I've been home from my 36-night Scottish holiday for a week now. And I planned to be off on yet another caravan holiday in only a few days' time. I had to rearrange it. There simply wasn't enough space between the holidays to recover from the fatigues of the last, to get in gear for the next, and cram in a spate of catch-up socialising.
So I've shortened the next jaunt and given myself another week at home to get various things done in house and garden - you should see the state of my lawns! - and generally give myself a chance to relax a bit and finish off the processing of the Scottish photos. I remain more than a week behind on those, having taken some 5,500 shots during my time away. But then it was an important holiday in an important year - my 70th - and I don't regret taking so many pictures, despite the heavy processing workload on the laptop. The best of the results can be seen on my Flickr site (click on one or other of the Flickr links at the upper right of this web page), and more will be added over the next week.
The photography crowded out almost all chance of blogging, of course. But I have several posts lined up and they may get published soon.
Gosh, it was a holiday packed with travel and incident! It did, thankfully, all go to plan as to getting to places on the right days, and in nice weather. Each meetup with friends went perfectly and enjoyably. The only mishaps were the midnight loss of 340 photos on Orkney, when I nodded off during a camera-to-laptop transfer; and the mysterious loss of GPS and DAB radio on my car when in the far north of Scotland, problems which didn't affect driving the car one bit but have persisted and are inconvenient. I suspect a loose aerial connection somewhere behind the dashboard, but this is beyond self-investigation, and I'll have to see what the dealer can do. It can wait.
One heartening thing that cheered me on my recent holiday was that my injured right knee began to heal up really well. It's not yet back to normal, but I can tackle walking on level ground, even quite rough ground, without issues. Steep slopes and steps still need care, and I try to avoid them, but if I can't then at least they are manageable as never before. In short, I have got most of my mobility back, and that means the physical side of caravanning presents no problems for the future.
In general, the holiday proved to me that entering my seventies has in no way affected my energy and zest for caravan holidays in distant parts. Yes, a long journey is more tiring than it was ten years ago; I need more rest than I once did. But I keep meeting many people older than me who are doing fine, and are travelling more ambitiously than I do. I was getting used to the notion that giving up caravanning was inevitable in the next few years, probably when my sixteen-year old unit needed another major rebuild. I won't give it up now. I intend to carry on into my early eighties at least. And of course save a small fortune in hotel and apartment costs!
I dare say I'll have to invest in a replacement caravan in five or six years' time - I have in mind a small, nice-condition, second-hand one for around £10,000. I can feasibly get the cash together for that over the next few years. The rest of my savings can go towards further uprating my home in various ways.
Those then are now my two main priorities: caravan and home.
What, then, about saving up for a new car? Until very recently that was the number one saving priority. But no longer. Conditions have changed. Rising prices mean that the kind of new car I'd want has slipped beyond my reach, at least if I want to finance it with my own savings, and without a loan of some kind. Alas, it's simply no longer possible for me to save up enough to pay on the nail for a new Volvo, or for a good used one. Fiona's eventual replacement will have to be bought mainly with the help of my bank. I am sure they will oblige, although of course at some cost in interest.
But that's some way off. Until then, I'm confident that Fiona can continue to handle the heavy haulage, just as she has done for twelve years past, even though this will entail an ever-increasing risk of expensive fixes as parts wear out or fail - plus, of course, the ever-more-expensive diesel fuel. Still, whatever I spend on Fiona will, on the whole, be less than the total capital and running costs of a new or nearly-new car. It may anyway be good policy to see how the changeover to electric cars progresses, and not plunge into that, nor any alternative technology, too soon.
I dare say that some readers must be asking, how can you save anything at all in these times? Aren't you badly affected by the hikes in domestic energy costs and (especially) mortgage interest rates? Well, yes and no. I have, like everyone else, faced much higher gas and electricity bills; but that only translates into reduced savings, and living alone means that I can finely control my domestic energy consumption. As for servicing debts, I have no mortgage - indeed, no loans at all - so I'm not squeezed by inflated interest and increased repayments. I have more wriggle-room than most. I'm not smug about it. I am very sorry for those who haven't the same leeway, and are losing sleep wondering how they will cope.
It's troubling that the current government has stopped doing the right things. Its leadership is wayward, seems financially inept, and is winging it on a kind of gamble with growth. What, unfunded tax cuts at the expense of vital public services? I don't think ordinary people were clamouring for that. A little more money to play with is a bad exchange for expensive necessities and a boatload of ongoing financial worries. Basically the government is running up a dangerously large overdraft on our behalf, just to make us all feel good for a while, with no clear way of ever repaying it. It's an unconvincing strategy, and not a vote-winner.
I can see a General Election coming, with profound consequences.
