This morning, with not a crazed Morris Man in sight, we woke feeling rather groggy and ropey... The Boy more than me, I fear...(no dinner + beer + whisky = poorly campers)... but to the sound of church bells and skylarks and to sunshine streaming in through the windows... we opened the door, pulled back the curtains and lay there staring out at the most fabulous view...
The only thing that threatened to spoil it was the sure fact that today we had to go home... it had been our last night in the van and was the last day of our lovely adventure through the west country... eager to get on the road we drove north, across the rest of Dartmoor, beautiful in the early morning light... where Frida showed her mettle as she negotiated those craggy mountainous roads... sometimes in second gear up a 20% gradient hill...The Boy has become an out-and-out expert at campervan hill starts in a van that doesn't have first gear... He’s become pretty hardcore after a week of it..
We drove straight through to Stonehenge where we had decided to stop for breakfast and, ditching the usual tourist route, we parked up just across the way and cooked ourselves a slap up breakfast, which we ate staring across at The Henge under clear blue skies...and lingered long, knowing that not a lot lay ahead of us now apart from the M25 and unpacking the van later that evening...
There was no two ways about it; it was time to go home... it had been, however, the most fabulous fun-and-frolics filled road trip... and best of all I found out that Frida was everything she had ever promised to be... Fears that a proper road trip might break her or that I might find out that at the ripe old age of 22 she was just too far over the hill to manage it were entirely unfounded...
That brilliant vehicle drove over 1500 miles in just under a week and she didn’t even blink... in fact, I think I’m right in saying that she rather enjoyed it.
God, Frida, how I love you..!
