I do love to hear the children talk about their plans for the future. Ollie in particular is one whose dreams captivate me, as mine are still pretty much the same.
Both our dreams involve buying a campervan and hitting the road.
Wherever will do.
I fell in love with Volkswagen Beetles many, many years ago thanks to Herbie. In theory, I’d love to have an original Beetle and Volkswagen T2 to tinker about with and refurbish.
In practice, I don’t have the time, the money or the knowledge. Despite that, I still hold onto the hope that some day I’ll realise those dreams. I reckon I could make the time for anything I really wanted to make it for, I could save the money for it and I could learn anything I wanted to if I put my mind to it.
Not huge hurdles, if you put it into perspective.
Meanwhile, I treated myself to a new Beetle as a divorce present to myself. I love it and, given that Volkswagen will no longer be producing them, I’m glad I fulfilled my promise to myself that I would treat myself to one of the last off the production lines.
I deserve it.
Ollie and I spend many a happy hour discussing plans for our dream Volkswagen campervans. They’ll be a T2, of course. And with unlimited dreams of conversions and travel plans, it can sometimes be easy to forget that old thing called money.
No worries for Ollie.
He’s onto it.
Car cleaning.
Garden weeding.
Window washing.
Lawn mowing.
They are all ways of earning a little extra towards his campervan fund. These are extra jobs available to them for earning extra money. I won’t pay them for cleaning their own rooms or generally helping to keep the house tidy. But a job that requires extra effort and time, that’s open to negotiation.
Ollie negotiated.
I negotiated.
Ollie negotiated better still.
Ollie cleaned up my new Beetle so that he could earn a little more for his old campervan.
Job done.
Cash paid.
Which is kept in his campervan moneybox.
Because there’s nothing like keeping your eye on the goal.
He was thrilled to have passed the £70 mark.
Only several thousand pounds more to go, Ollie!
Hold onto that dream, sweetheart.
