22nd August - Collection Day, Tallulah comes home.

The 22nd of  August was a bright, sunny day and we were up with the larks.  Excitement bubbling over.  The day before, I had paid the balance of the money to secure Tallulah and now we were off to collect her.  

Oh yes, forgot to say her name is Tallulah!  We spent ages deliberating over the choice of a name. There was never any doubt that she is a girlie but choosing a name we both liked was still difficult. We narrowed it down to a choice of 2, Tallulah or Gwendoline.  Tallulah won.  

Anyway......

A friend of ours, Max, took us to the station in Grantham so we could catch the train to Nottingham. We chose not to drive as that would have meant me driving the car home and Simon in Tallulah.  We wanted our first drive to be together.

We arrived in Nottingham at 11am.  I had fretted and worried the whole journey!  So worried that somehow it was going to all go wrong.  In the event it all went really smoothly.  Fullers had sent a car and driver to collect us from the station.  They are a little way out of Nottingham and the drive took about 20 minutes. 

We were greeted  by the nice salesman and over the next half an hour he went through all the paperwork with us while we drank several cups of coffee.  Finally it was all done and she was ours!  

We were taken out to see her and one of the service people spent an hour with us going through exactly where everything was and how it all worked.  There was so much to remember that we even took notes!  She looked perfect and we couldn't wait to drive her away.  

We left there about 2pm for the drive home. We couldn't stop smiling as we drove along.  We wanted to try her out a bit so we decided to take a scenic route to give us a bit more time.   I was loving the new elevated  seating position.  You can see so much more than you can in the car.   We also got to try out her windscreen wipers as by now it had begun to rain.

We wanted to try out some of her facilities so decided to find somewhere to stop for lunch.  We headed for Beaver Castle which we thought we could also have a look round.  As it happened the castle was not open that day. 

Still, the car park was empty and had a nice view so we figured it was as good a place as any for lunch.    We hadn't been there long when a man and woman on bikes came into the car park.  We could see them admiring her and they actually came over to chat to us and to ask about her. They were very impressed. 

We had our lunch, just shop bought sandwiches and cake.   Then it was time for the first photo call......in the rain!  Here are some of the photos.  Isn't she beautiful.

She is a Wildax Aurora built on a Citroen Relay chassis.  She is 4 years old and has 13,000 miles on her clock.   She has 4 travel seats and sleeps 3.   She is Tallulah.  Let the adventures begin.

Jilly

Vital statistics

Whilst we were waiting  for our van to be ready   I kept going back to the Fullers website to remind myself of exactly what we were getting.  It was these photos that made us go and see her in the first place.

Come for a guided tour.

 

Notice that she originally had a personalised number plate.  This has now been changed.

 

 

 

 

She is a  Wildax Aurora,  Citroen Relay conversion.  She was first registered in 2010.  She is 6 metres long, 2.5 metres wide and 3 metres high.  She weighs 3.5 tonnes, which makes her a fairly petite baby in motorhome terms.

She is perfect for our needs.

Jilly

Adventures with Tallulah, The story begins.

Adventures with Tallulah, The story begins.

For some years Simon and I have wanted and planned to get our very own motorhome / camper van. We hired a very small one for a week back in 2011 and had a great time.  Well at least until Simon was taken ill.  That week was long enough to confirm for us that this would be something we would enjoy.

This is the tiny little Romahome that we rented for a holiday in Juy 2011

We talked about it often and hoped that we might be able at some point to save up and buy an older model.  My Dad knew of our plans and we would all talk about it when he visited. Sadly it is because Dad is no longer with us that has provided us with the means to purchase Tallulah.  I wish it wasn't that way but it is and I can't change it.  I don't feel badly about using Dad's money for this as I know that he would be thrilled by her. It is my belief that he is looking down and is just chuffed to bits for us.  He will always be along for the ride, wherever we travel.

Even though we had suddenly found ourselves with the funds, we hadn't initially planned to purchase anything very quickly. We knew we wouldn't be able to holiday in a van right now because of Loulou who is not able to travel.  What we did want to do was to take our time and do lots of research into what exactly would meet our needs, for a price we were happy to pay.  Simon was fairly sure that would be a VW T5 camper van.

We spent the spring months visiting dealers and going to various trade shows. It was exciting but also quite confusing.  The more we looked the more we didn't know for sure what we wanted.  We had thought it would be a brand new VW as previously mentioned.  We saw loads of them and began to research the possibilities of buying a new van and having it converted for us.

Then one day we visited the SMC dealership in Newark and saw a lot of bigger vans, conversions and coach builds. They were pretty good.  I particularly liked the little toilet, washroom areas that they had.  Not something you get with the VW.  I also liked the extra space,  It gave us plenty of food for thought and we continued to visit more trade shows.

As our thoughts became more concentrated we began to get a better idea of what would suit our needs.  We ruled out coach builds, lovely as they are, because we realised that we wouldn't actually be able to fit one on our drive!  That was essential as no way would we be paying for storage elsewhere.

All our research made us realise that maybe a VW was not actually the ideal vehicle for us after all.   They are very, very expensive, even secondhand and we had found out that we could get more for our money by going for a larger  van conversion.  This would give us lots more space and that all important on board toilet.   We had seen a few that we quite liked at the shows, one of which was made by a company called Wildax.

We checked out their website.  My goodness were they expensive?  See for yourself here: WILDAX  Way beyond our budget!  So we formed a plan to keep our eyes open for a secondhand one.  We thought it would take ages as they are few and far between.  Little did we know, but luck was going to be on our side.

One evening I decided to use good old Google to see what I could find.  I was browsing dealer websites and forums and suddenly came across an advert for a Wildax Aurora.  It was at a dealership called Fuller Leisure near Nottingham.  Hmm, not too far to travel.  It was a 4 year old van in our price range with only 13,000 miles on the clock.  Exciting!  I showed it to Simon and a plan was formulated to go and see it on Simon's next day off.

It took about an hour to drive there and as we pulled in we saw "our" van straight away as she was parked  right at the front.  I think we fell in love right then before we even got out of the car!  As we walked towards her (We already knew she was a girl!) our excitement increased.  She just looked so lovely.  Her champagne livery gleaming in the sun!   Goodness, listen to me, I am getting all poetic.

We stepped inside and afterwards we both agreed that we knew then that we were going to buy her.  We looked over her very thoroughly, checking out every minute detail.  This took around an hour and a half and several cups of coffee brought to us by a very helpful salesman.  He answered all our questions.

Despite both knowing that she was the "one" we did also look at 3 others that were similar in size and price but none of them came close.  We picked fault with each one. 3 hours after we had got there we looked at each other and said "OK, So are we doing this or what"?

Several more coffees later, all the paperwork was complete and we had paid a  deposit.  We had got a few concessions from the dealer too.  A new TV fitted in the "dining area" and a bike rack fitted to the rear.  They needed time to get those fitted and to get her serviced and ready so we agreed a collection date of 22nd August.  Ten days time.

We drove home feeling incredibly excited.  However in my normal way, it didn't take me long before I was questioning if we had done the right thing!  Simon will tell you that I always do this and question things and worry.  It was just that it was such a huge sum of money.   I have never in my life spent so much money on anything apart from our house and she cost more than our first house!  Plus, I kept worrying about what my Dad would think.  He certainly had never spent that amount of money on anything.

Anyway there were ten whole days to wait.  Ten more sleeps as my children would have said when they were little...............

Jilly