Spring 

I looked forward to wrapping up in fluffy jumpers and hot chocolate in front of the fire. Kicking at the leaves and praying for snow. I’ve had enough now. Dark mornings and even darker in the late afternoons. Grey and dismal days. Trying to dodge the showers and listening to the wind. It’s dark when I start work and dark on my drive home. I’m craving daylight, I need sunshine. I need flip flops and to ditch the boots. I need bare feet and no socks, short sleeves instead of long and sunglasses instead of woolly hats. It won’t be long, I can feel spring’s arrival. 

Snowdrops have appeared in the gardens, daffodils are pushing their way through. Birds are singing earlier in the mornings, buds are starting to appear on trees. The promise of warmer weather. Spring is almost within reaching distance. Longer days, milder temperatures, blue skies and baby lambs bounding around the fields. Ice cream and sunshine sat outside on my lounger, it feels like a lifetime ago since we did that. Oh spring and summer I’ve missed you.  Come on! Hurry up!

Spring brings the opening of the new caravan season, we’re out all year round but the start of the new season means we will have a wider variety of sites to visit. I cannot wait. I want to revisit old favourites and find pastures new, it won’t be long now, I’m counting down the sleeps. 

A couple of jobs to do before the season beckons us to explore further afield to sites that have slumbered the winter months away. 

Time to check our service dates and get a date booked if need be, we choose to use our regular mobile guy and invite him along to give our Pursuit the once over. Sticker proudly placed on the A frame that’s one job done. Tyres checked. Security bits and bobs, alarms and locks need checking, do they still work and move freely? All good to go. 

Quick check of our paperwork, refresh ourselves on dates to renew insurance and breakdown cover. Take a look at any passport dates and travel insurance in anticipation of any trips to warmer climes planned for the summer. 

Give it a good old clean. If you store your ‘van away for the winter season now is the time to get in there and give it a scrub inside and out. Don’t forget the roof, if you store your caravan outside without a cover near trees your roof could be a little green. 

Checking gas bottle levels and returning soft furnishings, if you took them home. Bringing back quilts and pillows and putting on fresh, clean, crisp bedding. Returning aqua rolls and waste masters that were taken home to clean and air. It’s like putting the pieces of a favourite jigsaw back together. 

The excitement of putting caravan related Christmas gifts in place ready for use. I can almost smell the bluebells and feel the sun on my face. The anticipation of throwing open the windows to the morning breeze, cooking comfortably outside and sitting in the awning without the need of a heater. 

I feel ready. I’m bound to have forgotten something, bar of soap, new toothbrush, towels, cushions… who knows, there will be something. But nothing I can’t manage without. Because, once I’m in my caravan, my special place, my home from home, nothing else matters.