant idea that we should start looking around for a new motorhome, "oh and I think this one would suit our needs" he said.

So as with all of the Boss's good ideas we trundle off to the dealer and buy Behemoth.

MY endowment stayed in MY bank account for all of 3 days. I had saved 25 years for that and didn't even get the enjoyment of seeing it on my bank statement.

So poor Vanessa was traded in and we haven't seen her since.

If anyone ever sees Vanessa on their travels, please give our contact details to the new owners, we would love to know how she is getting on and hope that she is bringing as much joy to her new travellers as she did to us.