What’s this all about then?

There I was, driving in to work on an ordinary Thursday morning, stuck in a queue, when an email and calendar invitation pinged into my inbox. Quick look – company announcement at 9.00am. Long story short, I, along with a number of other people, we’re told our roles were no longer required and here I am….redundant.

To be honest, it wasn’t a complete surprise for many reasons I won’t go into here, but it was still a bit of a shock to hear the actual words. You’re no longer required. Yeah, yeah…it’s the role, not the person, but I was the person doing the role, so….?

Cut to 3 weeks later and here I am, sitting in front of my personal laptop (work one had to be given back) and planning my next move.

(In case anyone reading this is interested or can help….. I work in internal communications and events, My last role was heading up a team of 7 in a large retail company and looking for new opportunities.

I’m also a published features writer and looking for some freelance work….. ……CV available on email or my LinkedIn profile….)

So, what next?

It’s a bit scary this redundancy thing. No job…no salary…no way to pay the mortgage or bills. So, eventually I will find my next job and will again enjoy what I choose to do for a living.

In the meantime, this is the first chance I’ve had since I started working full-time when I was 19 years old to take some time for myself. So, this is my chance, and I’m not throwing away my shot (One of many Hamilton references I will be making along this journey – have you seen this musical yet? If not, why not?!).

I had a few options open to me;

1. Go abroad and visit a country I’ve never visited before
2. Do nothing and spend some time at home
3. Take a tour of the UK (or some of it) and invest in a caravan…

I’ve been to some amazing countries and plan to visit many more, but would prefer to do this in the company of my friends and family, plus I have a holiday booked at the end of September to Jordan already. So, number 1 was out – plus who has the money to spend travelling around the world for 6 weeks when they don’t have a job?!

I could stay at home and spend time with friends and family, but they all have their own lives and most of them have a job! That’s number 2 off the agenda.

Number three….now, there’s something in that one…

But why in a caravan and why the UK?

I want to highlight that young (or any age), single women don’t have to be afraid of going out and doing it ourselves, even with things usually done ‘by a man’ – like towing a caravan.

The amount of negativity I’ve received about;

1) buying a caravan ‘at my age’ – I’m 37, not 18 people! Also, is there an age deemed acceptable to buy one?

2) going camping alone (how will you keep clean, what will you do, how will you cope alone – umm, in the shower in my caravan or in the hundreds of wonderful washing facilities on campsites around the UK, and I will be discovering all the fab places to visit in the UK and, ummmm, the same way I cope alone at home?!)

has really surprised me.

I get that people who have never camped don’t always ‘get it’ and think you sit in a cold, unlit metal box with no entertainment, getting rained on….well, perhaps that last bit is sometimes true, but there is nothing wrong with wanting to discover the country I was born in. I’ve been to amazing countries all over the world and will continue to visit them, but isn’t the UK one of those amazing places people ‘must visit’? Well, I am.

Also, my whole family are kick-butt campers and have been for years. Most of my childhood memories include a caravan, and every year my Dad would drive me, my 2 sisters and my mum to the South of France or even Spain, towing the caravan behind us.

I used to make a handmade sign that my parents would hang up in the caravan window telling everyone else on the road where we were going! We always used to discuss where we thought other caravans were going when we were travelling and if they were going as far as us, so I decided to let other people thinking the same, exactly where we were going!

It’s time to break the apron-strings one more time. I moved out of my parents’ house over 12 years ago to my own place, now I need to move out of their caravan!

Plus, check out this list of female explorers from Wikipedia – I’m not saying I am anywhere near achieving anything as impressive as any of these women, but look what they did, in a more difficult time than I am living in – alone!

What do I hope to achieve?

• Stop worrying so much about what people think of me. I spend way too much time thinking I’m not good enough and listening to other people (all well-meaning) tell me what I should be doing with/in my life and really taking it to heart and getting upset and doubting myself and the decisions I make. Well, I’m doing this my way and doing it alone. If I can do this –I’m on my way to knowing in my heart I can do anything – without others people’s opinions mattering.
• Navigate my way around a few places in the UK I not been to, all alone, with a caravan attached to my car that I have to detach, set up, make safe, have fully functioning, fix any issues in, re attach, reverse, get around corners, keep upright, keep safe etc (not anxious at all…)
• Enjoy myself, learn things, keep myself safe and healthy (as well as my car and caravan) and do something many people wouldn’t even consider doing.
• Keep this blog up and running throughout my travels (therefore keep finding access to WiFi)

So hopefully somewhere along the line, the next subtitle will be ‘The Good bit’…readers stay tuned…the countdown to ‘Adventure start’ date (Monday 6^th August 2018 – about 2 weeks from today!) beings….