Looking Back at 2017

Looking back over 2017 and it’s amazing how much we’ve packed into the year.

Starting the year with ten days in Brighton. Brighton, a town I’ve always loved and we were blessed with crisp and clear weather. We got to meet up with fellow bloggers, Richard and Trevor, from (Get Your) Legs Down, went out for a couple of meals, sampled a few ales and swapped life stories.

A few weeks later saw a meet up at Chapel Lane Caravan and Motorhome Club Site of more Bloggers and Vloggers. Andrew Ditton, The Trudgians and Caravan Gossip. Re-introducing me to gin and each of their dogs, I don’t like gin or dogs but Tanqueray, Chops, Dougal and Delilah managed to squirm their way into my affections.

We tried Wales again in March, it must be good, Paul Davis actually chooses to live there, and we swear, it never rained once. St Fagans open museum near Cardiff was a highlight as we saw a Lamb born, I cried, my first birth from the other viewpoint, I even got a bit ‘clucky’, come on Jellybeans.

The end of April saw us heading towards the Channel Tunnel for our 50th birthday tour. 50 days for 50 years saw us visiting Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Italy and France, 13 sites and 3,726 miles travelled, 2,636 towing. The holiday was the trip of our lives, so far… once work, or lack of it, allows extended holidays then we will be back out there. 50 days really wasn’t enough.

July brought an invitation to see the launch of the new Bailey of Bristol Unicorn range. A day getting to nosey in and out of caravans that haven’t yet been released, liking this and not liking that.

A tour of the Bailey factory was also an interesting eye opener. Seeing the process from start to finish, flooring laid, cupboards fitted, graphics applied. A very informative day, we now understand the skeleton and workings beneath the outer skin.

A very wet trip back to Lancashire visiting family followed by numerous smaller trips. We visited Caravan and Motorhome Club sites and we also checked into a good few CL’s. These being a cheaper holiday alternative and all passed my seal of approval for return visits, unlike last year.

The caravan passed it’s annual service with flying colours and got another sticker, albeit an expensive sticker. Apart from getting a mattress at the start of the year and replacing the side blinds we haven’t made any other adaptations, unless you call a ‘blown’ heater element an adaptation.

With a total of 6,660 miles of towing this year, in 114 nights, at 26 different sites and £2,912 spent in site fees I think we’ve had an extremely good year. A year to look back on and remember fondly. I don’t think we’ve ever had as many holidays.

The blog, we entered 2017 with just 45 blogs and 26,000 views and we are departing the year with 159 blogs and 157,000 views. So, if you’ve just stumbled across us we aren’t quite the novices we were this time last year but we are still learning. Please feel free to give us a like, a follow and maybe even a comment.

The Book – we achieved a personal highlight on Christmas Day, the publication of our first paperback book. There is a very specific reason for this, my Mum, Mavis, is unlikely to ever join the internet revolution, and, as a result, has never read any of our blogs. We wanted to somehow print all the blogs for her and considered many expensive options before discovering self publication via Kindle/Amazon. With a little a lot of formatting and editing we had our very own book to gift to Mavis, for only £5. 50 Days in Europe contains all the blogs from our European trip, we chose this as our book debut (Guinea Pig) as it would have a wider appeal beyond just Mavis, poor Mavis, who may be finding a few more books landing on her doormat, once we get round to publishing the other blogs.

2018? What’s in store for us next year? You’ll just have to wait and see…