A couple of months in…Mistakes made and lessons learnt

Well we cant believe how quickly time has flown. We are now getting familiar with the motorhome and we both love it !! Although we are sure there will be other things that crop up and stump us over the coming months.

These are a few things that we have learnt so far as newbies to the motorhome world.

1. Some tap connections are different in France. At the first opportunity, have a look in the supermarket at connectors and pick one up. We learnt the hard way and had to be careful with the water we had left in our tank to get us through until we moved on.
2. Pack lightly !!! Do you really need everything that you have left out to take? We had to stop and unload 10 pairs of shoes, clothes and bits and bobs that we had brought and on reflection will never use. I am sure we have still got too much in all honesty but hey ho its with us now.
3. Don’t put too much water down the loo as it fills up pretty quickly and needs emptying all the time! Just a little squirt to wipe the bowl suffices.
4. In your desperation not to fill the toilet up too quickly, don’t pee in the shower instead. This will make your grey water stink!!! You then have to confess to each other that you both had the same idea and you were both to blame for the stench! Luckily we had some Milton sterilising tablets and washed the tank out with these and all was fine again PHEW!
5. Make sure you have a little spirit level with you so that you can park up as straight as possible. Otherwise when you get into bed you feel like you will roll out again. Levelling ramps are on our can’t live without list.
6. Double check you have locked all the cupboards before you set off. We both check and usually there is always at least one door that hasn’t been shut properly so a 2nd pair of eyes is a must.
7. On arrival to your destination and before unloading the tables, chairs, BBQ and setting up the awning remember to fill up the water tank. This is something we have done more than once!!
8. Another cant live without item, if motor homing in France. Make sure you have a French 2 pin electric hook up adaptor. A couple of people told us we wouldn’t need this and we have already used it a few times.
9. Make sure you have a ‘home’ for the keys, phones etc.. We loose the keys in the motor home at least every other day so we are still working on making sure we both put the keys in the place we have agreed as we waste approx. 30 minutes trying to find them.
10. Make sure you have the sat nav on the correct settings. We prefer to use the A roads and turn off toll roads. This is all good and dandy until you are crossing to an island which has a toll bridge and the sat nav takes you on the route to avoid ! We ended up driving up some very narrow streets and upsetting most of the locals. It was definitely a Keep Calm and carry on moment.

I am sure as we go along we will keep making a few mistakes. I think the most important thing is that we are enjoying ourselves and when things go wrong we laugh rather than cry.