Season of mists and mellow broodiness
This is my least favourite part of the year.
I am definitely a Summer person, or even a Spring person. I don’t do cold, or damp or dark. The Equinox is behind us and the nights are officially [and measurably] longer than the days. The lights are going on earlier and earlier and the central heating is now programmed to give a morning blast. It’s the first time the heating has been programmed in months.
I suppose our Glorious Gubmint are still running with that damned clock changing lark. They could drop it if they wanted and an excellent argument has been mooted that remaining on Summer Time would cut down on leccy consumption a fair bit as the evenings would be marginally brighter. I don’t hold out much hope for a logical response though.
One of the reasons I dislike this time of year is the relentless hype, first over Halloween and then of course Christmas. Advertisements have been appearing for the latter already and there’s still three months to wade through.
We also have a budget next week. They are making grandiose promises saying they are going to help us all with inflation and the doubling of fuel bills. There’s talk of an increase in Social Welfare payments which would be nice. It would be nicer still if they didn’t take all those increases straight back in baccy and ciggy tax.
There are still two gigantic question marks in the sky over the manor. There’s still no word as to what they are doing with my Carer’s Allowance and still no word on my roof grant. I suppose I’ll have to phone them again tomorrow for the pleasure of being left still none the wiser.
We did the lottery last night. Just a couple of lines. It was Herself who wanted to do it in spite of my telling her that would be easier to just burn the money in the garden. I confess I did lapse into some daydreams though. We had discussed what we would do with a good wallop of money and agreed that a motor home would be a great investment. I saw a couple of very nice ones for under eighty grand.. So I had a pleasant afternoon daydreaming of motoring down through France for a couple of months or even longer.
We didn’t win anything of course.
South of France is where Mrs S and I are heading in my ageing 4×4 in early 2023, because snow in January and February is not unknown on the Cote D’Azure. I have new wet weather tyres and had everything checked over.
As for motor homes, I’m not a fan. They’re expensive to run, parking is always a problem and they can get a bit chilly or overheated unless you’re running the jenny 24/7. If you don’t give them an airing on a daily basis they can readily begin to pong of rancid eau de homme. Those cooking smells can also build up quickly.
Spend your money on a nice villa and the rest on good local food and wine is my tip. For well under five K you can have a top notch time for a month or more. Use VRBO instead of AirBnB as their listed accommodation tends to be a bit more upmarket. Use a small car for trips to the plage and enjoy the walks to the local boulangerie / patisserie.
Agree about motor-homes. Planning a month’s coast-to-coast drive across the USA some years ago, I briefly considered an ‘RV’ but quickly dismissed it. A standard car and staying in motels is a far better bet than being a ‘snail’, carrying your house on your back all day – not only easier, cheaper and more flexible, but also someone else cleans the bog, makes the bed and does the laundry. You also meet lots of interesting folk along the way.
You can buy a helluva lot of budget hotel stays for 80 grand.
We have a small camper van, quite old now but we have had some superb short break holidays and weekends away in it over the years. It’s small enough for reasonably easy navigation in rural places like most of France and as cheap to run as a car, to the extent that we often use it even for days out instead of the car, and it’s invaluable for music festivals and visiting short events. They don’t smell any more than your house does unless you leave them unventilated and it can do 3 days on the leisure battery. But being a small van it would drive you stir crazy for long periods. Also there is no way we would even consider buying one at today’s prices, they are insane.
You can buy over a month of a lot of four star hotel stays in Western Ireland for under five grand. If you don’t mind the ‘Ukrainians’ of course.
Yes you could, if that’s what you wanted to do. Ours is used for mainly weekend breaks, and longer trips, like a 3 day leisure drive to visit friends in France then home again. I would guess we probably use it between 20-40 days in the year. We have had it 16 years and it’s now worth about 5K less than the purchase price, so even with diesel, running costs and camp site fees we are well ahead of hotel costs and more importantly enjoyed the freedom of looking at the weather forecast on Friday and deciding ‘lets go to the seaside (or wherever takes one’s fancy) this weekend’.
One thing I have always envied is the UK proximity to France. It’s nearly a 24 hour [expensive] ferry trip from Ireland so not something that can be done spontaneously.
I have two things in common with you that compel me to recommend the motorhome option. I have a disabled partner and I’m a pipe smoker. Hotels are often difficult to navigate for the disabled and smoking is fobidden. Pipe smokers do not go outside for a quick smoke but we can do as we please in our motorhome. It really is our only option and despite the fact that every bugger seems to be buying them these days we still manage to get away and yet remain in a place where we can do as we please. We paid £35000 for our motorhome ten years ago and now it would appear to be worth considerably more so it’s not been a bad investment.
welcome Inspector! You understand the problem… Disability provides a lot of problems [and the odd collection of accessories]. Add to that the fact we’re smokers and have a dog and it all adds up to providing our own accommodation. There are few hotels/hostels/b&bs that would be suitable. The only problem with a motorhome would be access through the main door but I’m sure that would be surmountable.
Anyhows it’s all theoretical as we’d have to sell the house first!