The bits in-between - no small freedoms....

Gill is an avid reader of motorhome travel blogs. Other people's 'wanderlust' does help us rationalise our our own predilections for escape; it is reassuring to realise you are not alone in having a minor obsession about leaving home. Indeed, it becomes clear that others are suffering from an even more virulent dose of the travel bug. Fred Smith was speculating about his next trip in a post to Motorhome Adventures Facebook site while driving up the M20 little more than an hour after arriving back in Dover. At least we manage to struggle as far north as the delights of Watford Gap before the the thought crosses our mind, "Why exactly did we come back?" The blog Gill is  reading at the moment belongs to Jengog. Jennifer charts her in-between time assiduously,  "It is Day 5 of 120 days . 5 Days have passed since we returned home and there are 115 left before we head off on holiday again." I began to wonder, why is it so many of us arrive home from a trip only to start immediately dreaming of the next one? I concluded that it is an addiction to a particular kind of personal freedom.

It was yesterday's pile of mail that led me to this conclusion. Amongst the usual mix of bills and junk mail was an annual statement from Halifax giving the run-down on our expenditure over the past 12 months on our Clarity credit card . We use this card abroad for all purchases and in ATMs as it is by far the cheapest way of avoiding currency charges. The total charges on our spend of £7,873 was £48 for the whole year.  I think that is impressive. What using the card also gave us was a total cost for our 5 months on the road - from the £7,873, at least £350 needs to be subtracted to cover the cost of wine shopping sprees for consumption in the UK and the replacement main battery in the van when we broke-down in Spain. So, by my reckoning 163 days travel cost us around £7,500.

 

This figure, which on the face of it seems substantial, pales into mere petty cash as soon as you open the Viking Ocean Cruise brochure which popped through the door at the same time as the Halifax statement. Viking advertises a 15 day Ancient Empires and Holy Lands cruise around the Eastern Med costing from £3,990 per person, So, 15 days bobbing about in the Med,  being herded every so often around famous sites like a school party - the cost for a couple, without any extras to cover eating out while ashore - £7, 980. Cost of motorhoming for five months, going where you like, when you like, dressed how you like, cooking what you enjoy using fresh local ingredients, discovering local wines that never get anywhere near a Tesco shelf - £500 less.  Expressed as a daily rate the Mediterranean cruise is more than eleven times more expensive than our winter jaunt by motorhome.

It's not just about money, it's really more to do with personal preferences and, for want of a better expression, 'life style choices'.  Even if we had been able to carry on in our well paid jobs into our sixties and had the kind of disposable income to fund a two week cruise to some exotic spot, I don't think we would ever have opted to do it. The brochure is full of phrases about 'relaxing on board in the ship's luxurious spa' or enjoying 'high class entertainment'. For starters, I relax by doing different stuff, not by doing less. As for entertainment, well I don't really enjoy being entertained either, not at least as an end in itself, if I read a book, watch TV or a film, surf the net, walk down a street, if I can't actually learn something I soon get bored and do something else. I think I get bored very easily; being stuck on cruise ship with a load of random strangers would some kind of personal hell for me.

Then there is the question of craving luxury. I am not a big fan of that either. Just by way of illustration - back to the question of what to do in the 'bit in-between'. Well one of the things we are doing is getting the van fixed in preparation for next year's journey. It's not cheap - MOT and service (£299), Domestic Service (£177), that was last week. This week Maisy is on her holidays at CamperUk, the main LMC dealship in Lincoln. Finally the bent rear end resulting from 'Volvo-gate' will get repaired and a list of other irritating problems fixed at the same time. Even taking into account the main repair will be paid through our insurance, the bill is still likely to be over £1000. What our visit to the dealership did enable us to do was have a wander around some high end Cathargos in the showroom, one of which was on offer, reduced by £24,000 to a bargain price of £149,000. The price reduction was as much as we paid for Maisy outright!

Maisy - abandoned at the repairers....

A bargain, at a mere £149.000

swanky interior

OK. granted, not having to clamber over each other if you want a wee in the small hours would be good...

I think, even if I was rich, I would find the Cathargo embarrassingly luxurious. Aside from that, because Maisy is basically a builders truck with a bed and bog in the back and ideas above her station, then I don't worry about heading down an un-metalled track towards an empty beach, or squeezing along a narrow lane with twigs scratching the side panel. But in 150 grands worth of Cathargo? No way. Having thought about this, I think what I love about the way we motorhome is that it makes ordinary days more interesting, but more than that, occasionally you come across some place that prompts an overwhelming sense of freedom, a moment of pure joy.

One of the things I do in the bit in-between is re-read some of our blog. It's nice to have a record of our interesting ordinary days. Scattered amongst this journal of the mundane are fragmentary moments of freedom, unplanned, unexpected and magical:

So, the top ten moments from the last year.....

1. A glorious dawn in October high above the vineyards of Lugny.

2. Marseilles

3. The bar of Valencia's Mercat Central

4. Puntas de Calnegre

5. Dawn Mamolla

6. Romerio de Bolnuevo

7. Cadiz

8. Isla Christina

9. The mountain road to Zafra

10. Ampudia

So what do I conclude from my in-between moments of reflection? Well it re-inforces something I was thinking about last year while doing the research for my MA. It struck me that there is a fundamental difference between the pursuit of pleasure and the urge for freedom. Whereas the former is relative, the latter is absolute. What I mean in practical terms is that it is possible to enjoy small pleasures - a good cup of coffee in a cafe with a great view, an unexpectedly lovely bottle of wine, a romantic moment shared. Freedom is different, it is not possible to be partly free. So those fleeting moments when you have a sense of uplifting liberty, though infrequent, are profound. I think this is what my alter ego was getting at when he wrote 'there are no small freedoms' -

Birds (soar)  fields  (open)

skies. (clear)  unlike pleasure,

there are no small freedoms.