DUNBAR CAPERS

A couple of years ago, I decided to buy a cheap little two-berth touring caravan. I reasoned that if caravanning was a failure, which, with my luck, it was bound to be, I wouldn’t end up terribly out of pocket. On a whim, I bought a 1991 Elddis Vogue II, presumably an uprated version of the Elddis Vogue I, from a dealer in Macmerry.

I disinterred it from the pound this week, after the winter of discontented weather, and eventually towed it 20 miles to a site in Dunbar. First of all, I took it home and cleaned it with the high-pressure lance. A lot of green live stuff had appeared over the winter on the caravan rear. I read the handbook afterwards, which, on closer inspection, informed me that on no account should I clean the caravan with a high-pressure lance. This was bound to dislodge the mastic covering the main seams and the caravan would one day just fall apart, like something from Laurel and Hardy. Then I coupled up the seven-pin connector the wrong way round and blew the main fuse in the car. I had no brake lights; no indicators. I fixed that when I arrived on site. As usual, I had to ask the site concierge to direct me backwards, as reversing a caravan defeats me every time. This is because one has to steer the opposite way to what logic would dictate in order to get the caravan to move in the required direction, and I am Spock the Logician, not Kirk the Intuitive.

Last year, I bought a second-hand porch awning, a Bradley Portico, from a chap in Stow, who said it could be erected in five minutes. It took the two of us three hours, and the end result looked more than a little cock-eyed. One of the supporting legs was waving round like a Praying Mantis’s antenna. There had been a breeze, which had frenziedly lifted the canvas around the awning poles like a top mains’l gallant in the Roaring Forties. My brittle temperament was tested several times. Then, yesterday, I suffered another setback. I turned on the tap in the kitchen sink and water ran down the wall of the shower. I had to dismantle the vanitory unit to gain access to the shower taps. This unit is made of some white plastic akin to bakelite and over the years has become increasingly brittle. When I eased it off the wall, a great crack appeared in the bakelite, along from the hot tap. I replaced the rubber hose from the water heater, which had slipped off the tap stub, and screwed the unit back to the wall. I used superglue to bridge the crack, clear bostik to secure the two sides, and fibreglass resin to make the repair waterproof. Then, when I was coupling up the water pump outside, having cleaned up the wiring because it only worked when you struck the pump with a stick, a piece of the water filter boss snapped off in its housing and I glued that back on with Bostik. I cannot now remove the filter housing in order to clean the filter, so I will contract gastro-enteritis from bacteria-laden drinking-water in precisely thirty days. All that was before I snapped off the towing socket cover on the car’s towbar. This is a spindly spring-loaded affair that covers the electric pins connecting car to caravan, and it just came away in my hand. I haven’t fixed that yet.

I’ve three days left to wreak more havoc, and I’m expecting a visit from my parents tomorrow, which will doubtless increase my opportunities to make a pig’s-ear of things, but at least I’ve only a twenty-mile trip to tow the caravan back when I’m finished, provided it’s still capable of being towed. As I write, I’m watching someone else put up his awning, an igloo affair secured externally by what appear to be fishing-rods, and the wind caught it and nearly turned the chap into a hang-glider. We experienced caravanners laugh at such mishaps.