This month marks the 18yr anniversary of packing these two cuties into the back of a old VW campervan and setting off on a road trip from which we have yet to return! #throwbackthursday

I quit my €60k factory managers job as it was making me mentally and physically ill, we sold everything we owned, payed off our debts and bought the Flying Banana we still had €10k to last us a year.

We set off with an idea to maybe start a new life in Croatia and tour Europe.
Had a couple of mishaps with the Flying Banana, put wrong fuel in, dodgy starter motor, flat battery etc nothing too serious, until we were climbing a steep hill outside of Dijon on our way South.

Temperature gauge in the red steam coming out the back, hard shoulder, big problem this time! Needed a base to do repairs, called a mate in Amsterdam who knew a fella in Burgundy that lived in a Lock keepers cottage, Apparently the cottage was empty and I could use it no probs!

this is where we crawled to, Écluse No.7 the door was open we just let ourselves in. Spent days trying to fix the bus had to concede and take it too the garage, quite difficult when you don’t speak any French, a few days later got the bad news that the cylinder head was fucked!

€3000 to fixed it and it’d be about 3 wks, so we were stranded, think this was the best 3wks of my life, fishing the canal, cycling with the kids, scrumping apples, lighting fires at night listening to Burt Bacharach albums on an old grammerphone, wine, joints...

I’d found my Nirvana right here, and Im still here, same wife, now with 4 kids and an even older VW campervan, sometimes in life you’ve got to take some chances and see how things turn out, it’s been a hard slog, some dark times but I think I’ve given my family a better life

Tune in next week for tales of Hot air ballons, angry Romanians, hospitals, syringes and Juliette Binoche’s moped!