Max has been back here.

For a year, he and Yaz have planned and dreamt of van life and as Lockdown bit they began serious work on converting a refrigerated van into mobile life support. With university disrupted, returning to home comforts and a garage of tools seemed a good option, besides, he and I hadn’t seen each other for half a year and had some catching up to do.

It’s been an intense three months, juggling an internship in renewable techs, with piloting the Brightlingsea ferry and endless van DIY. A fine summer that made trolling around the creeks and beaches a plum job if ever there was one; whiling away waiting time reading Freud (something no renewable energy engineer/ferryman should overlook).

I’ve been busy too: keeping fish finger sandwiches on the table, “Joe” (coffee) on the stove and banging on about stepping back from the work, self organising and making a flexible plan for today, this week and beyond.

There’s been plenty of shared love, sweat and tears to make this a memorable few months, living in close quarters and the same jeans in the time of Covid .

Tomorrow they’ll head up North to find beautiful places, and memorable stories. Tomorrow they’ll sing “the song of the road”, two months later than first thought but isn’t that the way with romantic dreams.