So it seems we had bought a good tow car...

I was a van driver for 18 months, had a Fiat Ducato maxi that we'd converted into a grooming van. We had decided to move into a salon and sell the van, and we were in the market for a new car. We had a tall order; low budget, need for huge boot (2 Cockers and a Great Dane), five seats (in case we have a baby so not a van) and desirable to drive to us both.

Nick wanted a Subaru. He's been an avid fan for as long as he can remember. He owned a WRX Impreza when I met him and has gradually down graded since and needed money for things like an engagement ring and a house. So his main choice was a Legacy or a Forester or even an Impreza estate. He loves the Subaru four wheel drive system and the reason why their exhausts create that unique sound (which he has explained to me but I've either forgotten or wasn't listening).

We ended up with a Fiat Croma. I'd never heard of this car before and it had received a lot of bad reviews. Thankfully this means they are dirt cheap and you get a lot of car for your money! Had we bought a Subaru with comparable mileage and age we would have paid double. The Croma is very spacious, extremely comfortable, fuel efficient (we have the 1.9 multijet diesel) and has possibly the biggest boot you can find. Unfortunately, they are prone to gear box problems and we did have to have the gear box repaired when we bought it but we still saved a lot of money even with the repair.

The Croma has a lot of bad reviews for handling but seriously, if you want a car that goes around bends, buy a car that's built for it, not a comfort wagon! I did find myself drifting around bends one rainy evening but replacing the Linglong tyres with Nexen all season tyres soon solved that problem. Now, it sticks to bends as well as any other car I've driven.

So, Nick tells me the Croma is a good tow car because it has a powerful diesel engine that is fuel efficient. The car is very wide and high which improves fuel efficiency when you have a caravan hitched to it, and it is quite heavy car making the weight of the car to caravan ratio really good for stability. Nick believed that the Legacy and the Forester are the perfect tow cars for their four wheel drive systems and of course, their reliability. It's a shame they are heavily taxed, especially for those who do low mileage.

Oh and the vital component was of course the tow bar! Already fitted to the Croma was a Witter tow bar.

Happy Caravanning!

So, it seems I under appreciate my husband sometimes...

Before we went on our caravan shopping spree, Nick did lots of research. To be fair, he enjoys this kind of thing. He will spend hours looking at tyres online before he buys a pair - reading the spec, reading reviews, watching videos of tests, then comparing the prices. I am generally asleep whilst he's doing this, thank God!

So, I asked him to email me a brief summary of his findings. Neither of us knew anything about caravanning and Nick wouldn't spend a penny without knowing something about the thing on which he is spending his penny. He has saved us a lot of money and solved us a lot of problems with his desire to research into everything online. I had expected the 'summary email' to be waiting for me in my inbox the next day so I could begin to share what we have learned and get my story up to date but I am left waiting. Apparently this email is going to take a minimum of 30 minutes to draft because there is an awful lot of important things to detail you know!

He must have been doing all of this research in secret and must have had his mind set on wanting a caravan before he suggested it to me. As I remember it, I got excited at the idea of caravanning with Alice and demanded we went shopping for one on our next day off. I do remember a week or so of him showing me caravans for sale on Ebay and Gumtree but I wasn't sold on the idea at that point. Hmm, it's funny, I had thought caravanning was my idea...

So, this is Alice...

So this is Alice. She's four years old tomorrow and she's a Cocker Spaniel. Alice is part of our inspiration to get a caravan, so she could come on holiday with us. Then in June this year, we went on a mini version of our dream holiday and we travelled around Northern France. I say mini version because the dream is to travel around Europe, but we do not yet have the funds! Also, to make the trip affordable, we camped. I hadn't been camping since I was about ten years old (that's fifteen years ago) and I really hate insects. I managed five nights, 2 nights in Rouen and 3 nights in Paris, but we had a huge earwig problem when we came to pack up in Paris and one earwig managed to make it all the way to the next site, but we didn't discover it until we laid down to go to sleep and it was stationed right above my face on the ceiling of the tent. This was after I'd battled all the mosquitoes and hornets at the wooded site near Lille and had spent most of my time in the car. We left the tent and drove 25 minutes to the nearest Ibis!

Back home, going through our holiday pics and reminiscing, we decided we wanted to do it again - but in a caravan. We'd met loads of English people at all of the sites with caravans - mostly retired people who were spending 5-6 weeks there at a time, a dream - and it had left us hungry for new adventures and experiences. Nick, my husband, had already been doing his favourite thing, which is scouring the internet on forums, Ebay, Gumtree and everywhere else, reading up on advice and tips on buying a caravan...