Saturday 1 January 2022

Day 655 - New Years Day 2022

Day 655...

Welcome to the New Year, and welcome to 2022...I wonder what this year will bring us and whether we will be in a better place this time next year? And whether we will have anything like our previous 'normal' lives...I sure hope we do!

But today started with another hotel breakfast to set us up for the journey home. Once checked out we headed over to Molly and Dans for a coffee and a little catch-up.

We left their house around 11.30 am arriving home at 4.10pm, so a total of 4 hours and 40 minutes. The great thing about the hotel that we'd chosen to stay at was not only did they have charging points (this will now be a prerequisite of any future hotel stays!) but that the charging points were free! The charging points were of the lowest charging rate available and so the time taken to charge the car was lengthy but as we plugged it in each time we parked up we ensured that we started today with the maximum charge possible.

We had decided to make our first charging stop at one of the services that we'd used on the trip down because they were super fast chargers, easy to use and there were four available. When we arrived all four were being used but we decided to wait and see if a slot became available. We could see from the screens on the units that a couple of the cars were almost fully charged and sure enough a few minutes later a space became available. So we plugged in and walked over to Starbucks for a coffee. We enjoyed our coffee and by the time we headed back to the car we had about a 90% charge which was brilliant.

We then set off with our next charging location in mind. Simon has been watching how the charge works, how quickly the cars 'estimated mileage' drops and with a little research has now got a pretty good idea of how far we can get between charges. 

Our second stop and our second coffee saw the car get up to around an 85% charge which was more than enough to make the last leg of the journey home. We made much better time on the return journey because we weren't having to wait around too long for charging units to be available unlike on our journey down.

As this journey was around 190 miles we would have stopped once for a toilet break/coffee stop in our previous, petrol, car so the difference is now we have to have two stops instead of one. The whole driving experience is much calmer and feels less rushed and taking that little bit longer really did not bother us at all. We have said that now we have a better idea of what a long journey entails we will know to plan ahead and expect to take longer.

Interestingly we have chatted to a number of electric car drivers over the last two journeys and everyone has been happy to share their moans and groans and their successes. One driver today confirmed what we had already suspected that the colder the weather the worse the performance and consequently the warmer it is the more miles that can be done! Perhaps we will became fair weather drivers from now on!!

Arriving home it was time to unpack and put things away and for some reason I became rather emotional. I always seem to struggle emotionally at this time of year as we move from the hustle and bustle and joy of Christmas into the lull of the start of a new year. It always feels rather melancholic for me as my thoughts turn to packing away decorations and returning to the humdrum of everyday life. But I think arriving home today caught me unawares as my thoughts turned to Molly and her not being at home anymore. I am so happy that she has found Dan and is making a life for herself but I do miss her so much. She is my partner in crime and I miss having her around. I know this will pass because I am used to her living away from home for periods of time but for the moment it has hit me a little more than I'd expected.

Saturday is done, so I will see you all tomorrow.
xx

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