Sunday, July 17th 2005

4:32 PM

Casa Sagrada

Mood:

A story in 12 pictures...

Last year we wer camping out with our tourcaravan on our favourite camping site in the woods in Eastern Holland. However, even though I did not want to admit it, camping proved to be too hard for me, physically. Imagine I had to use my mobile scooter to go to the public camp site's bath room. That was not so bad, but imagine having to do that in the middle of the night . The physical activity of camping out brought too much pain and discomfort. So reluctantly I had to admit that we had to look for other ways of spending our vacation. We had already looked at dozens different ways, like renting cottages, going to a hotel that had room service etc. etc. We were trying to look for a more definitive solution, now. At the camping there were several second hand mobile homes for sale. But either they were too expensive or too old. One was relatively nice but was not situated well. Our neighbour suggested that we would go and have a look at some of the manufacturers to see if we could afford a new one. We had a nice talk with the camping site owner, first, too see if he had any space available for a new caravan. He had. Just one space. That harboured a very old and tacky mobile home that had to be removed as it was over 25 years old and ready for its retirement.

Our 'spot' with the neighbour's caravan

So we had a 'go-ahead', there.
The spot that we would rent was one that had been beckoning to me ever since the first moment we were on the camping, 3 years earlier. I just had to look at it again and again -as if it was 'calling' me.
We went to several manufacturers to have a good look around and to find out what was available on the market.
We finally went for a manufacturer that was situated 10 minutes from the camping and built its own mobile homes on site. We discussed our wishes and necessities and were quite happy to be able to do so because of my parents' inheritance.
We were invited to visit the manufacturing site and took the first pictures there:

A wooden skeleton of a mobile home at the factory (not ours)

In December we received a call that our mobile home was ready. We could inspect it on site. The camping owner invited us to stay at one of the camping's rent-out caravans for the night. It was a bliss and such a joy!
On a very cold and damp winter's day we went to the factory and there it was: Our own little mobile home, ready for us to inspect. With everything ready to use in it... We went and looked and watched inspected, shivering but glowing inside...

Our own home - at the manufacturer's site, still.

A week after we approved our holiday home at the factory's site we arranged for its transportation to the camping. Another happy day! We drove the 1 1/2 hour in happy anticipation and were allowed to stay overnight in one of the rental caravans again. It was a lovely frosty day with some sun. We could hardly sleep that night and the next morning we got up quite early

Then, just before 9 am a knock came to our caravan's door: Our mobile home had arrived on a trailer... We took our video and our camera and went - I had tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat when I first set eyes on our mobile home in its new environment.. I will let the pictures speak for themselves:

Our home at the back of the trailer- impressive, uh?

On its own wheels, waiting for the tractor to move it to its place. Can you see the windows are frosted?

Wynsen checking to see if the corner will not prove to be too difficult.. but it went well

The tractor is pushing the caravan in its place - Wynsen is walking proudly in front of it.

A slight problem here - but not too difficult ... a close call, however.

And there it was - levelled and with the hole for the gutter pipe almost dug...

Still a lot more work needed to be done. We had a good heater inside and in January we set off to make our little hideaway spot in the woods liveable...