June 19th 2016: Dreaming of a Van


I’m going to live in a van.  It’s paid for with an £11,000 no-income verification, no property as security, dog-poo loan.  £264 per month for five years.   I’ve bought it because I don’t have a job and I don’t have anywhere to live; the tenancy agreement on my rented house ends in three weeks.

            The bottom line is that by living in a campervan I get an insured home and four wheels in one.  Simples.  I can paint, do supply teaching in random places (hopefully nearer to a coast than Leicester), and maybe find somewhere, one day, to settle.  Settle in a light-filled house, with a garden, book-shelves and a lovely, funny and intelligent man.  I’d like to delete number four on that list because this isn’t Mills and Boon, but what the heck, my vibrator is not great at conversation.


I’m not a virgin when it comes to sleeping in a vehicle.  Once was with Georgie, my daughter, now eighteen, about eight years ago in the south of France.  The other time, or times, because it happened twice, no actual sleeping took place, just sex.  Once was on the driver’s seat and once across the back seat.  The first was with a GP and the second with a Professor of Psychology.  And both were in Hay-on -Wye at the Literary Festival.  Not in the same year, I do have a moral compass, somewhere in the back of my knicker drawer.  Talking of drawers, and also of cupboards and most my furniture -  it’s all up for sale.  This is because my sofa, two double beds and dining table are unlikely to fit in the van and because the cash from two hundred books, family heirlooms and maybe that compass in the knicker drawer might cover a couple of week’s petrol and campsite charges.

Is van-dwelling a mid-life crisis?  At 51 the ‘mid-life’ might be a tad optimistic but perhaps not: nana is 95 and might have a few years left in her and I’ve a pretty healthy quartet of parents.  They’re all in their seventies: a mum and new-dad in Lincolnshire, and a dad and new-mum in New Zealand.   Maybe I could drive my van to New Zealand but I suspect the ferry bits might be expensive.

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