As I was driving yesterday, I was wondering how I might make my next blog post funny. How to keep it interesting when things seemed to be going along just fine. I needn’t have worried 😄.

When I arrived at the campsite and started to unpack (after several conversations about where I could pitch and the moving of a highly speculatively positioned electric cable – not enough rules here it seems🤓), A big rusty screw fell from my roof.

As you can see from this elegant collage (ignore my chipped nails, I will deal with those later), I quickly found the source of the screw and the potential hazard of an ‘about to snap’ front metal roof bar.

Obviously, my immediate reaction (I have 8 days left to change this) was to well up with tears ready for a dramatic weep and assume the trip was a write off. I took a deep breath and then posted this photo on the wonderful Brazilian Bay Kamper Facebook page I have mentioned before. Within 5 minutes, I was reassured that this was not ‘game over’.

My roof boards slide around while driving and given that all my Swedish friends live up very steep hills 😳 , they had been bashing against the front a little too often and it is likely from the look of that screw that the wood might be a little rotten up there. Another few bashes and we might have been in trouble if that metal had snapped.

At this moment, the lovely Lena arrived! I suspect Lena was expecting a slightly more civilised evening but I am very grateful for her presence and assistance in my moment of chaos and panic !

Juggling three needy dogs and two pizzas (no mean feat) she suggested tying it to the solid bar at the back. Hey presto! A use for my super strong roof ties (which might have been mocked as excess packing several weeks ago 😜). Hopefully this will mean we can finish the trip, then I suspect I shall be off back to Brighton to get her fixed up for her next (much much less ambitious) trip.

What is most interesting is that the expected and imminent meltdown (mine) did not occur and despite a slightly restless sleep, I have awoken calmer and ready to face the next challenge (which hopefully won’t occur but if it does I can handle it).

This of course was the point of this trip. To build back my emotional resilience or to ‘woman up’ if you like. To push myself and to make sure that giving up isn’t an option (unless she properly breaks down – either me or the van in that case 🙃). It is, dare I say it, doing me good even if my belongings are getting a bit grubby and my diet has taken a turn for the basic (notable vegetable-heavy exceptions at my refuel stops chez Annelie, Olle and Daniel). I haven’t set the van alarm off in days, I am only doing 50% of roundabouts in third gear and although the wind keeps fear levels fairly high, I am having fun. The dogs also seem to be either extremely relaxed or terrified in equal measure. Currently, it’s the former and I’m not sure they are much different when we are at home – unless they are at the ‘Sturman Safe House’, where everything is safe and calm at all times 😍 .

Yesterday morning, after a fabulous  ride in a golf cart for our morning dip; my friend  (weekend host and therapist) Olle promised that I would have a beautiful drive to Gothenberg and he was not wrong.

I have had to try and commit the beauty of the sea, dotted with rocky, tree-covered islands with sunshine glistening across the water to memory until next time. I also enjoyed a pretty mediterranean-blue bridge and an impressively tall bridge with fabulous orange cables, a very well-preserved old windmill in the distance, pretty-coloured houses and a giant wind turbine with a very small (obviously massive but we are talking relative sizes from a distance here) green door at the bottom which I presume is where one of the Mr Men live. Can you remember which one? Was it Mr Happy?

Here’s the other ride (when I wasn’t driving).

The second half of the drive (mine, not the one in the golf cart, I don’t think it is up to motorways) was more open landscape, snatches of coastline and lots of wind, plus a very long hill on the motorway which I was not expecting ( I got slower and slower and slower for fear that if I changed gear something bad would happen 😯 ). For the rest of the ride, I kept having to make a call between driving very slowly behind a windbreak (a lorry) or braving the wind to make up some time by overtaking.

My provisional title for last night’s blog (which is this morning’s in fact) was ‘Almost Gone with the Wind’. So intense is the wind effect (I presume because my companions weigh less than 12kg each) that my upper arms are getting exactly the workout my physio suggested, only not quite in the way she had anticipated! 😆

I lean on the massive steering wheel with my (Care Bear®️) forearms and use my biceps and triceps and dare I say it pectoral muscles (now I am running the risk of sounding daft, I think they are all in action here though) to hold the wheel steady as I turn against the gusts of wind. Thus far, wind has been highly correlated with beautifulness of view which is very frustrating as I just can’t get cross about it.

I’m going solo now for the next eight days back through a long stop on the Danish coast then into Germany and back to The Netherlands to find that ferry to take us home; no actual friend stopovers or failed attempts to time meet-ups (we’ve had two of those, which are a simple lesson for me in planning a little further in advance and just accepting that sometimes, you can’t squeeze it all in, sending virtual hugs to all and I’ll be back to see some snow in the Winter I hope).

One of my last views before bed was this one. Right now, three motorhomes have left camp and I have an unobstructed view of the lake (and one of those excessively decorated caravan/awning combos which I presume belongs to someone here for the entire summer- they have pot plants) until later today and no excuse at all not to have a swim while the dogs quietly whine in the distance.