It seems like an eternity since we announced the advent of a new addition to our lives – a motorhome. It’s a 4 berth Swift Voyager 594 2026 model,and we finally took delivery on Friday 13th – yeah. I know! Not the most auspicious date – particularly when we arrived on site to find that we had been allocated Pitch 13! Good job I’m not overly superstitious! But I’m getting ahead of myself.
To give you a bit of background, we have always thought that the ideal combo was a narrowboat for summer and a motorhome for winter. Winter boating is not for us – and we’ve done a fair bit of it over the years. One word – MUD! But also – cold, wet and two dogs are factors that we can’t ignore. Yes there are lovely crisp, sunny, dry days (although not this year it would seem!) when winter boating is a joy, but otherwise MUD. The towpaths are a quagmire, the balance beams are wet, the lock gates are slippery. Oh and stoppages – the CRT use the winter months for maintenance and repairs, so you can’t always get where you want to go. Whilst I salute all those who do it, we like our winters in the Marina of Dreams, where everything is just easier. And we have electricity “on tap”. We are always happy to go out for a few days – a long weekend, maybe a week – but love coming back to our cosy berth.
We began to talk more seriously about the possibility of a getting a motorhome last year – and with Paul reaching a grand old age in November, it began to look more and more do-able. What had been a mere pipe-dream, could actually become a reality. We would take a tax-free chunk of Paul’s pension and grab us a motorhome.
In much the same way as happened with Old Nick, we started looking at second hand. We knew pretty much what worked for us from having caravans in the past, so it didn’t take long to whittle away and find the perfect van for our needs. A key criteria was a fixed bed. The very last thing we want to do before bedtime is make up a bed! We just want to fall in. We plan to spend weeks on end in our motorhome, sometimes, so need it to be fairly spacious – although we are pretty adept at small- space living! In fact we love it.
We narrowed down to a brand and model and toddled off to see one in the flesh. That clinched it. Sadly the people that had visited to see it, just immediately before us, had put a deposit down and bought it! Annoying. We went home and ruminated and then decided we’d go new. And the rest is history.
And by history, I mean a long drawn out and frustrating process. Not anyone’s fault – just how it happened. We could not pay for it in its entirety until after Paul’s birthday, when his pensions would be available to plunder. We thought it would be a swift (see what I did there?) process – how wrong we were. We expected/hoped it would all happen before Christmas but no – it dragged on into January and finally we paid for it at the end of January, so we arranged to pick up on Jan 30th. It then transpired that the dealer – after chasing us for payment (rather embarrassing!) could not release it to us because there was a recall on the Ford Transit, on which the van is based. They had immediately booked it in for attention but when it came to it – the garage had not received instructions on what to do to fix the problem!!!!
Investigation and a few telephone calls showed that yes, there was indeed an issue – venting battery fumes away from the cab (so quite important!). Worse, that Ford did not have a solution for the issue and that they could not tell us when they might actually have a solution! Unbelievavble! And very disappointing.
We wrote a few stiffly worded emails. The problem was pretty widespread and there must have been dealers all over the country with the same issues. And the big Caravan and Motorhome show is in mid-February. How could responsible dealers sell at the show, knowing that the base vehicle had an unresolved and fairly serious issue. It clearly required urgent resolution!
Luckily, I think the penny dropped and a solution was quickly found and implemented, meaning that we could finally (finally!) pick her up.
As luck would have it, we had already booked a campsite for Valentine’s weekend at our beloved Droitwich Spa Marina. The weather was atrocious, Paul was on his second coat (after the first got soaked through) by the time we had packed the car (and I mean packed!) and trundled – later than planned because of the weather – off down the drive for the short (45 mins) drive to AEG Motorhomes in Stourbridge.
It bucketed down all the way there. Stuart – who had been our main point of contact throughout the protracted sales process – was standing by to give us the hand-over. As ex-caravanners, much of it was familiar and the technical bits were readily absorbed by my resident engineer. At least I fervently hoped they were!
It was still raining for our journey to Droitwich – me in the Skoda and Paul in Vera. Very brave of Paul in my opinion (cuz I am a wuss!) And not helped by me missing the turn for the M5 and having to re-route through a housing estate, in the pelting rain, with me stressing that it would not be wide enough for him! It was.
We arrived at Droitwich, got checked in and then proceeded to our allotted pitch. Luckily the rain had eased off, which was good as we had to transport the myriad items we had bought (i.e. everything you need to live and sleep away from home). The car has been packed to the roof for some weeks as we ordered it all to coincide with our original delivery date in January. I swear it heaved a sigh of relief when we unpacked it all.
We made a cuppa and sat back and marveled at the fact that this beauty was finally ours. The fruit of a lot of hard work, but we still feel lucky.
We have an insulation screen for the front windscreen, which goes on externally and is designed to stop condensation. Unfortunately, we left it a little late and it was dark before we thought about doing it and a first time of use in the dark seemed like a bad idea, so we left it. This was a decision we were to regret, the next morning.
We had a pleasant evening – Paul had set up the smart TV with all our subscriptions (Netflix, NOW etc) and we watched the Winter Olympics and one of our current series, before going to bed. We had a lovely cosy night – even waking up slightly too hot at one point! The boys slept in their baskets in the lounge.
We awoke to a crisp and sunny spring morning and condensation on the windscreen, even though we had ventilated well. Those boys exhale a lot of warm, damp air! Doh! Not a disaster but a bit of a nuisance.
We popped out to Lakeland (for foil) and then to Waitrose to buy cakes as we were expecting our very first visitors – cousins from Worcester. We returned to the van and the bright sunshine revealed that the floor was covered with a thin, dried film of good red Worcestershire mud, overlaid with a coat of Border Terrier sheddings. Someone once told us they did not shed. They lied. They shed like crazy!
We had a quick wash and brush up and tidy and then it was time to receive our guests, my first Cousin Alison and her husband Peter and their son Jonathan and his husband Christian. It had been a while and we had a right good natter over Waitrose finest Carrot Cake and Lemon Drizzle cake. Once again, we failed to photographically record the event, so when he got home, Jonathan tried AI to create a group shot. The results were pretty funny! The only one to actually look like himself is Sumps!
We’d had a great afternoon but they had to get back to their dog and so we parted company. As soon as they had gone, we got the silver screen out and whacked it on the screen. I’ll do a pic in another post, but ours is from a well-respected company called Taylor Made in Huddersfield. They are made to order and are a superb fit. And the result was nothing short of miraculous – much warmer and no condensation in the morning. Great result!
The only downside is that it was raining the next morning – it was either bung it in the shower or in the garage at the back. We decided on garage.
We made the slightly longer trip back the Brinklow in mostly pouring rain again, although it cleared up just as we neared the Marina. Paul put on all the security devices (including a Scorpion tracker) and we left her. Luckily we can see her from the boat, too
Our next trip in Vera will be down to Fareham to see Uncle D who is poorly and of course, to show her off to friends. After that we are planning a trip up to Scotland to see Paul’s Mum at some point, before we return for the start of our Spring Cruise. Now – if there’s a drought or some other disaster – we have options!
We do hope you’ll join us on our road travels, it’ll be great to have you with us.