Before we bought our American RV, Georgie, we had the same romantic notions of life on the open road that I think most people have: it was all about the adventure. We dreamed about the places we’d go, the people we’d encounter, not to mention the enormous sense of freedom we’d experience in our new and carefree life. And the reality of a transient and vagabond life is that it’s all of those things, but it’s grounded – constantly – by the practical needs of water (in) and waste (out). And of everything mechanical staying tickety-boo after several thousand miles of rough roads and shitty driving conditions. And, apparently, that all depends on several sodding pumps.

Now Georgie was carefully selected for several reasons, one of which was the mere 16,000 miles on her clock. So even though she was eighteen years old, her engine was still in really good nick. We’d also been advised that older vehicles (with more mechanics and less electronics) would be easier to find replacement parts for, should something go wrong in an out of the way place. We had her tyres and lift pump replaced, and a full service and habitation check done at an RV specialists. And then we drove off, smugly thinking we’d ticked enough boxes. Ha, ha ha. If only we’d known how ripped off we’d just been.

We have four pumps in Georgie, and a few in the car as well. To date, the water pumps have already broken and been replaced in both vehicles, and the macerator pump (which gets rid of our waste) has also done the dirty on us (literally) and been replaced as well.

If you’ve done the maths you know that leaves two more pumps: the fuel pump, which had been checked in the service, and the lift pump, which had been replaced.

Pump 1

Our problems originally started in the Spring when Georgie suddenly started cutting out, and stopping dead, after taking on dodgy fuel in Albania. Didn’t matter if it was a hairpin bend, halfway across a road, or on an uphill part of the motorway, she’d just cut out. And that included the power steering, so it was tough to handle and worryingly scary.

We’d tried to solve the problem all the way home, but had no luck. We’d also had various things looked at, fixed, or renewed once we got home, but with no real sense that we’d found the cause.

Then, finally, we met NRD Autos (the Nerdy Guys) who had a workshop adjacent to where Georgie was being stored. And what total heroes they are, because they only bloody solved the problem!

And yes, you guessed it, it was one of the fecking pumps – the fuel one.

We’d been through seven countries and tried countless mechanics in all of them, but it was these guys that nailed it. They also went way beyond the extra mile to get it done for our deadline – absolute stars. It meant that, finally, we could set out on our next trip.

Journey 3: off to southern Portugal

Full of foolish optimism, we take the Eurotunnel from Folkestone into France, thinking our only problems now will be navigating the roadblocks caused by the Gilet Jaune protestors. They turn out to be surprisingly friendly towards us, having no beef with the Brits about their current issues. It makes rather a nice change not to be the country that the rest of Europe is annoyed with, what with the looming idiocy that is Brexit and all.

The protestors huddle, grimly determined in the sleeting rain, biting cold and gale-force winds. They’ve lit pallet fires, and put up decorated Christmas trees, signalling their intention to sit it out, whatever the season. Whilst I’m waiting to be waved through at a roundabout blockade, one of them steps forward with a plastic tray and offers me Haribo.

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We make good time going down through France, visit my friend near Auch, then head off to the Spanish border just past Biarritz. Now, do you remember that driver’s-side windscreen wiper that Steve cunningly and ingeniously fixed in Italy (read about that here)? Well, due to the constant deluge, the frigging thing decides it’s had enough and breaks again. We rush over the border when there’s a quick break in the weather, and then spend two days stuck in a huge truck stop while we fix it.

Did you notice that I said we? Well, it is absolutely a joint solution-finding exercise. It involves removing the front of my car and one of the headlights, getting out the Dremel, burning through two drill bits, and locating our only cotter pin, before fixing the fiddly, hard to reach and annoying little part, and putting it all back together again. So chuffed am I at being integral to this whole process, that I put the front of the car back on wrong and snap off my own aerial. Ah well, win some, lose some.

The aforementioned continual rain has shown us that we now have a major leak in the roof somewhere, and water is pouring in over Steve’s side of the bed. The air-conditioning unit cover that sticks up on the roof has probably developed a crack, but we decide it’ll be safer to wait until the wind and rain has died down a bit before going up to check. In the meantime, I staple-gun a bucket to the ceiling, and spread our plastic tablecloth over the bedding.

Pump 2

We start making our way across Spain, but then Georgie starts getting sluggish, and sort-of hiccuping, I suppose. And she becomes very cranky to get started. Steve immediately feels guilty, because he’s let her get too low on fuel. We swing into a petrol station and give Georgie the biggest drink she’s ever had (we are tight with money, and Georgie can hold 200 litres, so that doesn’t happen very often).

Then Steve tries to start her engine and she simply refuses to even cough. Nothing. Nada. Georgie is taking up most of the forecourt, so I sit in my car and pretend I’m nothing to do with them.

As luck would have it, a mechanic just happens to be fixing a large container truck on the other side of the road. He agrees to take a look at Georgie when he’s finished with the truck. He comes in, fiddles about with various bits, lets out a blast of trapped air and, lo, Georgie starts immediately. ‘There’s your problem,’ he says (well, actually, he mumbles something in Spanish that has the word ‘problema’ in it, looks fairly smug, and points, so it’s the same thing). He gives Steve a mechanic’s handshake, which is a sort of wrist-bump, and drives away. Steve edges Georgie out of the forecourt and halfway across the road…

…and she promptly breaks down again.

The next four days follow this pattern: sleep in whatever truck stop/petrol station/lay-by we’ve just broken down in, then get up, let air out of the engine, pray that she starts, then limp along (hoping there are no hills) until it all happens again. At each stop we search everywhere for a mechanic, or a garage, or someone who can diagnose the problem (we are thinking pinhole leak or lift pump). But it is the weekend, and just before Christmas, to boot, so people are largely unavailable.

By the time we reach Valladolid we are fairly certain it is the lift pump – you know, that NEW one that the guys who did the service are supposed to have fitted. We crawl into the Iveco garage, and lots of lovely men in blue boiler suits start clanging about underneath Georgie. I’m aware that it’s quite late in the day by the time we arrive, so I fully expect this to be where I spend the night.

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But Jorge, and Saul, and … the other, older one (whose name I forget but who really knew what he was doing), have the old pump out and a new one fitted in only a few hours. And when I say, the old pump, then I am being distinctly accurate. Empire RV, consider yourselves named and shamed, guys; fobbing us off with that ancient piece of tat and charging us for a new one. How very dare you.

The Iveco lads charge a reasonable amount for the work, and then they give us their calendar (no, ladies, not a naked one) and a bottle of wine. I like the way they do business, I must say. So now we can start sprinting down towards our destination in Portugal, and we’ll get there just in time for Christmas. Yay.

Travellers all

I started this post by telling you of the dreams I once had – about the endless possibilities offered from a life lived down unknown roads. And I’ve also given you a taste of the realities behind the dream – to the point where you’re probably thinking that I have a serious screw loose, am a complete idiot/masochist, or am possibly making it all up (they can’t be that stupid, can they? Answer: yes we are).

But I utterly love my life: leaky roofs, dodgy plumbing, snitty vehicles, et al. I love the sense of living entirely in the moment because I have literally no idea what tomorrow will bring. And I’m not alone in this. I am not alone in looking at my life and asking, ‘what else, what more?’ and then chucking it all in and going in search.

My friend Rebecca has moved to southern France, without knowing a soul there before she went. She’s swapped her sociable life in Bath for a mountain view, a seemingly endless bramble-hedge that needs clearing, and a home so self-contained and peaceful, she describes it as healing. She blogs as Craftyboo, and I look to her for great vegetarian recipes. It’s not a big thing, to move to France. But it’s a big thing to take on the unknown at an age when most of us value security and predictability, and that’s what she did.

And then there is lovely Alison, of Adventures in Wonderland. She and her husband have travelled for years and write an award-winning blog. They describe a life of discovering ‘how the world works, how life works, how the creation of experience works, how the mind works’ – of choosing their course at the same time as just letting it unfold. They understand the value of new experiences, and the gift of seeing things from another’s perspective. Alison’s conscious, thoughtful and joyous approach to travelling gives me inspiration.

And for doing what most of us would never even contemplate, I also have a major girl crush on Liz, the blogger behind The Adventures of Island Girl. At the age of forty she touched down on a Caribbean island and knew that that was where she was supposed to be. She left a home, a job, a marriage, and a life in Seattle, and just moved to her ‘rock’. Trusting that she’d find a way to make it work. Knowing that her heart was already there. Seriously, what a gal.

I’m often reminded of two films that were big in the 1980’s, both about women chucking their old lives in and finding new ones. Lives that opened them up and made them brighter, shinier, and far happier versions of themselves. There was Shirley Valentine, who went to a Greek Island on holiday and then refused to go home again. And there was Rita, the hairdresser, who went to university and let her roots grow out, in all ways possible. I bloody loved those films.

What I do is quite mild, relatively safe, and hardly fits the category of ‘adventurous’, especially when compared to others (I’m not Shirley, but I’m a little bit Rita). But it’s a long way from the life I left behind, and I would never, never have known how much it fits me if I hadn’t thrown common-sense and caution to the winds, and given it a go.

So I honestly don’t mind how many truck-stops I live in, how many poo-filled hoses I have to hold (though I do have some serious preferences there), how many leaks we have to plug, or engine bits we have to track down. As long as I keep seeing those new roads unfurl before me, and wake to days filled with the unpredictable, then I’m happy. Simples.

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