A vagrant – defined as one without a settled home or regular work who wanders from place to place and lives by begging.

Okay I’m not a beggar. In theory I have quite a lot of money in the bank, if the solicitors would stop arsing around and pay in the money from the sale of my house. But that’s a rant for another blog.

Three weeks today since I moved most of my possessions into storage, crammed the remainder into my converted panel van, and hit the road.  To paraphrase Marvin the paranoid android, the first couple of days were the worst. And the next few days, they were the worst too. The second week I didn’t enjoy much. After that, I went into a bit of a decline …

Well, I’m not Marvin. The first couple of days, though, there was so much in the van I had to step outside to take a deep breath, but I off-loaded a lot at my daughter’s on my way through England on the way to Europe. That meant I could repack the double passenger seat with the stuff I would only need when I arrived, and when I did get to the Costa Tropical I off-loaded that to a long-suffering buddy already resident, and suddenly there was tons of room. Okay, I have to make the bed before I can make coffee in the morning, since there is stuff stored on the grill which has to be moved to the bed, but that’s good discipline anyway. The morning routine is now habit – campsite loos, then pick up after the dog who also seizes the chance to make her morning ablutions, make the bed, clear the grill, light the gas to start the kettle, clean the birdcrap off the windscreen, sweep out the autumn leaves and make the coffee. Then back to the loos to shower and dress and – well, you get the routine. Today I’m stopping to blog. I’ve been doing updates on FB, and am recording the search for a less cramped place to live on the page for Spain https://www.facebook.com/VelezCasaDePalabras/# but this is a catch-up generally.

It’s all about trade-offs, living in a van. Space, obviously. I store my necessaire (which is huge, because it contains everything I might need and might forget to take, including spare towel and hairdryer) on the portapotty, so before I can use that in the middle of the night I have to find a place to put the necessaire. There’s a light in the en-suite, naturally, but it isn’t blinding and I’ve tripped over the necessaire while sleepily looking for it to put it back. I drink less water before bedtime now, and have completely stopped drinking coffee at night. I go to bed as early as midnight, sleep like the dead, wake with the dawn.

Another trade-off, here on the Costa Tropical, is shade – I picked the shadiest spot I could find on the campsite, and that’s excellent for a recent Scot trying to adjust to all this hot sunshine, but it does mean that seedpods fall on the roof at night and birds crap on the windscreen all day. The seedpods, at 3 in the morning, sound like North Korea spotted my position.

The dog’s bedroom overnight is where my desk needs to be during the day. As a vagrant I’m not actually working yet but with my neighbours being French on one side, Spanish on the other, my entire social life when home is emails, FB, Twitter, social media generally, and that’s a lot easier on the pc than on the smartphone.

I do have to start working, but as I teach English as a second language online, and need a stable Ethernet connection, I can’t do it on a campsite WiFi signal. So the hunt is on for a house, I’d rather buy than rent, but the learning curve on that is steep. ‘Cosy‘ means I couldn’t swing the cat in any of the rooms. ‘Would benefit from refurb’ means the wiring needs redoing and chunks of plaster missing on the walls. ‘Needs work‘ – take your hardhat. One house I wouldn’t even go upstairs, although the owner ran up and down the stairs several times to show me how safe it was. Aye, that’ll be right. Pass. ‘Wonderful views’ means a drive off the motorway of up to 30 kilometres into the spectacular Spanish countryside, on tiny roads that turn back on themselves with such violence that no matter how carefully I pack the van, and strap stuff down, there is crashing from the rear. ‘Parking round the corner’ in a Spanish village means a walk of up to 30 minutes through tiny winding streets, I can just see my movers’ faces when the furniture is finally sent for. So right now my sole trickle of income is from my books, please pick one from the margin and buy it. You could even buy more than one. Ta.

So what’s it like, living in a van on a campsite in Almuñécar?  Could be a LOT worse. The sun is yawning and drifting into a pale clear sky when I wake up.  The dog is beaming from her bed, next to mine, and the cat wants in from his night on the tiles. There are hot showers, clean loos and washing machines near by, and I even have a plumbed-in double sink and washing line at the back of my particular shady site.  I’m paying, obviously, but not through the nose. There’s a self-service bar here – get an icy Coke out the giant fridge, and put a euro into the till.  That’s worth every penny, since my camper fridge is tiny and packed with water, milk, cheese and butter, there’s no room for frivolous drinks.

During the week we’d be on our way by now,  off to collect long-suffering local buddy who is a retired building engineer and the bane of the house-owners and agents, as he spots all the little weak spots they hope I’d never see.  In my price range, I know work will be needed, but he can judge exactly how much and give me a rough idea on price – often eye-watering. In return for this invaluable service, and indeed for being my guide to the more remote villages (who needs signposting from the motorway, eh? everyone who matters knows where the place is) we stop frequently for copious quantities of coffee and, as the day wears on, shandy and then beer, which is served with free tapas and sorts meals out nicely. Yesterday, one example – a beer, a shandy, two wraps and crisps, was 3 euros, water for the dog was free and we sat in a pavement café in the shade idly talking over the day’s crop of houses.

Three weeks. The first week in the UK, the second travelling erratically through France and then Spain, the third here adjusting to a life I couldn’t have begun to imagine.  Although I’m still out and about during the week, and racking up at least 100 kms a day in the search, it’s nothing like that daily 300 – 400 kms on new roads, hoping the camper in front knew a good campsite and I could follow it there … that bull on the skyline, you see a fair number of them. In La Mancha country, there was also Don Quixote and co, I rather liked that, even though I was horribly lost at the time and on a long lonely road I had, unnervingly, all to myself. I spent a lot of time being lost. It’s one way to explore.

And now, as it is the weekend and no houses to see, I shall have a leisurely shower, do a load of laundry, and then, hmm – take the dog to the beach? Go shopping at Mercadona? Read? With no distractions and a lot of time on my hands, I’ve been able to rediscover the sheer pleasure of reading  – no copy-editing, no critiquing, just books I packed for the road because I loved them long ago and know they are worth the re-read.  It’s a tough life, this vagrant thing. I can’t let it go on too long, but I am getting a bit addicted to it.

I just wish I could start writing again, but I accept that right now, I’m loading data. The writing will come back – when I can close a door, not have to keep one eye on the dog in case war breaks out with another campsite pet, and making coffee is once again flicking a button. I do miss that. Not much else.