Vanlife is such a thing. Why isn't there a really good, fun and more importantly upvote stimulating hashtag that encompasses all those other live in vehicles that are creative expressions of people's lives? Maybe there is, and I don't know about it, or maybe everyone's just happy with 'vanlife' and assumes it embraces any home on wheels? I've got a few home on wheels stories to share and I thought Steemians might like them, so here's the first one, involving love at first sight and a gorgeous old lorry that we still miss.
Anyway, many years ago now I was travelling overseas and ended up in Somerset, England, at a mate's sister's house. I'd met them travelling around Australia a long time ago, and had they'd invited me to see Zion Train at Glastonbury Townhall, so I'd trained it down from London and within ten minutes of being there, there Jamie appeared - and my heart goes thump thump. Weirdly think - 'first I'm going to shag him, then I'm going to marry him' - and it's odd because I was NEVER getting married, ever. Odder than that is we DO end up together that night - this is December 21st - and by Jan 3rd we'd decided I'd go home, pack up all my stuff in Australia and come live with him in country England and GET MARRIED, which we did within the year. I can't even remember who said it first, all I remember is that we were in a pub in Surrey by the fire drinking whiskey and the fields were all icey and sparkly with sunlight and I was in love for the first time in my life. The other odd thing is that he'd been parked up in his sister's driveway in this Bedford ex-library lorry and was meant to leave the day before because he'd outstayed his welcome after being there for months (not in a bad way, just time to move on). In attempting to leave, he'd done something he'd never done before - hook up the battery the wrong way around and blew the alternator. It was just a moment of inattention but if he hadn't had done that, he would have gone, and we never would have met.
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So, I did pack up everything and told everyone I was going to England to marry the love of my life, who lived in a truck, and had like 90 quid to his name. I think the only people who saw it as a reasonable thing was my parents, who just wanted me to be with someone I felt passionate about and had seen me through some sorrows and I guess trusted me to do the right thing. We lived in the truck for about a six months, in the forest and in his sister's driveway, and it was pretty lovely.
We ended up selling the truck to move into a house because we knew that living that way was going to be tough on a new relationship, and dammit we wanted it to work. And it did - we had a beautiful few years in Dorset in a beautiful hamlet near a chalk stream and we got married and things were great. But we always dreamt of moving back into a truck. Also, we weren't getting anywhere paying rent and working and we wanted land of our own, and as I'm Australian, moving back to Australia was an option.
So eventually, we walked past a green Bedford TK horse lorry we passed every single day and she was for SALE!!! More of this truck in a new post, if you're interested - I feel like she needs one of her own.
