It’s cold, it’s dark and it’s just before 8am. The house looks like it has been burgled with all the Christmas decorations now removed and the fridge still has a glut of cheese and other “essential” Christmas nibbles waiting to be used up. Welcome to January, possibly the most depressing month on the calendar.
You may have noticed that we have been very quiet on YouTube, Twitter and for me personally on Facebook too. It has been a time of reflection and a cathartic process of being “less on line”. It wasn’t by choice to begin with though, since the end of November the family had been hit with a rather nasty viral infection, Chloe had time off school, Angela was also quite poorly and I was bed ridden for over 10 days. Genuinely we were all quite badly affected and it was no small head cold, or even dreaded man flu, this was quite awful by comparison.
Even now, some weeks after we have recovered we all suffer small symptoms of the horrendous bug, but we are all well on the way to recovery.
Being away from social media and filling our spare time with coughing and sneezing at each other has provoked a thought process and a change in our direction for the new year. It’s nothing major and for you, our much-loved followers you possibly won’t see any change at all. But 2020 is the year that we will finally make a new year’s resolution and stick to it.
To put this change in context, up to this point we have been caravanning on predominantly club sites. Either the Camping and Caravanning club or the Caravan and Motorhome Club. They offer everything we needed. Showers, toilets, standard and flat pitches and a play area. But I must admit that we are now finding these sites a bit samey. We don’t use the facilities like we once did, and Chloe certainly doesn’t use the playground like when she was younger. 2019 felt it was a bit like having a holiday in a Premier Inn. Sure, its great, its consistent but no matter where the site is, it is basically the same deal. And after a while, it got a bit samey.
So, for the next 12 months we are going to explore more independent sites and the CL/ CS network with a strong attempt to stay away from club sites. Of course, there is a caveat to this in that we are booked in already to a couple of club sites to meet friends and revisit areas we love.
This simple change for us has shown that finding some of these sites is not so simple and this will be a focus on a future video or blog post on how we are getting on. To date we have booked a couple of small sites not too far away from us and we are enthusiastically looking forward to spending time in the caravan once again.
So that’s the new year resolution taken care of. And as you can see it is not a major one, but one to help us expand our horizons. In more immediate news, we are not attending the upcoming Manchester, or NEC caravan & Motorhome shows. We have decided to step back, have a rest and focus on our own content. Instead of the shows, we have booked holidays and we will be covering these at the appropriate time. I have been scoping the upcoming content for our videos and have roughly outlined the next 3 months’ worth of content. There are some projects, “how to” videos and some tips for getting the most out of the caravan, so stay tuned for them. These as usual will be released every Friday at 6am UK time.
Right, it’s not 8am anymore, I can see the traffic building out the window, which means it’s another day and more importantly another day closer to us having some time away in the caravan. So, a super quick update from us, but one that will hopefully set the scene as to where we have been, where we are, and what we are doing.
Sorry to here you and the family have had flue. Just wonder Dan if it would be worth while to take professional advice on having flue jabs it’s been really bad the flue in our area touch wood I’ve had the flue jab and not been affected. Really enjoyed your videos we were new to Caravanning and we learned so much from you. It’s got quite a joke with our friends sentences starting with the Trudgians say.
Hi Dan and family
Sorry to hear you’ve all been under the weather
Feeling the same about the sites also trying a couple of cl sites this year
Went to a great one in Wales last year and going back this year
Before you give up club sites all together can I suggest Crossways just outside Dorchester personally think it’s a great secret site and not at all like a regimented club site
Hi Dan. Happy New Year to you all.
We have been plaqued by similar viruses as well as well as Rich being so unwell. He is hopefully going to get surgery at some point. We started with great intentions after New Year to get on with YouTube but unfortunately, we have been unwell yet again! So we know how you feel! …Can’t wait to see that sun again and then I’m sure all will be well.
Hopefully after this bout we will be up and running again. Once you stop it’s hard to get going again! I’ll look forward to this year’s videos. Sounds like a really good plan -Lin xx