Eventually the point we have found ourselves at in our journey was always going to arrive, that first exciting rush of hitting the road was always going to calm down. So Wayne’s been working, Oliver and I are busy settling in to a routine with his schoolwork – something that resembles a ‘normal life’ has settled in to our grand adventure.
While we are in Blenheim we have to float around a little bit between different parking spots. There’s an awesome spot we’ve found that’s only $5 a night and right in town so Wayne can get to work easily and Oliver and I can easily walk to a playground or in to town depending on what we want to do. But being the middle of winter we are finding we need to stay somewhere we can plug in to power once a week and since campgrounds mean 10 am checkout we have had to time our nights there for the weekends so Wayne is around and has time to move the bus.
Then we had the first experience of getting repairs done on the bus while we were living in it. I can’t lie the week that this happened was the least fun week I have had since we moved in to the bus. There were two nights where we couldn’t stay in the bus at all and had to stay in a motel. Then a few days where we had to vacate the bus all day and sleep in it parked at the mechanics. We made the most of our time in the motel, Oliver had the longest, biggest bubble baths he could possibly have. We cranked those electric blankets and I enjoyed showers with great water pressure, no timer and didn’t cost $2 for five minutes. The days we were camped out in the yard at the mechanics taught me exactly how long a day with a five year old child can feel. Of course it is all just part and parcel of living in a vehicle and thankfully it is a fading memory now.
Oliver is all properly enrolled with correspondence school now and he is loving his school work. I am so glad we decided to get it going straight away and not hold off until he is 6, he is just so ready to learn. Not sending him to school isn’t something I ever contemplated but I can see why people become so passionate about homeschooling now that I have had this experience. It’s like the feeling you have when your child is learning to roll, crawl, walk, talk – pure joy at seeing them learn and master a skill, pride at what they achieve and how hard they worked for it. In some ways it feels like the moments I have with Oliver now are extra time that I have somehow stolen for myself and I am so glad that I did.
So life is just ticking along (in a good way). It feels like a good move to stay still and work while the weather is coldest. It definitely feels like a good move to delay heading further down the south island until it warms up slightly. Planning where we travel to next is a great way to pass the winter evenings until our not so ‘normal’ life resumes.
My Wandering Kiwi Family 