Week 1

By the time I started writing this blog in Week 3, my daily thoughts and feelings of the first two weeks were a faint memory. So instead of trawling the chasms of my memory, I decided to give my head a break, and record briefly what went on.

Sunday 1st August 2010: Yesterday, after arriving back from the wonderful wedding we went to, we cleaned the flat and left it empty for someone to rent. It was a traumatic experience for me. It was my first home, my London haven, and now after 8 years, I was going on an adventure with my boyfriend, ‘The Pilot’. We drove to his house to put final things in the loft and be ready to drive off late Sunday evening.

During the day, we moved into the Snail and continued to prepare for our journey. There were lots of things that couldn’t be done in England. We are driving to Poland to get most of the ‘mechanical’ side of it done. So far we have a solar panel and an inverter that converts the solar energy to the voltage we need for the night. We also have some speakers, which I feel may be banging my head at various occasions! After an amazing BBQ, we left at 11pm to drive towards Dover.


Monday 2nd August 2010: At 02.00 we caught the ferry that would deliver us to Dover. I climbed up the steps from the parking area to upstairs wrapped in my favourite brown blanket and slept the whole of the sea journey. I must have been tired; because I didn’t go to the onboard shop! We got to France at 04.55, and Belgium at 05.50. We decided to have a little sleep at this point and breakfast to prepare us for the 20 hour journey we had in front of us. We set off again at 08.52 after visiting the restrooms. We had to pay €1 to use them and the lady attendant was filling some balloons with helium at the same time. Talk about multi-tasking!

We arrived in Holland at 10.21. To keep us sane, we (and you know I mean me) invented a game to pass the time. To avoid arguments (which with us is quite a difficult task I assure you), we decided upon rules and wrote them down. The game is called ‘Camper or Not’. The aim of the game is to be the first one to spot a campervan driving the same way as you or in the opposite direction. It must be either a motor home (MH) or a campervan (CV), not a caravan. If you spot one, you shout out the number spotted for that day, eg 1...2. The person with the most points at the end of the day wins...simple!

Rules:
1. All MH or CV must be on the road. They must not be in parked areas, although they can be stopped on the hard shoulder on the same road.
2. Points are deducted from your final score if you call a false vehicle.
3. No points for calling vehicle at the same time as your opponent. Although the vehicle must be tallied on the daily record.
4. All vehicles must be spotted with own eyesight. No enhancements may be used, eg binoculars (which I hasten to add we didn’t bring) or a camera zooming in.
5. If a player spots an exact match of ‘The Snail’, the game is over and that player wins the day automatically. (Quite a rare occasion, as out CV is 20 years old)
6. The start and end of the game must be agreed by all players.
7. At the beginning of the day, each player chooses a target number for the daily total. If you reach the total=5pts. Closest=2pts.
8. No points to be carried over to the next day.
9. Points are not tradable or transferable.
10. The game finishes at 18.00 or when daily total reaches 200, whichever is nearest.
By the end of this day we would have recorded 200 and had argued over the rules many, many times!

Score-Pilot 100: False vehicles called=13 Total 87. The Adventurer 92: False vehicles called 72. Total 72

We arrived in Germany 12.02 and Poland when I was asleep. We finally arrived to Poznan at 23.00. Wired, tired, but glad to be there safe and well.


Tuesday 3rd August 2010: Today I spent the day with the Pilot’s mum, as he has some things he needed to sort out. We went to her summer house and it gave me an opportunity to practise my Polish. We played ‘Escoba’, a Spanish Card Game, which we had taught them on out last visit. It's a game that crosses all language barriers, so I was glad for that.

Wednesday 4th August 2010: Started to sort out the service for the Snail and ordered new tyres. At the end of the day, I gave an English lesson with some of the Pilot’s friends and family. I based it on food and drink as its two of my favourite things!

Thursday 5th August 2010: I went to Lichen. See post on ‘Lichen’s Angels’

Friday 6th August 2010: Although it was threatening to rain, we decided to have a BBQ at the summer house. By this time, my Polish was developing, but it still isn’t the level I would hope it would be. I hope that during this trip, I will be able to learn much more so that I can sit in a group and understand and contribute. It's hard all of the time waiting for some translation. As we had driven to the Summerhouse in the Snail, we decided to sleep there.

Saturday 7th August 2010: Raspberry syrup is lovely. With rose wine its even sweeter. But apparently because of the high sugar content, it messes with the alcohol. By the time I woke up the next morning, I was feeling like there was concrete in my head. Today was mostly spent eating and sleeping to recover!

Sunday 8th August 2010: Today we were taken to Gniezno Cathedral by two of the Pilot’s friends. It was an amazing place, very historical and very dark.