Oh Patrice! Well done you!  Your hubby would be so-o-o-o-o-o-o-o proud! Bet he's looking down on ya with the biggest grin imagineable on his moosh!
My own farthest 'towing experience' I'm afraid remains at the 1/4 mile on the storage facility but........ when we went to collect Ellie, (yesssss....I call miine Ellie ), I was once again in the driver's seat while we did the lights check and we were then driving it around to the washing area, (close to the security gates, so just as far as I'd managed to get to tow it before!), before bringing her home to load up and go to Cornwall.
So, imagine my surprise, when my hubby simply climbs in the passenger seat and says, 'on ya go then, let's get this old girl cleaned up'! My gob was well and truly smacked!
Mind you........our whole tin tent moving experience has now changed...totally! Got a Powrtouch motor mover fitted that same morning and it was yours truly who now does allllllll the moving on her own using only.....me thumbs!!!!Fan blooming tastic!
All hubby had to do was lock the rollers on to the wheels, (coz I can't bend for that), and release the handbrake which is a bit stiff for me and me arthritis, but otherwise, I was in charge! Totally impressed hubby with me newly acquired skills, (that very morning after having it fitted), and he was amazed at my skill 'driving' Ellie right out of her storage pitch and straightening her up before moving her right on to the towball! Well...just above it so he just had to lock her on!
Same when we got to the site, he just said to me, 'well go and get your remote then'. I then moved her this way and that until we were certain we'd got her exactly where we wanted to be and as close to the far side of our pitch as would still allow us access to the do the loo and water thingies.
The next day, I was once again at me remote making Ellie dance up on to some chogs that hubby had needed to make from a length of decking with a saw all bought in B&Q coz our pitch was quite steep at the front and there wasn't a single spare block anywhere abouts as a couple of the earlier arrivals had swiped the lot the site leave jotted about for that very purpose. It was more than our own plastic chogs could manage, so yours truly got to have another play. Lovely it was!
Morning of leaving, I then had to manouvre Ellie through what was quite a tight gap as the EHU was directly behind her and the bloke on the pitch nextdoor had parked his Land Rover Discovery as close to our pitch as was humanely possible, (he had a very large tent, three bikes and a three boats on a trailer to contend with and he wasn't on the largest of pitches in the first place!).
However......hubby just wound up the legs, locked the rollers on, released the handbrake and I was off doing my thang. Think it's fair to say that he was more than just impressed with my 'driving' skills and all just done with me two thumbs
You should have seen the face on the bloke nextdoor though when he unzipped his tent just as we hitching up on the road. It was a picture coz he was obviously trying to work out how on earth we'd managed to get Ellie out of this tight spot....on our own, (he could see I'm a decrepit anyhoo), and more to the point, how we hadn't damaged his brand new Discovery! Pricelss his face was!
Oh Patrice....you've GOTTA have one of these gismos fitted! Defo!
Take a squiz at me thread entitled 'Chindley we lub ya' coz if it wasn't for him we would never have known that recon ones were available and with poor hubby waiting for a hernia repair, (got one in his abdomen where he had stomach surgery years ago), and me with my bits and pieces failing me more and more, not to mention just having had a booby biopsy the week before we were due to go away and told to do nothing 'strenuous' for two weeks after it.....our hols were looking doubtful for even getting the tin tent hitched, let alone pitched! So, the motor mover was an absolute Godsend for us. Saved my worrying and hubby's back and belly
So now Patrice....all I've gotta let him do is let me do a decent bit of towing, perhaps on a motorway or dual carriageway, (coz let's face it - nobody actually enjoys towing around those narrow country lanes in Cornwall do they?Although I am quietly confident that I could do that too, but straight towing would help to let hubby start trusting me to have go at them), and I could be joining ya in the LTC...Ladies Towing Club
One day........definitely one DAY!
Now, I've been nosey and had a peep at those new Bailey's on their website and they do look rather tasty don't they? How lucky you are to have such a great family treating ya to a new one!
But because I am so very nosey, which model are you getting? Will it be the 2, 4 or even 6 berth model? Nice to see they all come complete with built in alarms too. Excellent. Looks like plenty of storage space too, which is always a great thing. I miss some of the kitchen area storage that we used to have with our Esprit coz having chosen to do without the oven when we got that brand new, I had so-o-o-o-o much more cupboard space. Now all I've got to store foodstuff of any kind in, in Ellie is a very narrow cupboard between the oven and the fridge and the very top bit of that houses the cutlery drawer...which you have to open the door to access! Think that would be my only miff about Ellie. Otherwise she's lovely. Mind you, I'm constantly hearing hubby toot tooting when he has to move one thing, to reach another.....what a hardship for the poor bloke eh?I just keep reminding him that we are not in our Esprit anymore and this inconvenience is s small price to pay for an otherwise lovely and luxurious van! Just have to keep reinforcing the lack of storage space to him and how if I can manage, so can he, to keep him quietAlso use the rear overhead locker on the side as a bread and cereal store which works ok except when we wanted the cereal out before our son and his fiance had surfaced in the mornings We gave up the rear 'bedroom' to them for our second week when they were with us so they had some privacy, (a double dinette layout but we leave the rear bed permanently made up and close the door across so it saves us making it up everynight and the fixed bed models were all two inches too wide to be able to fit up our shared drive when we're loading up and still be able to open the door properly). And we're always up before them anyhoo so it saved disturbing them that way.
Can't wait till you get your new tin tent and post a piccy of it on your gallery for us all to see. You're gonna have such lovely times in her and while I do totally understand how very much you still do, (and probably always will), miss your dear hubby, look upon this as the start of a new chapter in your life and it may infact be a liccle less painful than a constant reminder of the many, many hundreds of fond memories you have with your present van and help you in the grieving process.
Bet your hubby's giving this new one the thumbs up and bet that he was on your shoulder guiding you and the tin tent along when you did your towing to watch over ya.
Happy trails now Patrice eh? Well done!
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Hippychick
Life
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Topic: help and advice please
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