A day in the lockdown life of Campervan Editor, Geneve Brand

With many of the staff at Warners Group Publications working hard to bring a bit of motorhoming, campervanning and caravanning joy to your lives during lockdown, we thought it was about time we got up-close-and-personal with our editorial team and designers to share with our readers what it takes to put your favourite magazines together whilst working from home...

About me

Hello! I’m Geneve. I’ve been the Editor of Campervan magazine since 2018. I live in Stamford, Lincolnshire, which is a beautiful little town that has Conservation Area status, so it’s basically a living museum! I share my life with my handsome husband and our lazy Vagabond Cat (he just turned up one day and moved in).

Since we’re all office workers (VG loves to take care of paperwork by sitting on it), we’re keeping regular hours during lockdown, working 9-5, Monday to Friday, with an hour for lunch.

My lockdown diary

I’m not a morning person so I’m enjoying the extra snooze time that working from home permits, and having two cups of tea in bed instead of one! Having set up my home office in the spare room, it’s a short commute to work.

I start the day by catching up on emails, having a nosey on the Campervan social channels and chatting with colleagues on Slack. I like to greet them with ‘good morning’ in a random foreign language – the first person to correctly guess the language wins a cyber biscuit of their choice, although my computer only seems to accept cookies…

At around 10am I grab another cuppa and a bowl of muesli, which I eat at my desk. My office window looks onto the street and the lockdown has caused me to behave like a meerkat in a century box, but it’s an exciting world out there. My street has gone mad for online shopping and I like to wave at the frequent delivery drivers – they always wave back! The postman has also taken to occasionally dressing up, presumably for the entertainment of nosey meerkats like me. So far, I’ve seen him dressed as Darth Vader and as a post box. He poses and smiles when he spots me taking photos of him. I think he likes it. 

I stop for lunch at around one o’clock with my husband and, if the weather’s nice, we always sit in the garden. Afterwards, what I get up to in the afternoon really varies as there are never two days the same at Campervan HQ. I love reading through all the travel articles that are sent in by our readers and contributors, but the trouble is I end up wanting to go everywhere!

I also love writing for the magazine and I can easily spend a whole afternoon lost in another world, reliving a campervan adventure through photos and memories. I think that’s really important right now.

After I knock off work, I like to head out for some fresh air. We’re both keen hikers and are lucky to have footpaths on our doorstep, so we often go out for a walk. Sometimes, we play boules on the lawn (of the colourful plastic water-filled children’s variety!). Other times, we do a spot of gardening and then sit out in our camping chairs with a cold beer.

My top tip for surviving lockdown

I think it’s important to keep active – both physically and mentally – so take up some hobbies, especially those you can share online with friends. My social life seems busier now than before the lockdown! That’s thanks to quiz nights, tabletop gaming nights, knit & natter nights, and even ‘come dine with me’ evenings via Skype.

I’ve also really got into gardening and can while away hours just reading about it, although I have no idea what I’m actually going to do with the 50 broad bean plants I’ve grown on my window sill or the whole sack of onions I’ve planted in the flowerbeds!

My earliest campervan memory

When I was about two, my dad bought an old school bus like the one in the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour, which he converted into a very swanky campervan. My earliest memory is of riding my tricycle up and down in it just after he’d ripped the seats out! We had that bus for years and went all over the place in it. I made some great friends along the way, too. We’re still in touch today and often meet up at some of our old childhood holiday jaunts, as we’ve all grown up to have our own campervans, caravans and tents.

My top campervan tip

Packing everything away before driving off may sound obvious but there’s loads that can go wrong. I speak from experience! My husband has been covered in stew after driving off down a hill before removing the pot from the hob, we lost a coolbox in a hedge after not closing the sliding door properly, we’ve flattened hiking boots forgotten about under the ’van and have driven off without unplugging the electric hook-up lead. We’ve even left bicycles behind and towels hanging on a campsite fence. The list of disasters goes on…

My dream campervan destination

When we got married, we wanted to hire a campervan in New Zealand for our honeymoon, but we couldn’t afford it so we spent a month backpacking in Patagonia instead. Five years later, we thought we’d celebrate our anniversary by going to NZ but, once again, we couldn’t justify the price tag so we hired an RV in Canada and explored the Rocky Mountains instead. So, one day... One day we will go to New Zealand and hire a campervan!

Campervan magazine is a monthly magazine dedicated to all things campervan — from the latest models on the market to inspiring travel destinations and features from real campervanners about their vanlife adventures. Find out more about Campervan magazine and subscribe here.