shuvonshuvoff motorhome adventures

One hundred days of lockdown and things are beginning to reopen, schools, shops, pubs and now soon campsites but my anxiety is beginning to rear its ugly head again. I have been fortunate that I have been staying in my motorhome on a campsite with very few people, in a lovely part of Lancashire, just outside of Lancaster. I have spent the last one hundred days exploring the area and discovering so much about the history of the places I have visited.  Like the beautiful castle in Lancaster. It dates back to Roman times and is owned by the Duchy of Lancaster, the Queen. The trials of the Lancashire witches took place here almost four hundred years ago and there have been hundreds of executions at the castle for things like stealing cattle to murder. It has served as a prison since the mid 17th century until as recently as 2011. Sadly I could not do a tour of the castle because of COVID lockdown but I will be back to find out more about its fascinating history. I also discovere...

The other day I had a particularly sad day and I just did not know why. There was no reason for me to feel like that but I realised that I have an underlying anxiety that I am finding hard to get rid of. We have been on lockdown since March 23rd and now some things are reopening and things are supposedly improving. Death rates are falling and people are going back to work. But I have a feeling of dread. I think I have become accustomed to my way of life in the motorhome away from everyone. Only venturing out to the shops once a week. Then making sure my bike rides take me to the most sparsely populated areas so that I see very few people. I am trying to envisage what my life will be like when we are allowed to move around freely. Part of me wants to stay in this safe cocoon but the other part of me feels rudderless and lost and wants to embark on my travels and adventures again and meet new people. One thing that has hit me most during all this is the attitude towards olde...

Week six of lockdown and I am struggling to remember which day of the week it is. I am in such a little bubble hiding away from the threat of the Corona virus. One of the things I hate most is the feeling of a sense of loss of control on my life. I know I have been so lucky to find a great place to park my motorhome and stay put until all this is over. But it also makes me feel incredibly guilty because I feel that I should be getting involved and doing something to help others that are less fortunate than me. But my fear of getting Corona outweighs that and I am hiding away. When this all started I was overwhelmed with how anxious I felt about it all. I felt powerless and rudderless. I had just got used to life on the road. I was going to feature in two national magazines telling my story of life on the road in my motorhome and about challenging ageism and stereotypes of what a 60 year old retired pensioner looks like and what she would be doing in retirement. My blogs were bein...

March 23rd the government put the country into Lock down to try and stop the spread of Coronavirus. Well here we are on Good Friday, day 19, we are all still very firmly in isolation to make sure that we protect ourselves and others. We wait with baited breath to see just how many idiots flout the rules and still go out during the East Weekend sunshine and risk their lives and the lives of others. I find it incredible that despite all the testimonies of people who have lost loved ones and witnessed first hand what it is like, people chose to ignore the advice and travel long distances and party together or go out to sunbath. My fear is that the government will have no option but to bring in even stricter rules to keep up safe. I have to say I am definitely finding it an emotional roller coaster. I am usually pretty self sufficient and love to challenge myself in situations that take me out of my comfort zone. But this really is unchartered territory. I always supposed if I had the...

As many of you will know I have been writing my blogs for over six months now. But since the last blog I have just felt unable to put my thoughts down. I have been really broken by my ex partner who was so cruel to me and it has taken me some time to realise that he was not a nice person if he could behave with me the way he did. And I will continue to be kind to people and not let my heartbreak make me bitter. Also My niece ,Laura, who was only 32 and the most gorgeous lady, with a fab sense of humour and warm hugs, died of cancer, leaving her husband and a sixteen month old son, along with the rest of my large family totally heartbroken. At the same time the Corona virus was beginning to take a hold across Europe. That meant that none of us could attend her funeral to say our goodbyes and to support her immediate family and that was very hard to deal with it made me feel so angry and powerless. She had a very small funeral but next year she is going to get the best sendoff ever...

I decided that I was going to head south to England because all the weather predictions were for heavy snow and high winds and I did not fancy being stranded with the motorhome in the snow because I needed to be at Manchester airport for the 11th to go to my nieces wedding in Thailand.  I looked at the map and decided to break the route up from Loch Lomond to Lancaster by stopping off firstly at Moffat, a little spa town near the river Annan. I knew nothing about it but it just caught my eye when I was perusing the map. As I approached the town of Moffat the hills in the distance looked enticing and I was looking forward to walking and exploring them. Thankfully when I got to the campsite there were hardly any other campers, which is just how I am liking it at the moment if I am honest. It is giving me time to regroup and to focus on me for a while and determine what I want out of this motorhome trip and my life in general. Having felt I was losing my identity during the wors...