Have you ever dreamed of packing up your life, selling your house and hitting the road?
The travelling life is one that appeals to many, but is often dismissed, as life gets in the way.
However one couple from Swansea did just that, packed up, sold their house and business, and hit the road with their three-year-old son.
Read more: The man who just started walking one day and is still going 2,000-miles later
That's exactly what Lesley Parr, 49, and her husband Geoff, 68, did.
Lesley had always dreamed of a life of travelling, and was something she and Geoff talked about regularly, but with a business to run, it was something they both had resigned to doing in their retirement.
Things changed however, when Geoff had a heart attack.
Lesley said: "It was so out of the blue, we didn't see it coming at all. Not long after I found out I was pregnant, and it really made us realise we wanted to travel; life is short and we don't want to wait any longer.
"Our doggy day crèche business was starting to get too big for us, it was a 365-day-a-year business, with its busiest periods in the school holidays, and it was not the way we wanted to raise our child.
"So all of this combined made us take the plunge."
When son Jackson was born, the couple set their plans into motion, sold their business and looked into buying a motorhome.
When they told their friends and family of their plan Lesley says they thought the couple had taken leave of their senses.
"At first their faces said it all. They asked where we were going and all sorts of details about routes and timings and plans for when we returned and how would we not argue? I had no answers to any of those questions which just made it sound even more ridiculous.
"We had a beautiful property with acres of land and views over the Mumbles and the Bristol Channel from every room to die for and a really secure income and I don't think they believed we would do it. It soon turned to wishing they were doing it too though."
The family finally set off in January from Swansea and a few hours later arrived in Dover, aiming to get the ferry to Calais, but got themselves in the wrong queue at the port, and ended up on a late night crossing to Dunkirk.
Lesley recalls that they had no idea what to do next, but they fortunately found someone who took them under their wing and guided them to a campsite in France where they set up for the night.
From there, their travels had begun. The family travelled to Annecy at the foot of the French Alps and made that their base, they chose it as they both loved the snow and they were able to drive an hour in any direction and be surrounded by snow.
From there they headed to Italy, where they arrived by the end of March, and by this point their son Jackson had learnt to ski very competently. They travelled to Croatia by May, made it to Spain by June, spent the end of June in Portugal, and then used July and August to get home around the coast of Northern Spain and France in time for Jackson to start school in September.
"We also had one particular campsite at Pompeii which has really special memories for us. We spent five nights there under the shadow of Vesuvius. It was a complete lottery as to who you meet/park next to in sites but here we formed lifelong friendships with a couple of British families.
"In just those few nights we drank and chatted and learned how each was on a completely different path. One home-schooling two older children planning on travelling indefinitely, one with a young baby travelling until school. All first timers, all with hilarious tales to tell.
"And five days later we all split and went in totally different directions on completely different adventures but it really highlighted the endless possibilities to us and inspired me to plan another adventure in which I would home-school. And it was like it was meant to be that we would all meet here."
Not all of their journey was plain sailing however.
"We had many disasters but one jumps to mind where a one way system in Italy on a Bank Holiday (which we were completely oblivious to) led us into a series of narrower and narrower right angled bends until we became completely stuck.
"Italian drivers like to sound their horns so with about 50 cars held up behind us all blowing their horns it took a group of lads to actually open the offending vehicle parked badly on the corner and lift it off the ground and bump it up a bank for us to get out. I was like a beetroot."
Lesley said at the start of their journey, she wasn't sure if she would take to living in a motorhome, but it didn't take her long to love it.
"The benefits of living in a motorhome are amazing, a different view to wake up to every day, housework that is done in five minutes, and the cosy winter nights tucked in playing games and summer nights sitting under the stars with a bottle of wine.
"The only downside was no place to have a good argument. Without all the external pressures from work, family, etc, all we really ever had to get cross with each other over was navigation and our 'trucking' sat nav got re-named almost immediately.
"When we did argue we had to choose our words very carefully as we quickly learned with big ears (Jackson) in the back so we usually ended up laughing about it. Jackson took all of five mins to realise we were travelling with a kitchen on board and treated me like an air hostess."
The family spent Jackson's fourth birthday in Portugal, after which they headed back in a strange race against time to make sure he got back to take up his primary school place.
"We got a phone call from Jackson's new schools head teacher who asking if we were definitely coming back to claim his school place. We said yes, we would be back, hung up, and then I cried all day about it.
"When we returned Jackson was thrown in the deep end beginning school on full days as he had missed nursery, and not knowing anyone. I found it almost unbearable the last month of travelling praying something would change and we could just not come home, and fearing how I could be without him for a day after the past eight months together constantly. He on the other hand said, 'I'll do what I do on a campsite, I'll say, Hi, I'm Jackson, do you want to play?' and off he went, never looking back."
Lesley found it hard to readjust after the life of freedom, she didn't want to sleep in the house of their first night back. But after a few weeks the family slotted back into daily life, with Jackson starting school in September.
Six years passed, and the family and were planning to go travelling, but then lockdown shut that down. After reminiscing on their old travelling days, Lesley decided that she wanted to write a book.
"I had already written half the book when I came to start it. I'd been writing a blog for my friends and family and when I came to look through the articles I read parts that i had already forgotten about. I wanted it to be the prefect memoire for Jackson. So I wrote 'A Change in the Aire'.
"My husband wrote a book in lockdown too. He had intended to way before I started mine but it turned into a bit of a competition, or an excuse for the other one to take over the home schooling. His is called 'Floating Worlds', completely different theme."
"We hope we can travel again soon, New Zealand has always been a dream of mine, but we will have to see what lockdown will allow."
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