Wednesday 8th August – Today is the day.

Woke up at 7am and immediately started worrying about the day ahead! I don’t know why it’s such a big thing – I’m only going on holiday! I can only assume my self-confidence has taken a hit being made redundant and with Millie going to sleep forever on Monday morning, my emotions are all over the place.

Dad arrived at 9am to help talk me through taking the porch awning down and setting the van and my car up ready to move off. I think he quite enjoyed watching me do all the work after years of doing for me and my family (!), but I needed to know I could do it on my own.

I emptied the toilet. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but I’m not going to go into too much detail about it for everyone’s sake! Suffice to say, I will be using the facilities on the campsite a lot to save my self too much of this job.

I followed the list I’d written with step-by-step instructions on what to do to prepare to leave a campsite, added a few notes and soon I was ready to go. Cue an emotional outburst from me, I hugged my Dad goodbye and set off alone. Queen of the road.

For the next few days I am staying at the Wolds View Touring Park in Caistor, Lincolnshire. I received a call from Jane, one of the owners this morning to ask what time I was arriving as I had made them aware it was my first camping trip alone and they were keen to be around to help me if needed – how lovely!

I arrived about 3 hours after leaving Brackley and the journey was totally drama free. All main roads, until close to the campsite – what a relief.

True to their word, I was welcomed on arrival and helped on to my pitch. I managed to use the motor mover and got my van on to the pitch in the right place! Only slightly scary part is that the pitch isn’t level and the back legs will need to balance on an old railway sleeper. I managed this and again, the people on the site was really helpful.

I then followed my list (yay for lists!) and set myself up. I did call Dad a couple of times to check about how to turn on the hot water (my list needed finessing) and how to improve reception on my TV aerial, but otherwise it felt straight forward.

The site is SPOTLESS which make me very happy. It relatively new and very well looked after. It has very clean toilets and showers, along with washing facilities, a washing machine and a lending library. There is also a coffee shop on site that’s open at the weekends (I won’t get to use this sadly) and a reception with small ‘essentials’ shop. There is also a selection of leaflets about local attractions that I used to plan my trips for the next couple of days.

I decided to take it easy this evening with a glass of wine, dinner and a planning session as I’ve been non-stop for the last few weeks and catch up on sleep/blogging. It’s actually raining as I type, which means it’s lovely and cool outside, and there is still blue sky – weird! Off to use the facilities and have a shower, then back to the van to set up for the night. This all seems to be going very well so far!