I am writing from a caravan site in Scone, Perthshire. It is Friday, though it might as well be a week on Tuesday. You tend to lose all sense of place and time when you have no television to keep you on the right track.
The rain is falling relentlessly from a growling, sullen sky. ‘Just a Scoatch mist’ said an old fermer, hobbling along with the aid of a stick. It was he that explained the mechanics of towing a ploughshare with a 1947 Ferguson tractor. After half an hour, I was able to contribute to the conversation by informing him that his tractor had a Standard Vanguard engine. That sums up my total knowledge of post-war agriculture. He limped away in disgust. I think that was yesterday, but it might have been the day before.
I am certainly not cut out for towing a caravan. Everything that can go wrong generally does. I started out on Wednesday, full of the usual trepidation and catastrophising. The pound where I pay a princely sum to store the caravan, an ancient Elddis, has just installed a new fingerprint recognition system, which I discovered doesn’t work in direct sunlight, so I couldn’t open the gates to get in or out. I had to call for the owner of the pound, and he wasn’t happy. ‘Just put your hand over it’, he said, but that didn’t work for him either, so he had to go back for his keys.
Driving along the A9, a huge truck overtook me and the vacuum it created sucked the side window of the caravan open and I had to stop and lock the window. Whilst I was doing that, I found a huge sheet of packaging that had been discarded from a lorry had wrapped itself around one of the rear corner steadies. I had carried that from Tranent. I stopped off for lunch in a lay-by, and deposited a hot cup of coffee over my trousers. Just as I was leaving the A9, I heard an awful scraping noise from the van. I thought one of its tyres had been punctured. I pulled into the side and found that the jockey wheel had slipped down and was being dragged at right angles along the road. By some miracle, no serious damage had been done.
I used the satellite navigation system – always a mistake. I had to drive around Perth three times before I picked up the correct road. The woman in the sat nav machine, complete with strident Northern Irish brogue, failed to advise me when I should have come off on a slip road, and things went steadily downhill from then.
When I finally found the site, the brassy campsite administrator from Yorkshire told me that they could only put me up for two days, rather than a week. “I’m sorry, Mr ‘Ardwick, boot there’s an event on a’ Perth racecourse an’ I’m foolly boowked. You might get a cancellation. Coom an’ see me on Thursday.’
I parked the caravan the wrong way round. The lanky site manager, who looked not unlike Lurch, the butler in ‘The Addams Family’ said: “You can’t park there. Fire Regulations – the a-frame always has to point to the road.” I considered the stupidity of that remark and reflected again on the pettifogging rules that destroy anyone’s holiday before it even starts. Others may tolerate the mindless bureaucracy of these places, but I am not one of them. My temper is a fragile thing, easily aroused. ‘Well, I said,’ I’m not reversing this thing, because I simply cannot reverse a caravan, so I suggest you go and complain to the firemaster.’ We compromised. I released the caravan and we turned it round 180 degrees on the jockey-wheel. The manager left without saying another word.
I went to buy gas at the office. The brassy lady said ‘I’m sorry - it’s cash for gas, Mr ‘Ardwick. The manager has to pay oop froont for the gas, so you cannot use a debit card.’ She didn’t sound very sorry. ‘But I don’t have any cash,’ I said, and it’s four miles to the nearest cash point.’ She snapped the ledger in which she had been working firmly shut. Her mouth was set in a tight line. ‘Them’s the rules’.
I have taken this caravan to a dozen sites over the four years since I bought it and they are all the same. ‘Keep dogs on a lead’, ‘Mop the shower after you,’ ‘Switch off all electrical appliances at night,’ ‘Turn off the gas,’ the list of instructions is endless. The most bizarre notice here is one that reads: ‘Due to recycling, all waste bins have been moved to the reception forecourt.’ That means a trek of several hundred yards carrying bags of refuse, rather than a few yards to a convenient dustbin.
All this erodes my nerves like a file on a hacksaw. Yet I still continue to take these ludicrous holidays in the hope that one day I will wake up with my mood transformed and I will embrace with joy all of the nonsensical rules, all of the inconveniences, all of the privations, the unpleasantness of communal toilets and the general lack of space in the caravan. I still politely engage in moribund conversations about the weather and Ferguson tractors with complete strangers whom I will never clap eyes on again as long as I live. The mediocrity of these situations is staggering.
On the plus side, and this is important, caravanning is about personal freedom, except you wouldn’t think so if you booked into one of these sites. A final note: There was a cancellation, so I am staying till Sunday. The forecast is for persistent rain over the weekend. Oh, dear.
The rain is falling relentlessly from a growling, sullen sky. ‘Just a Scoatch mist’ said an old fermer, hobbling along with the aid of a stick. It was he that explained the mechanics of towing a ploughshare with a 1947 Ferguson tractor. After half an hour, I was able to contribute to the conversation by informing him that his tractor had a Standard Vanguard engine. That sums up my total knowledge of post-war agriculture. He limped away in disgust. I think that was yesterday, but it might have been the day before.
I am certainly not cut out for towing a caravan. Everything that can go wrong generally does. I started out on Wednesday, full of the usual trepidation and catastrophising. The pound where I pay a princely sum to store the caravan, an ancient Elddis, has just installed a new fingerprint recognition system, which I discovered doesn’t work in direct sunlight, so I couldn’t open the gates to get in or out. I had to call for the owner of the pound, and he wasn’t happy. ‘Just put your hand over it’, he said, but that didn’t work for him either, so he had to go back for his keys.
Driving along the A9, a huge truck overtook me and the vacuum it created sucked the side window of the caravan open and I had to stop and lock the window. Whilst I was doing that, I found a huge sheet of packaging that had been discarded from a lorry had wrapped itself around one of the rear corner steadies. I had carried that from Tranent. I stopped off for lunch in a lay-by, and deposited a hot cup of coffee over my trousers. Just as I was leaving the A9, I heard an awful scraping noise from the van. I thought one of its tyres had been punctured. I pulled into the side and found that the jockey wheel had slipped down and was being dragged at right angles along the road. By some miracle, no serious damage had been done.
I used the satellite navigation system – always a mistake. I had to drive around Perth three times before I picked up the correct road. The woman in the sat nav machine, complete with strident Northern Irish brogue, failed to advise me when I should have come off on a slip road, and things went steadily downhill from then.
When I finally found the site, the brassy campsite administrator from Yorkshire told me that they could only put me up for two days, rather than a week. “I’m sorry, Mr ‘Ardwick, boot there’s an event on a’ Perth racecourse an’ I’m foolly boowked. You might get a cancellation. Coom an’ see me on Thursday.’
I parked the caravan the wrong way round. The lanky site manager, who looked not unlike Lurch, the butler in ‘The Addams Family’ said: “You can’t park there. Fire Regulations – the a-frame always has to point to the road.” I considered the stupidity of that remark and reflected again on the pettifogging rules that destroy anyone’s holiday before it even starts. Others may tolerate the mindless bureaucracy of these places, but I am not one of them. My temper is a fragile thing, easily aroused. ‘Well, I said,’ I’m not reversing this thing, because I simply cannot reverse a caravan, so I suggest you go and complain to the firemaster.’ We compromised. I released the caravan and we turned it round 180 degrees on the jockey-wheel. The manager left without saying another word.
I went to buy gas at the office. The brassy lady said ‘I’m sorry - it’s cash for gas, Mr ‘Ardwick. The manager has to pay oop froont for the gas, so you cannot use a debit card.’ She didn’t sound very sorry. ‘But I don’t have any cash,’ I said, and it’s four miles to the nearest cash point.’ She snapped the ledger in which she had been working firmly shut. Her mouth was set in a tight line. ‘Them’s the rules’.
I have taken this caravan to a dozen sites over the four years since I bought it and they are all the same. ‘Keep dogs on a lead’, ‘Mop the shower after you,’ ‘Switch off all electrical appliances at night,’ ‘Turn off the gas,’ the list of instructions is endless. The most bizarre notice here is one that reads: ‘Due to recycling, all waste bins have been moved to the reception forecourt.’ That means a trek of several hundred yards carrying bags of refuse, rather than a few yards to a convenient dustbin.
All this erodes my nerves like a file on a hacksaw. Yet I still continue to take these ludicrous holidays in the hope that one day I will wake up with my mood transformed and I will embrace with joy all of the nonsensical rules, all of the inconveniences, all of the privations, the unpleasantness of communal toilets and the general lack of space in the caravan. I still politely engage in moribund conversations about the weather and Ferguson tractors with complete strangers whom I will never clap eyes on again as long as I live. The mediocrity of these situations is staggering.
On the plus side, and this is important, caravanning is about personal freedom, except you wouldn’t think so if you booked into one of these sites. A final note: There was a cancellation, so I am staying till Sunday. The forecast is for persistent rain over the weekend. Oh, dear.
