Breaking Free of my Awning Fetish

Well, to put it mildly, The last month and a bit since our last trip out has been a bit of an emotional roller coaster.  You see, at approximately 6pm on St David's Day, my Mam (aka Nana Coupons) was hit by a car crossing the road outside her house.  Her injuries were extensive.  Thankfully now, after a month on a high dependency ward has seen her making slow but steady steps on the road to recovery.

She's now at home with a community care package in place to aid her rehabilitation.  She's a tough old bird and we are immensely proud of the fight in her.

We have (had) too many awnings.  up until last weekend the list read as a Suncamp canopy, a Gateway GL280 Air (with annex), a Dorema full awning (with annex) and a new and unused Vango Kalari 420 (with annex) still in the bag.

That's a lot of awnings, and Mr Shag often remarks that I have an awning fetish.  The canopy we use for one or two night stays, or in the dark depths of winter when it's too cold to site out there anyway,  the Gateway was for longer stays with the Dorema only coming out once a year for our annual 2+ week holiday.

Last October, Herself took a fancy to Mr & Mrs Shag's new awning that was hexagonal in shape and at the same time declared that our Gateway was too small and the Dorema too much money's worth to be sitting in the shed all year.  We also had the dilemma of deciding on which awning to take out for each trip!!

After a trip to Highbridge Caravans Herself had decided that we'd invest in a Vango Kalari 420, but I'd talked her into waiting until we'd sold off the awnings we already had - our shed was full to bursting.

However, in December, on Black Friday, Herself stumbled across an offer too good to let go (close to 30% discount) and after some finger swiping we were the proud owners of a Vango Kalari 420, Sleeping Annex and Tailored Carpet.

I immediately advertised the Gateway and Dorema for sale, but apart from a few chancers who wanted them for next to nothing we had little interest at the time.  With spring now in the air, and caravans back on people's minds I gave the ads a bump a few weeks ago.

Both are now sold for the asking prices, although I found it a little odd that the two buyers traveled from the North of England to South West Wales to make the purchase!

Anyhow, back to the present.  We've now got a brand new awning to try out, and with Coupons at home, on the mend with a care package in place, we need to  sneak a weekend away in the van somewhere local to try out the new awning and to enable us to pop back to check on both her and Creakey.