The new pup

We have a new addition to the Daphne Diaries family! Otto, a miniature silver dapple Dachshund.

Otto lounging in Daphne

Photo by Stevie Ward

Otto is 12 weeks old and his mother is Una, Jane's sister Angie's dog. Una had 3 pups and Otto is the eldest. Ivan and Jane have had Otto for 2 weeks and he has settled into van life really well.

Jane with Otto and Angie with Otto's mum Una

As some of you know we planned this adventure with our other dog Storm in mind. He passed away before we left and so could not be part of our new journey. After 10 months without a dog we were ready to open our hearts again. We just could not resist Otto. He is probably the perfect dog for our new lifestyle, small, chilled, cuddly, tiny and can adapt easily.

Various photos of Otto. 

Until Otto has had his vaccinations we are careful and have been carrying him around in the red bag above! So far he has travelled in Daphne the motorhome, cars, on Jane's motorcycle around a field (although he was sick afterwards!) and on a push bike. He seems to love all vehicles so is fitting in well for a travelling dog. We are looking forward to lots of adventures with Otto and sharing them with you. We know we can give Otto the best life and it's a huge privilege being there every day to watch our new pup grow into a dog. 

Lots of adventures to come with the Daphne Diaries, Ivan, Jane and now Otto so watch this space #tinyhome#tinydog 🐾🐾🐕

The brief adventures

Since the last post of The Daphne Diaries Ivan and Jane have been actively enjoying life in their tiny home on wheels.

Although mainly in Sussex over the last few months to spend time with family we have spent some time travelling and seeing new sights. A brief overview of some of our adventures are the in pictures are below:

Daphne towed our vintage Matchless's to Wales. We had a great time at the South west Wales vintage motorcycle rally in Carmarthenshire. Lovely runs out on tiny lanes, beautiful weather and catching up with family and friends. Jane had her nephew Stevie riding pillion for over 100 miles on the Saturday run ☀️. 

After the rally we enjoyed a few days exploring the Pembrokeshire coast with our friend Phil. We stayed on an exceptional site where the owners had amazing vision and completely renovated and landscaped an old farmhouse, some boggy land, field and woods into what is now Hilton court and gardens. 

Hilton gardens in Roch is well worth a visit.

As we travelled back to Sussex we decided to continue to walk the Sussex border path. This is a long distance footpath which follows the border of Sussex from Emsworth near Hampshire, up towards Gatwick and East Grinstead on the Surrey border and down to Rye on the Kent border. Last year we managed to walk 50 miles out of the 150 and did not have time to complete the rest. We love walking and are using this opportunity to continue our way. The pictures above are from last week where we completed another two sections walking west to east and have reached just south of Ockley, Surrey. We intend to walk further to East Grinstead this week to complete the West Sussex sections and another 45 miles of the route.

Just a few more pictures from our brief adventures, sometimes a brief respite if only for a few hours: 

 

Watching the sunrise on the longest day.

Jane on the bridge at Kew gardens.

Enjoying the company of young wild foxes at one of our wild camping spots.

Making the most of being by the sea and kayaking with our friends John and Karen. 

Thank you to everyone who has sent their love and best wishes to Ivan's dad. He is on the mend and although still in hospital he is doing really well. 

We have enjoyed spending time with family and friends and going in brief adventures. We are sure there will be many more, in the meantime one of our favourite things to do is watch the sunset so....

Just some of the amazing sunsets we have seen in the last few weeks.

Thank you for reading. Wishing you lots of happy adventures 🙂. 

The pause in our adventures

Hello everyone, just a brief update. We have paused our adventures and are back in Sussex, UK! Ivan's Dad has been taken poorly so we have returned from north Wales and postponed our trip to Ireland to be with family.

We have been back in the UK since the 31st May and have thoroughly enjoyed meeting with family and friends. Thank you to all our wonderful hosts, friends and family for looking after us so well 💖. After a brief visit to Sussex and Shropshire we were all set to explore North Wales and travel onwards to Ireland, however it was not to be and we will look forward to another trip soon.

We are currently staying in a beautiful campsite at the foot of the south downs and making an adventure of our stay. We are going on lots of walks and cycle rides plus exploring the villages nearby. 

The view from the top of Sussex across to Hampshire. On a clear day you can see the Isle of Wight.

Looking towards Findon village and cricket ground. There are deer living in the woodland.

Our favourite windmill in the world, at High Salvington.

Life full time in our tiny home on wheels is wonderful and we cannot imagine living in a house. 

Daphne at home with beautiful downland views and rabbits to keep the grass short. 

Thank you for following our adventures, we will let you know when we are on the move again 🙂.

The Coddiwomples in Spain

Hi everyone. Sante from France (with a cheeky little photo bomber 😂).

For most of this trip abroad we have followed the Coddiwomples. For those of you that have followed from the beginning you may remember this is old English slang for: 

"To travel to a yet unknown destination."

We knew we wanted to explore Spain and Portugal having never been there before. Portugal definitely did not disappoint and we explored it to our hearts content. A beautiful country with lovely people and well worth the visit.

We saw some of Northern Spain on our way to Portugal and loved the history and castles in particular. This last month we have been in southern Spain and we wanted to share some pictures with you of some of the highlights and the amazing places we have visited as we have coddiwompled our way around Spain. 

Ivan points the way to the Colombus ships in Huelva, Spain (above).

Huelva was our first stop in south west Spain. We had a great day exploring the three replica ships that sailed Columbus et al to The America's in 1492.

For anyone who likes horses El Rocio in South west Spain is a must. A town with unmade sandy roads where the horse is king. It felt like going back in time and it felt good 🐎. 

Moving on from El Rocio we saw a big Tio Pepe sign from the road and vaguely remembered they make sherry in Jerez so we thought we had better take a look. What a place, we were welcomed with a glass of sherry and a map of the city. It's huge! Full of beautiful statues, monuments and sherry houses, and they also love horses. 

Cadiz in the photos below was another highlight. A smaller walled city with amazing streets, gardens, history and architecture.

We wrote a brief blog about our visit to Gibraltar (The Rock - April 2019) and it was one of our favourite times. Just a few photos below: 

The city of Granada astounded us with its history and architecture plus its modern hippy type vibe, Jane felt right at home.

Ivan did well buying 7 inch singles in Granada. He was happy! 

Coddiwompling in Spain we happened across festivals and fun in the towns and villages we visited: 

Gigantic figures at a festival in the medieval city of Mont Blanc.

There were times we did not coddiwomple and they were some of the best. This was when we had arranged to meet up with family and friends. 

We met with Jane's sister Angie and nephew Stevie (see their guest blogpost: The bank holiday weekend - May 2019).

A big thank you to Dave and Elaine for hosting us in Cartagena. We had the best time. 

We loved Spain so much we did not want to leave, we loved the people, the mountains, beaches, history and the range in different landscapes. However we need to travel back to the UK for various reasons and so, with the weather in Spain heating up to sweltering temperatures we are gradually making our way. We passed the Pyrenees after a night in the beautiful country of Andorra. We are now in France  and looking forward to spending time with family and friends at a social May bank holiday weekend near Dieppe. After a wedding, we are off to Wales and have booked the ferry to Ireland. Lots of adventures to come. Watch this space.....Chao 💖