Hi Everyone! 
My name is Lydia, I live in beautiful South Norfolk with my fiance Keith, and we are freelance musicians/teachers. Having spent the majority of my childhood holidays under canvas here in Blighty and France, I suppose I could be classed as a well seasoned camper. We’ve been motorhoming for the last 2 years, we’ve covered about 15,000 miles in 2 vans, Daisy and Bluebelle (retrospectively)
This blog will document not only our travels in Bluebelle (a 2001 plate Autosleeper Ravenna) but also cover our fantastic voyages in Daisy (an F reg Talbot Highwayman) . We’ve traveled to the most north westerly point in the UK (the Butt of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides), as far South as the Med, as far west as the Welsh coast and as far East as Sheringham and Cromer (granted we are nearly there already..!)
Things you will learn about Keith and I if you can bear my waffling…
1) we are pretty spontaneous (you will learn more abut this in a moment)
2) we have lots of holidays (we are both self employed, and our work is mainly based around the school terms – lucky for us..)
3) I am not lost for words very often… in fact I am a bit of a rambler… sorry about that
4) We name everything… and I mean EVERYTHING!
5) I’m rather keen on taking photos and I go wild for Cath Kidston
6)We love motorhoming, and we think the British Isle is flipping gorgeous. But we have a soft spot for Europe too, and don’t mind partaking in a few glasses of French plonk. Or Italian, if we must!
If you see us on our travels, give us a wave! Or even better… mines a pint!
Background
When I moved away from home to go to Uni, my Dad and his partner Jenny decided to buy a 20 odd year old Hymer (Hilda) to replace the 20 odd ye
ar old gap left in the house by meeeee! They had loads of great adventures in ‘Hilda’ over the following six years or so that they owned her, but it wasn’t until they were selling her that my life took an unexpected turn…
The weekend that Dad and Jenny were selling Hilda, Keith and I happened to be visiting. Keith hadn’t seen Hilda before, so naturally, my Dad was very happy to spend some time showing her off in all her glory. I know Dad and Jenny were really quite
gutted to be parting ways with good ol’ Hilda- but they were experiencing more and more electrical problems, so decided the time was right to upgrade. On the way home from our visit, Keith couldn’t stop talking about Hilda and how great she was and wouldn’t it be awesome to have one ourselves, etc.
Within the two and a half hours drive home, we had decided that a) we wanted one, and b) that we could afford one, so therefore we had sourced out all our local second hand dealers, and picked a couple we liked the look of (thanks iPhone!) As soon as we got back, we called the dealer and arranged a meeting for the next morning. The rest is history… we were so very excited to welcome ‘Daisy’ into our family, an F reg Talbot Highwayman (see right)
What I have failed to tell you is that we were due to go away for a two week camping holiday on the Friday of that week. We had booked this holiday with the intention of covering some serious miles in my little sporty convertible ‘Pug’ (Peugeot 206cc) and ‘Tilly’ the tent ( a limited edition Cath Kidston print, Eurohike 4 man SMALL tent!)
It was the Sunday beforehand that Keith met Hilda, the Monday that we test drove Daisy and paid a deposit, and begged Mike the Dealer (AKA Bill Bailey, as he was the spitting image of THE Bill Bailey) to get her ready for collection on the Friday morning. Tuesday we spent the day ringing round all the sites we had booked onto changing them to Motorhome pitches, Wednesday we had a day in Norwich buying bits and pieces for ‘Daisy’, Thursday we were like excited children all day and Friday we picked her up, taxed her, filled her with everything other than the kitchen sink, and hit the road, aiming for first stop- Eskdale, the Lake District. As my Dad lives 5 minutes off the A1, we decided it would be rude to not drop in to show off ‘Daisy’- so we stayed on his drive (AKA Chris’ Aire) for our first night of proper motorhoming. I will do a separate blog post about our very first adventure soon.
An excellent debut article! Looking forward to the next installment, guys 😉
O.M.G. ‘Hilda’ has a lot to answer for, lol! What a great idea for a blog
And just to add to this,,,,,5 years on,,,, ‘Hildas’ latest owner has contacted me, we have had a great chat, he is going to bring this wonderful 32 year old motorhome back to her former glory, completely thrilled and moved by the thought. Facebook has a great group called Classic Hymers, If you have an interest in these wonderful vehicles check it out, amazing!