We Have a Van.

Hallelujah.
We have a home, taking possession on Wednesday 27th May, all things going to plan.

Our "Hobby 600"

We had a short list and needed to travel well north to check them out which was a nuisance but there it was. We had limited our choices by wanting a left hand drive model. Otherwise you would be spoiled for choice. The upper end of the market is still expensive and lots of choice but the middle market is huge and you can get just about anything. We have not looked at buses as we were wary of  resale and emissions on older vehicles is becoming a real issue here.
So we had a day before we had planned to go north to visit our friend Ros from Nelson, now in her very nicely renovated home in Oxford. Ros had offered to also put us up (thanks Ros) but our base here has also been excellent.
So with the rental car at our disposal I saw on my list a last resort van not really considered as most continental conversions don't have a stove, they don't cook (go figure) and a smaller fridge than we like, but anyway, it was in West Sussex about 3 hours away so what the heck and off we went. It turned out to be as described, tidy comfortable, small fridge and no stove but acceptable without the need to go north and kick more tyres, so we cut a deal. We can live with a small fridge and work around the stove issue.

Internal

Rear with bike racks. Excellent.

 Another advantage is that it's thru a dealer who will guarantee it for a year which is comforting being 13 years old and 52,000 miles Which isn't overly high but not new.......
The bigger issue (there's always an issue for me) is the insurance. You are unable to legally drive a vehicle unless its got at least 3rd party insurance sooooo...
I had thought that with my residency IE not a permit but real residency, it would be easy but no, even having a pseudo address didn't help, I'm sure you could lie to get it but with insurers this will ultimately fail should you then file a claim. So all the regular insurers including our caravan club we just joined, run saying they can't do it. I'm guessing they are pumping money from a resource they know and understand and don't need to step outside the square. This must also be cause there is likely to be no likely hood of ongoing business, sooooo..... we go into the brokers hands.
The short story is we have insurance at 4 times what the locals can get it at and you just have to suck it up.
I have this perception that in a population this large that people are a resource that can be demographed and utilised to best advantage for almost any gain you can lever out.
The exciting bit is now we can kit the van out, like with bedding, eating utensils, BBQ etc. We also need to sort bikes, so we can start out and look around. Our hosts who have recently sold their motor home have offered some gear which is also helpful.
Too early to have a name but it is a Fiat Ducato so with its French origins we will soon coin something.