Campervans & diaries

Now that my father is retired (since a few weeks) it seems he really is going to enjoy his new freedom. My mother claims he has never been as busy as in the last weeks! One of the things is that my parents have bought a used camper van[1]. It was imported from Germany by a dealer close to the border who regularly does that kind of thing. Yesterday I went there together with my father, in the train, to collect it. I was curious to see it, and that way he would have some company in the train and in the van, just in case something went wrong (somehow I think he almost feared the train more).

One of the reason my parents decided for this type of car was that it would just fit inside a regular garage, which is typically just 2m high. But if you want more standing room inside you can lift the roof to make extra space, and you also have 2 extra sleeping places up there if you don't remove the inside roof. Of course the passenger seats can be converted into a 2-person bed also, but it is remarkable how much space that takes. If you don't want a pile of baggage on top of that, there isn't really much space to store it. I suppose that's an unavoidable consequence of the size of the van. It forces one to make compromises :-)

Of course this van-buying made me think of somebody else who goes around in vans with sleeping equipment and other stuff built-in :-)

I have also read the diary and life story of a friend of mine. I always get a bit jealous when I read a well-kept diary that has clear explanations of the author's feelings and things like that. Somehow my own diary never manages to be like that... Actually about 12 years ago I did keep a private diary, much like I would like now, but I remember that it took a lot of time to actually write it.

[1] a Mercedes Vito Marco Polo with Westfalia camper equipment built-in.