Wow! Time flies and here we are, half way through the year.
It’s been a busy month. We’re currently in the UK escaping Schengen, as well as catching up with friends and inter-trip administration, such as doctors, dentists, vet visits (for the dogs!), truck maintenance, and applying for a Schengen-busting French Long Stay Visa. If you’re interested in beating the 90/180 day Schengen rule, that’s a post you won’t want to miss!
- Posts You Might Have Missed on WorldWideWalkies.com
- Most Viewed from the Archive on WorldWideWalkies.com
- Posts You Might Have Missed on JacquelineLambert.co.uk
- Most Viewed from the Archive on JacquelineLambert.co.uk
- Posts I’ve Enjoyed on Other Blogs
- What I’ve Been Reading
The Beast has developed a water leak in the engine. The cause was diagnosed by a man in greasy overalls as ‘Pear Drops’ – seemingly a non-standard term for pear-shaped rubber seals or gaskets that go into the cylinder head and water pump. They cost considerably more per bag than the sugar-dusted sweet version of my youth! You can’t buy them individually, though, and have to go for the full Pick ‘n’ Mix bag of seals for a Volvo N10. Still, spares are always useful for preparedness: something I advocate very strongly, as you will know from my recent post What Ray Mears Taught Me About Overlanding: Preparation Isn’t Optional.
The Beast, our custom-built overland camper was on show for the fourth time this year at the National 4×4 & Camper Festival in Stratford upon Avon, where I delivered a duo of seminars to festival goers. The first, Building The Beast: How (Not) To Build An Overland Camper echoes the title of my latest multi award-winning book, and covered Big Builds for Big Adventures. I talked through how we built The Beast, the mistakes we made, and what we’d do differently next time.
I was also thoroughly delighted to meet Fiona Easterby and Pedro – the 1969 Baha Beetle, with whom Fiona has undertaken many amazing trans-continental adventures. I recently read and thoroughly enjoyed Fiona’s book, Beetle Drive, about her mad, magnificent road trip with Pedro from Goodwood in the UK to Australia! You can read my full review of Fiona’s book Beetle Drive HERE.
For once, we weren’t the biggest truck at the show! Beaten into second by the magnificent bull-nosed AMG unit featured on the cover photograph.
The second talk, Never Mind the Baltics — Let’s Talk Full-Time Travel (& Dogs!) led to an open forum on all things travel and dog. I wrote up the trip planning aspects I discussed as a post here on WorldWideWalkies, since many people commented that it highlighted all kinds of hidden pitfalls and booby traps of which they were absolutely unaware, but could result in heavy fines – or even prison time for the unwary traveller packing Panadol Extra or Co-Codamol – or other common over-the-counter drugs! Read The Ultimate Road Trip Planning Guide for Campers, Motorhomes, and Trucks below:
Posts You Might Have Missed on WorldWideWalkies.com
Most Viewed from the Archive on WorldWideWalkies.com
Posts You Might Have Missed on JacquelineLambert.co.uk
I have also been posting on my author website. If you’re interested in book news, publishing and author advice, why not pop over to my author website, JacquelineLambert.co.uk?
Most Viewed from the Archive on JacquelineLambert.co.uk
- Does Everyone Have A Book In Them?
- How Long Does It Take To Write A Book?
- Publish and Be Damned: How I Got Scammed, Learned My Lesson, and Came Out Fighting: A Guest Post by Author Peter Barber
Posts I’ve Enjoyed on Other Blogs
- How To Make Yourself Safe Online and This Is The One Thing You Can Do To Help Bloggers – Hugh’s Views and News: Hugh is my ‘Go To’ for all kinds of WordPress-specific blogging tips. He is a mine of information and well worth a follow. He is also the inspiration behind me starting this monthly roundup of blog posts from mine and other blogs!
- Ridgy Didge – Lightning Ridge – Miriam at Out and About: a fabulous exploration of an outlandishly quirky destination filled with creative art.
- Human on the verge of a nervous breakdown – Bjorn Larssen: a beautifully well-considered piece on how humans are making themselves redundant with the use of AI. To read my thoughts on AI, see my post Thoughts on Tech Giants Using Books to Train AI
What I’ve Been Reading
Liza Grantham’s bestselling memoir Mad Cows series about moo-ving to Galicia has been on my TBR list for ages. Finally, I started the series with her first book, Mad Cows and Englishmen. I found it a Warm and Witty Expat Adventure. You can read my review of Liza’s book on Amazon HERE.
You can find other books I’ve read and reviewed on my Goodreads profile and find my Year in Books 2024 HERE.
Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoy my content and find it useful. If you’d like to see more, don’t forget to subscribe, and I wish you a spiffing July!Find Me On:
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World Wide Walkies 
The Beast is so impressive. Sorry about the water leak. I love your photo of your four dogs.
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The water leak is being fixed as we speak.
Hopefully! 🙂
Thank you for reading and commenting, Thomas, it’s always lovely to hear from you xx
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That is good to know. Good luck on all your adventures.
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Yes, I had missed some of these! Good luck with the French visas. A friend did the Spanish one, as he spends 6 months of the year there so had a rented house address. He more or less had to give blood to get it but it was worth it for him!
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Thank you, Thomas. We’ve got a few more jobs to do – new tyres, an MOT – then we’ll hopefully be back on the road to Europe and I can get back to blogging some travel news again 🙂
Although I hope the travellers’ tips are useful.
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I just noticed all your dogs have curly hair. Cute! Good luck with your truck repairs. 🙂
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Thank you, Nancy.
Our pups are Cavalier/Poodle cross, so I think they get their curlicues from the Poodle side.
The truck is now running like a dream 🙂
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