The very first thing I saw was the caravan - it just screamed out at me and I remembered a time which seems so long ago now, when I went caravaning in something that looked remarkably like this.
We weren't a caravan family. My Dad preferred to camp under canvas and back when I was a kid you didn't have nifty little two-man nylon jobs which you could put up with one hand in 5 minutes flat. Oh no, these were serious canvas tents, with poles and ropes and 30 minutes of hard yakka to get them upright. You cooked on a campfire in a camp stove, tea was via a billy and sleep (if you got any) was on a camp bed which sagged in the middle and collapsed under you if you moved too quickly (or heavily) during the night. A trip to the loo was a dash into the bush with shovel, trailing toilet paper in your wake, a wash was a dip in the river and aeroguard was for sissies. My Dad loved it, I embraced it and my Mum ... well let's just say she put on a brave face ....
One year my Dad must have relented and hired (or borrowed) a caravan for a long weekend. My mother was overjoyed, packed it with spare crockery and shiny cooking utensils, proper sheets and blankets and we headed out into the great unknown. It was bliss - Mum happily producing caravan cordon bleu, serving it on white dinner plates on a table-clothed melamine table. Me and a girl friend content, tucked up in clean sheets in our matching bunk beds, reading by camp light and Dad? - yep Dad was happy too .. in his canvas tent, in his saggy camp bed with faithful dog by his side, a good thirty feet from the caravan door.
1 comment:
Jane...I really enjoyed reading your story! We used to go camping with the kids and yes with a tent that took so long to put up...but they were such fun times....now as I am older....really would rather having a caravan or at least a camper trailer! Still trying to persuade the old boy on that one...he is a bit like your Dad ...likes to rough it!
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