Campsite Feminist Ninja

We are still in the midst of the off-season, which makes it sound like the equivalent of a mouldy cheese hidden in the back of the fridge. The reality, for us at least, is that we can enjoy some privacy and seclusion for a while, until the first hints of Spring encourage the other caravanners to emerge.

There are occasional visitors during the Winter. And, since we find ourselves sharing this tiny, weeny patch of planet Earth some civility would seem to be the acceptable mode of behaviour. I am sure that I have shared before that I am not in the habit of trying to make every random stranger into my latest bezzie mate. I am more than content with a greeting that includes a reference to the time of day. I might be pushed to mention the weather, or enquire about a new arrival's journey if they look like they're expecting more of me.

Now, when I have gone to the effort of this hugely exuberant engagement it can be a bit peeving when you get nothing back. I am sorry to say that I am talking about the women caravanners, or wives. Do they object to me talking, albeit very briefly, to their husbands? Mostly, I see nothing of the wives at all. On arrival they'll often hover until it's safe to go inside the caravan, and then maybe pop their heads out of the door to see who the hubby's talking to. I will only catch a glimpse of them each time they move from caravan to car to go out for a spot of lunch in a Cotswold tea room before returning about two hours later and going back indoors for the rest of the day and evening. They're like timid creatures that have to be tempted outside with the promise of a jacket potato and salad.

This doesn't apply to all of the caravanning couples, obvs, but quite a lot actually. It's not that I blame the women for leaving all the outdoor, fetching and carrying chores to the men, it's just that I can't think of a good enough reason not to get involved, at least to fill the fresh water. When I'm out there getting on with it I get ironic comments from the guys like, "Ooh, you get all the best jobs." But here is the dirty truth...

The outdoors, water carrying and waste disposal jobs are not particularly pleasant but they don't take any time at all! If your other half makes out that they're a hero for dealing with this stuff, they're treating you like a mug. There are no good jobs, just jobs.

Mr Nomadic Knitter used to do the black tank emptying because ours is a chemical-free system, it used to make me gag and Mr N.K is a gent. Then he put his back out and I had to figure a way to breathe through my mouth, not get a whiff and just get on with it. Since then I've been lumbered with the campsite version of female emmancipation and there's no going back. I have seen things I wish I hadn't. I recently allowed my mind to wander and promptly dropped the cap down the three foot drop to the septic tank. I foraged for two long sticks and, like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible I focused like a shitty-stick-wielding ninja and I retrieved that sodding cap! (Mr N.K. saw my efforts, and after an initial delay during which he must have assumed I had it covered, he came out to observe, then caught the pesky cap before it fell back in. I am not alone in this world of slurry!)

I have had our 'landlord' show me the inside of the full and backed-up septic tank whilst patting me on the shoulder with his vinyl-gloved hand. I knew where that hand had been, so obviously was not listening to a word he said because my own thoughts were bellowing inside my head, "WHY WOULD HE DO THAT?!?!!!!!!!!?"

So, if you can get away with avoiding any doings with the doings, good on ya. I am not a better person for having seen the things I have seen. I usually want to hit anyone who says, "I'm not a feminist." but I can tolerate such brainlessness if it relates to not emptying the toilet. You hang on to your innocence, keep your mind unsullied. I'd like to have mine cleansed like Kate Winslett in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. 

A Bumpy Ride

Recent travels have had me on edge. The roads in England have been allowed to become potholed and patched-up and it can make for a bumpy journey. It takes the thrill out of taking to the road, and it gives the impression of a nation letting itself go. Five years ago we travelled around Ireland and found the roads to be in a poor state at the time. When we returned to England you could almost hear the car and Airstream sigh with relief. Now I think ours are even worse. We have spent a lot of time near Cheltenham and I have a mental map of many of the crappest roads in and around the town, but when you move on you have a whole new set of obstacles to avoid. And you can't swerve out of the way with a trailer on the back!

A trip to Wiltshire last week had the added headache of a flat tyre on the car whilst towing along a busy, rural, two lane A road. We had passed a lay-by on the other side and had to reverse back, inch by inch, during any gaps in the traffic. Once we had managed to cross over we then had to empty the contents of our boot in order to release the spare wheel that is fixed below the car. What can you do but grin encouragingly at each other and get through it?

The rest of the journey was one of those south of England routes that keeps passing through little villages, narrowing regularly and twisting its way around the countryside. These roads might be fun to whizz around on a motorbike or in an un-hitched car, but to tow an Airstream along them is slow and requires constant and prolonged concentration. The speed limit keeps dropping for all the bends and the quaint villages. It took us three hours to travel 100 miles.

I thoroughly enjoyed being somewhere completely new, once we had arrived, but the travel itself was not a pleasure, at all.

Summertime Neighbours

These are our neighbour's flowers. We have neighbours in the summertime. During the winter full-timing can be more quiet and solitary, in the summer we meet more long-termers. Well, that's around here anyway. We have found this friendly site with its incredibly accommodating and laid back owner, and due to the projects that Pete has been involved with recently our travels have been short, and usually starting from this same spot.

So it would appear that the combination of a really nice 'landlord', relative peace and quiet  and lots of green scenery brings people back year after year. Our opposite neighbour has been coming here for years, stays for a few weeks and then pops home for a bit to keep and eye on things there and pick up her post. A couple who spend their winters in Spain return here for about three months each summer to catch up with family and friends, attend weddings, that sort of thing.

And I've got used to seeing them. My hermit tendencies have receded just enough for me to pass the time of day, and so when Pete returns from a day of fixing up Airstreams I can let him know that after three years I have learnt somebody's name, they are 71 years old and in training to run a marathon, their next-door neighbour back home just won the lottery, and I've been asked to water someone's plants while they go away for the weekend.

Our clever Gerbera that just keeps on flowering

Hermit tendencies is a slight exaggeration, but when you live in an Airstream you can spend an awful lot of your time explaining what it is, where it's made, admitting that it costs  more than any other caravan, and why. And sometimes that's a lovely thing to do, other times I might just be trying to do my chores quickly and efficiently so that I can get on with my day. So you develop a way of making fleeting eye-contact and giving a short, friendly greeting, just enough not to be rude but brief enough to be able to move on. Often, someone will say, I didn't know they still made them. That happened yesterday and, when I offered my brief explanation it clearly wasn't brief enough and the chap who had started the 'conversation' cut me short and started to walk off. Suits me.

I know this all makes me sound pretty antisocial. But it's a common experience. Ultimately I am trying to avoid a situation that has happened too often, which is when someone, typically a middle-aged man (that's just a fact, not a judgement on age or gender) comes up to me while I'm busy, makes an opening statement like, I bet it takes a lot of cleaning. I say, no not really. He then tells me all sorts of facile misconceptions about Airstreams, or worse, tells me all about his caravan, not noticing that I am not actually asking or agreeing with any of it. He just goes on and on. He might tell me stuff I already know, but he hasn't got the perceptive skills to realise that I know stuff too, or he doesn't care, because he's a crashing bore!

There, that's what can happen. That's what has happened, a lot! And that's what I'm avoiding with my dark glasses or shifty glances. On the other hand you don't want to miss out on genuinely interested and interesting people, because there are plenty of those too, and it can make your day to have an unexpected friendly encounter. And having vented and ranted, I'll just go back to our lovely neighbours and point out that the long-termers and full-timers know about all of this and mostly respect each other's space. So you get a friendly little chat about the weather or a trip out somewhere, then move on. I know that they would help me if I needed it, and vice versa.

The Glamorous Nomad

One of the charms of moving your home to a different place is noticing the path of the sun in relation to your windows, and how that differs from your previous location. But after the first two days on our present pitch, I hadn't seen the sun, I had no idea how it might be tracking across the sky above a grimy, monotoned gloom. And then, ta dah! Another promise of Spring. I remembered my theory about my perception of the length of winter. At the moment I am convinced that this has been the longest winter ever. Then I applied my theory: It's because we were robbed of summer. The winter after a rubbish summer feels extra long.

Pete is on a course for a few days, which takes place in a suburb of Birmingham. We are staying on a farm several miles further out to the north east and I am amazed to find that there are acres and acres of clay-hued farmland, 14th century castles (privately owned and not open to the public!), and tiny red sandstone villages. Who knew that you can drive the overpass over the M6 and within mere moments you are in rural Warwickshire?

My previous knowledge of the Birmingham area was pretty limited to the dauntingly massive series of motorway junctions and ring roads that seem to surround and engulf the city, separating north from south. Or, as the road signs call it, 'The North' and 'The South'. Birmingham seems impenetrable and sprawling and constantly circled by a sea of motor vehicles. I'm still avoiding it this week, but I have discovered the peaceful contrast on its doorstep.

Our campsite this week is called something Hall Farm. I'm being a coward/diplomat and not naming it properly but you might see how one could have high hopes of a name like that. You might, like I did, imagine a grand estate with a charming little paddock set aside for campers. In fact this whole area is clearly a series of estates with halls and castles, woods and farmland. A search of the history of the area shows ownership of the estate dating back to the 15th century. And I will concede that this is not the time of year to see a basic campsite at its best. An adjacent strip of woods is going to burst with daffodils very soon, so that will brighten things up. But it is basic, which we don't mind at all, but I am judging the site by the fact that it is costing us £5 more per night than our last place, offering us no more, and by the awkwardness and unpleasantness of the black waste point.

It is an enclosed, above-ground tank. You have to climb two steps to access the wooden hatch on the top, once held on with two hinges, long since rusted and useless. And if you are 5ft 3in tall as I am, you have to lift your full black-waste cassette to chest height, rest it on the edge of the opening, carefully and with a very firm hold. Also treating the cap of your own tank as if it were part of an unexploded bomb, lest you drop it into the liquid hell below. Then to rinse, step down to ground level, reach several feet to the other end of the tank to grab the hose, rinse, climb back up, etc. Glamping my arse!

Apart from that, it is indeed peaceful and remote-yet-handy. And money for old rope for the farmer.

Mini moan and griping aside, it has been tingly and exciting to move to a completely unknown area again. Out of necessity we have been staying in one area for weeks, sometimes months at a time, and it has been lovely to make friendships and connections and to get comfortable with the familiarity of the roads and day to day facilities one relies upon. But there was a time when we moved every four or five days and got used to never really knowing our way around. After almost two years of exploring the country we were surprised to find ourselves in one spot for two whole weeks. And there are still places we haven't seen, which is great. For some reason we missed out Yorkshire completely.

We had a tricky time getting to this site. The junction we thought we wanted didn't have an exit on the bit of motorway we were travelling on. It took a couple of rethinks to find a way off! But finally here and set up, fairy lights on, cup of tea in hand I said, "Wherever we go, we're always here." You know, after all that, we are still at home.

Seasonal Musing

So far this winter has been a bit more challenging than previous ones in the Airstream. When we were still in self-imposed sabbatical mode there was a touch of charm and romance to most aspects of living in a trailer, and being nomadic to a greater or lesser degree. And I still relish a less conventional lifestyle. I never did aspire to an average existence. But I have found that, when life becomes more laden with serious or emotive diversions it is a little bit harder to engage with the charms that had previously shone a glow over everything. They can become time-consuming extras, chores. I'm talking about stuff like the fetching and carrying of water and waste, the need to put stuff away and not always have it instantly to hand. Little things really, that can eat into your day when you're just trying to get on with something.

Weather matters too, and the length of the days. I don't mind the snow, and I don't mind too much having to thaw the taps and negotiate icy tracks to get to them, as long as it's just for a couple of days. Plus, our 'landlord' Dave has recently built a unique little heated wooden structure around the fresh water tap so that we never have to do the traipsing thing with jugs of warm water again. But like many parts of the country, the ground here was already saturated, and the thaw and subsequent rain has made everything muddy. And 'Wet Keep Off' signs are multiplying on the campsite. Not that you would want to walk on the grass, the ground beneath it has the consistency of room-temperature butter.

I can project forward in time slightly and envisage a lighter, warmer Spring when the prospect of enjoying a view across a pine covered hill, or a rocky coastline can be savoured from outside rather than in and behind glass. It's only just February and those days are a way off yet. But the merging of indoors and out, and the changing view on your doorstep is something to anticipate.

And by the way, the picture is not of us. It's a nearby farmyard with a vintage Airstream awaiting some TLC.

No Rain

Sometimes the sound of raindrops on the Airstream roof can make you feel lucky to be indoors, cocooned. If you have nothing more pressing to do, those are the perfect days for a favourite film (I like something old and from a less complicated era for these occasions), gallons of tea, possibly some baking, and definitely some knitting or crochet. But if it's not Sunday, New Year's Day, or you're not on holiday it can be a smidgen inconvenient.

And after the soggy seasons we have all been dripping our way through, it can start to feel relentless, and like a bit of a trap. You can be all Cumbrian about it and just get out there in your appropriate clothing, but then you get back and steam up the place with the drying out process.

Anyway, when there's a gap of an hour or even a whole day, it's a relief to get out there and inhale the fragrance of damp soil and let the retinas rejoice in some autumnal jewel colours. I particularly like it when the sky is heavy and grey, but the sun has decided to come out in the afternoon and splash golden light on the yellowing foliage. If I look down, I love to see a tapestry of russet and gold leaves on glistening, black tarmac.

Flip-Flops and Bumble Bees

Spring is here. We have been fooling ourselves for a couple of weeks, excited by a glimpse of sunshine and some chirruping birds, only to be caught out with inadequate layering of clothes. I might start recording my first sighting of a girl in flip-flops, just like I make a mental note of my first bumble bee. I have seen both, the flip-flops before the official first day of Spring, and the more sensible bee since.

I haven't blogged much lately, questioning whether there's a point. Don't we all? I have felt that things have been a bit ordinary, and who wants to hear about that? Then it occurred to me that things may have been just relatively ordinary. After all, we are still living in our Airstream, of no fixed abode. Nothing ordinary about that. Anyway, doing normal stuff is good; dull, but necessary. Sometimes though, days and weeks can go by where you're just dealing with one bit of domestic or personal maintenance after another. I guess this is the ideal time of year to be in that mode; brighter, longer days to get stuck in with chores and jobs. Then, hopefully we're all ready to get on with the rest of Spring and Summer.

The trailer got a wash and a polish last week. I quite like polishing, and going round with a soft toothbrush to dislodge grime and green stuff from the crevasses. I have an eye for it. It's in my genes. Next, I'm going to raid the vehicle grooming kit that we got with our Land Rover, and see what I can gloss or highlight. It's like make-up for your car or trailer. 

These primroses are sitting on the top of our gas bottle locker, and aren't they just little pots of sunshine? Yellow, and the fresh green of new shoots just seem to be the colours of Spring don't they?

On My Radio

vintage 70s transistor radio from Wayside Flower on Etsy

A recent trip to the supermarket was transformed when the music on my radio was of an unexpectedly top quality. The husky welsh tones of Cerys Matthews, standing in on Radio 2, introduced this outrageously good selection: a 13 year old Michael Jackson singing the Bill Withers song - Ain't No Sunshine, James Blake covering Joni Mitchel's - A Case of You, and The Rolling Stones' inimitable - Gimme Sunshine.

This is music to make you feel something, to make you swoon. Cerys also usually has her own show on BBC Radio 6 Music. My life has been considerably enhanced since I realised I could listen to digital radio through our television. Instead of being spoon-fed somnambulising mush I can start the day with Shaun Keaveny who respects his listeners enough to treat them to Public Image Limited, Radiohead, Stevie Wonder (and I don't mean Ebony and Ivory). He chats clumsily about the universe with Professor Brian Cox most Fridays, and finishes the week with a poem written and performed by stand-up satirist, Murray Lachlan Young. You won't get any X-Lobotomy-Factor porridge here. Instead of anaesthetising the nation, 6 Music stirs and awakens.

Commenting on a trivial news item about the changing of rules on the wearing of fascintators at Ascot this year, Shaun's take was that a fascinator isn't really a hat, "... more like an emerging idea, or a mood." Profound genius, and all during breakfast.

Lovely Laundry Day

I have stumbled upon a foolproof way to make laundry day less bothersome:  Find the nearest launderette that has sensible opening hours (8 till late works for me), bung washables, detergent and money in machine, go and buy ice cream. Then the remaining bundling and folding goes by in a haze of gratified self indulgence.

Apply above method to any tiresome activity. In winter, replace ice cream with chocolate and hot milky beverage.

Silver and White

Well we're just about back to our own version of normality, apart from conscientiously eating our way through a small hillock of cakes and puddings that is still sitting here on the galley counter. Most of it would probably keep for a few months, but the usual space restrictions apply and we need our horizontal surfaces back. We'll soldier on.

We have just experienced the most beautiful winter weather I can remember. It's been a challenge at times, but stunning to look at. There has been freezing fog, which resulted in the thickest and spikiest frost I have ever seen, literally covering every surface in jagged white needles. And then there was the snow, which just kept falling. The temperature never rose above freezing, so it remained light and powdery and as pure as when it fell.

The nation attempted to carry on as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred, but of course that didn't really work.

We kept warm and toasty inside the Airstream, using up the gas at a ridiculous rate, but things froze up outside. Some days our chores would take way too long. We have to fetch our fresh water every day and dispose of our waste. Normally I'm perfectly happy to get out there and do what needs to be done, but the winter days are short enough without having to spend the daylight hours thawing out pipes and taps.

Our internal tank and pipes were fine but our external tank would freeze, as would its connecting hose, the fresh water tap, our waste water container, the waste water disposal point and the 'black water' disposal point. Many trips back and forth to the trailer to fill up flasks with hot water were required to thaw everything out. The trick is to ensure that there is sufficient water left in the internal tank overnight so that you've got enough for the thawing out business the next day, plus your morning beverages of course.

I was just hoping that the winter wonderland would stay in place for Christmas day. After all the rigmarole and the nationwide gnashing of teeth it would have been a disappointment to have a big thaw and end up trudging around in slush and mud instead of snow. I got my wish, and the sun came out too. It was glorious.

Now there's mud, lots of mud. Hey ho.