It was Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas - But No Room at the Inn

M

mbenne

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38
Location
Midlands
Vehicle
T6 Ocean 150
It was Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas - But No Room at the Inn
I don’t mean that in the literal sense. It’s just that this year Christmas has been a little different. Usually we'd spend Xmas at home but as our our eldest son had recently married and invited us down to London. By accepting we would have to split our time, breakfast with our youngest son to see our Grandson open his Xmas presents, then off to see my wife’s Mother open her presents at the care home before driving to London.

My Son and Daughter in Law occupy a small flat and with her brother coming up from Brighton we knew there would be ‘No Room at The Inn’. Having had plenty of time to plan we agreed to travel down in the campervan. My only concern was finding a 'pitch' close by. That wasn't an issue as we found one opposite the flat, albeit the back end of the van was over double yellow lines. Someone had parked close behind so I guessed it would be safe until 27th December. I was concerned that as we would be drinking we wouldn't want to fall foul of the law if we were in possesion of the keys when sleeping, so I turned the drivers seat around. After the festivities we turned in at 2am the following morning. It was rather unusual undressing and putting our night clothes on, knowing that we were parked in the street. We slept on 2 duvalys for the first time - I roasted though my wife wasn't so warm, she mistakenly lay on top and struggled to pull the cover over lol. Despite having visions of someone hammering on the van door we slept until 10.30am. We dressed, pulled up the blinds and knocked on the door for breakfast - (we also had a back door key for the loo!). I can say it was a really ‘Silent Night’ apart from a passing car blaring reggae music at 5.30am – as far as our venture went I doubt anyone had noticed we were there! Our son told us that it was a friendly community and had offered to announce our visit on the community website but we declined – the less they knew the better!

It made me think of Christmas' past at my Grandparents' house when the whole family would congregate in a single room, ten or twelve adults and seven kids - Now it was only five adults and two of us were sleeping in in the street!

Happy New Year and new adventures in 2020.

Pics below- 2am boxing morning, me fast asleep and my wifes makeshift Xmas decorations!
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Nice place to park and great to be able to have the key for getting to the loo.
We had new year at Allendale for the burning of the tar barrels pagan festival and were in a medical center car park & the public loo was 5mins away so nice and handy. when we got back to the van after we'd seen in the new year it was covered in ice on the outside but warm and cosy inside, I was just like you in bed.IMG-20200101-WA0000.jpg
 
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