It's a dream come true...
It’s a dream come true. I’m excited , shocked , delighted and surprised . I can’t believe after all these years We have a van. Our very own picnic station , stay away and escape vehicle. It’s been something I’ve longed and hoped for for so long that I never dared to believe we would finally do it. Mr T has completely surprised me as has been researching and looking at vans for a long time and out of the blue showed me pictures and asked what I thought .
This van was something completely different . She looked like a white work van . She had extras – the awning and chrome bars and wide wheels which made her look better but overall she didn’t give any indication off what was inside. The long base vehicle would give us a bit more space and after making our list the van Andrew had found ticked all our boxes.
The next step Andrew has given more details about. To be honest for me it was all just too good to be true and I wanted to pinch myself to make sure it was all real. There were scary parts like when we couldn’t get the money to transfer , or Andrew’s despair when the clutch gave up , but for me it was like the childhood experience of a birthday and I wanted to unwrap and claim my present making if mine. We both couldn’t sleep both from excitement and worry and then finally she was ours. Mixed feelings followed I was bursting with joy and delight but saddened by Andrew’s despair and worry. It was such a relief to hear from the garage that all was good and with some further investment Andrew was happy that our van was safe , reliable and good to go. During this time – apart from when she went to the garage , whenever I could I would sit inside her , shutting myself in and I began exploring ideas to restore and incorporate us into her whilst cleaning inside and discovering spaces to fill .
I was due som A/L and wanted to put aside some time to focus completely on decorating and painting giving us some space for storage and updating the unit utilising the space inside. We debated on cupboards above , a corner unit , fridge or shelves. All of these ideas didn’t quite meet what we were aiming for. We wanted storage we could change , expand and have different uses depending on the occasion we were using her for. Andrew came up with the idea off boards to attach shelves , boxes etc that could be moved around or added too as in shop fittings and he purchased and put up beautiful bamboo racks adding clips to boxes and tin pots that we had at home. We loved this and recognised that it would give us the flexibility to change the look of inside when and how we wanted suiting us. We agreed to use the next few months exploring what we needed inside and to have a wish list giving us time to plan for using her regularly and eventually to be able to escape with minimum notice knowing we have everything we needed on board.
We quickly made a list of wants and musts for what we needed from a vehicle and realistic thoughts were taken into consideration. We were lucky enough to have the little mini break away in Bertie a classic VW a couple of years ago and used this experience to compile our list. . It was the most fabulous holiday but we realised that a classic vehicle like Bertie was not for us. We didn’t like the attention from others, or how we stood out as campers where ever we went. The quirky , slow and tentative unreliability made driving an experience but not something we wanted long term. We both value our privacy and there was none in Bertie. and at times we felt vulnerable as she stood out so much. We did however both remember the freedom , the relaxing ambling and exploring and the joy from the nomadic few days we had. We both agreed that we wanted more off this and so began a new chapter in our lives.
The next steps took us time as we planned and chose items of luxury and practicality to design and make our van our mini home. Somewhere we wanted to be , to be able to escape , indulge , travel and spend time together away from the every day stresses of life. We decided to up-cycle as much as we could and put into our van treasures from home . We planned and changed our minds spending hours deciding together each item , colour or function for things to go into our project.
Slowly inside began to take shape and before long we had made her ours celebrated by naming her Frankie .