Our T6 has gone from basic panel van to fully-fledged T6 Camper and returned home to a very excited family!
The van has returned! It's been just over a month and we have managed to survive the on one car!
It has actually been fairly easy. Angharad is currently off work on maternity leave so this has meant that being a car down has not been too much of an issue.
I have been the only one having to go to work so on a working day, I have been able to use the one remaining car and leave the pram behind for Angharad incase she needed to go anywhere locally with the pram.
Thankfully, and I never thought I would say this, I work shifts. This has meant that in reality, Angharad has only had to be without a car for two days in every ten. The remainder of the days I have either been working late shifts or night shifts when she would be at home with the children and not require the car anyway.
It went far easier than we had expected.
We were hoping to have the van back last week so that we could use it totrval to Center Parcs with the family. We had a family holiday booked to Center Parcs to celebrate my mothers 60th Birthday. She had mentioned some time ao that she would love to experience Center Parcs with all the family together.
It would have been ideal to have had the van back in time to go in order to help carry all of the baby equipment and children items we were going to need for a week away. Alas, it was not to be and the van was slightly delayed due to some materials not arriving in time. It was not a huge issue though.
We went to Center Parcs and managed to cram all our baby items, pram, toys, games, clothes, steriliser and food (mostly alcohol) into the Kia Stonic instead! The trip was great and included a surprise visit from her best friends who travelled from Leighton Buzzard to stay a week in a nearby lodge. Well, it was a surprise to everyone else, I of course had been in on the planning and hadn't mentioned to anyone, including Cerys, for fear of the cat being let out of the bag immediately.
It was such an exciting moment. Months and months of planning had gone into the van, the materials, the design and we were about to see it unveiled.
As we walked into the industrial unit, the van was there in all its glory. Spotlessly clean and polished. It looked incredible. I looked to see Angharad face and her smile was from ear to ear. I knew at this point that we had definitely made the right decision to buy a van and convert it for family holidays!
Following a walkthrough with Mark and Matthew, we shook hands and finally drove our van home.
I don't know if it was just us or not, but both of us seemed to notice people staring at the van as it passed them during our mile and a half journey home!
We hadn't even pulled up on the drive before neighbours were out looking a the van and commenting on it!
"We were like proud parents after taking the children to a successful sports day!"
We parked the van safely on the drive and immediately began to fill it with all the items we had been buying and accruing in the dining room and garage over the last few months in anticipation.
The next two days were spent deciding which cupboard would house which items and where we would store what in the van as well as trying to remember how to use the electrics and power the fridge!
I knew Angharad was excited when she asked if we could all sit on the drive and cook our tea in the van for the evening!
The next thing to do was to get the Carista I had bought on Amazon for £15 and change a couple of the dashboard settings to personalise the van.
First was to enable the needle sweep on start up. Purely a cosmetic change but one that just seems to give the van a real premium feel when you start the engine.
Second was to change the settings to have the digital speedometer in the centre of the Multi Function Display. I had been used to this feature on all of my previous cars and had been struggling not having it on the van before it had gone in to be converted.
Both changes took a matter of five minutes but to me, made a huge difference!
The van was ready for its first Adventure!
