Roads to Joy

We’ve not had Harry Hymer out on the road for over a year now. But yesterday we booked him in for his MOT, and by mid-December he should be road-worthy again. That will be timely, since he may be pressed into accommodation service during the big move.

In any event, there’s a lot of tidying, consolidating, cleaning and sorting out to do before we get our beloved, ancient motorhome off down the track and into the garage. That’s also conveying an inexorable sense of anticipation, of course, as we think that soon we’ll actually be able to wave at other Hymers for real. In our little Fiat Panda 4×4, we send out friendly road waves to fellow-travellers only metaphorically.

Hymermobiles usually carry a cheerful bunch, though the happiest passengers, we’ve found, are those in Classic vans, the ones that are at least 25 years old. Newer models seem to carry decidedly more grumpy, dissatisfied folks. Not for them, for example, the delightful mechanical hand waver that some folks toggle when they see an oncoming classic van.

It’s all very silly, but the sense of shared camaraderie, of travelling along and experiencing the joys, and the vicissitudes, of keeping an ancient motorhome on the road, are all part of the life. And Harry, finally, is on deck to return to the fray.

And oh joy — I shall have to dust down the languishing travel blog too, the eponymous HarryCarrieAndMe.wordpress.com to detail the next adventure. No apologies for the pun, of course; sometimes it does feel like a desperate mission to reach our destination, as something new goes wrong.

But when things are moving along, when we’re out there waving, it’s like a never-ending sequence of joyful interludes, as folks in the Classic Hymers facebook group consistently report.

To think, a month of preparation, and then even just for a truncated trip, recognising fuel prices and green considerations, we’ll be among them.

The anticipation is as much a part of the joy as the actual experience, I guess.