Sunday. The last day of my mini-holiday. I was up at 07:15. I promptly fell over the dog in the dark. Moral: Don’t take a large dog on holiday in a small caravan. I was surprised to see so many of the camping community up and about. Many carried towels and were obviously on their way to the synchronised showering in the toilet block. I remarked to myself if I saw another octogenarian in shorts, with legs like a relief map of Tierra Del Fuego, I would give up caravanning for good.
I took the dog for a last look at Perth Racecourse. Clouds were gathering and I felt a spit of rain. The weather forecast said that Perth was going to be on the tail end of Hurricane Aorta, or some such, so I guessed I needed to be away pronto. I spent a few moments leaning on a rail and looking out at the finishing-line. The dog and I were quite alone. I could almost hear the sound of the hundreds of thousands of hooves that had clattered majestically towards the line and the yell of a million spectators that roared their steeds on from the comfort of the main stand. Not that the horses would have run five yards today before sinking up to their oxters in clarts. They would have needed the fire brigade to haul them out. The going might well be described as ‘extremely soft to bleedin’ ridiculous.’
I liked very much this small racecourse with its tiny winners’ enclosure that looks like a drying-green and its Edwardian pavilion that would be better fitted to overseeing a cricket match between the Free Foresters and I Zingari.
It took me two hours to put everything away and two seconds to cause mayhem. I could have sworn I released the caravan handbrake. I hadn’t, which I discovered when I became stuck, to my utter humiliation, in front of dozens of people on the main road out of the site. When I got out of the car I could see that the handbrake was full on, and I couldn’t release it. I couldn’t release it because the breakaway cable, a thin piece of piano wire that is necessary to ensure that the caravan and car don’t part company if the coupling breaks, was stretched as tightly as a cummerbund around Friar Tuck. I couldn’t shift it, so couldn’t release the brake. I only bought a new cable last week because the old one lost one of its clips. Luckily, I had brought my late Uncle George’s toolbox with me, so I managed to cut the cable with a pair of pincers.
I had to drive 85 miles with no breakaway cable. Every time I went over a bump, I felt that the caravan was going to part company with the car and would end up straddling two lanes of the M9, with disastrous results for ten miles of traffic behind it, prevented from moving as neatly as if someone built a wall across the road. I kept my speed down to 34 miles per hour maximum and took almost three hours to get home. I think I moved up from third gear twice. Caravans twenty feet long sailed past me at 60 mph, children waving at me from the back seat, whilst I clung so grimly to the steering-wheel in the inside lane, I almost developed carpal tunnel syndrome. I ground my teeth so badly on the way back to the caravan pound that I ground out a filling.
After I had parked up, I was relieved to announce that that was the caravanning adventure over until next year. Who knows, by then, I might be off the medication.
I took the dog for a last look at Perth Racecourse. Clouds were gathering and I felt a spit of rain. The weather forecast said that Perth was going to be on the tail end of Hurricane Aorta, or some such, so I guessed I needed to be away pronto. I spent a few moments leaning on a rail and looking out at the finishing-line. The dog and I were quite alone. I could almost hear the sound of the hundreds of thousands of hooves that had clattered majestically towards the line and the yell of a million spectators that roared their steeds on from the comfort of the main stand. Not that the horses would have run five yards today before sinking up to their oxters in clarts. They would have needed the fire brigade to haul them out. The going might well be described as ‘extremely soft to bleedin’ ridiculous.’
I liked very much this small racecourse with its tiny winners’ enclosure that looks like a drying-green and its Edwardian pavilion that would be better fitted to overseeing a cricket match between the Free Foresters and I Zingari.
It took me two hours to put everything away and two seconds to cause mayhem. I could have sworn I released the caravan handbrake. I hadn’t, which I discovered when I became stuck, to my utter humiliation, in front of dozens of people on the main road out of the site. When I got out of the car I could see that the handbrake was full on, and I couldn’t release it. I couldn’t release it because the breakaway cable, a thin piece of piano wire that is necessary to ensure that the caravan and car don’t part company if the coupling breaks, was stretched as tightly as a cummerbund around Friar Tuck. I couldn’t shift it, so couldn’t release the brake. I only bought a new cable last week because the old one lost one of its clips. Luckily, I had brought my late Uncle George’s toolbox with me, so I managed to cut the cable with a pair of pincers.
I had to drive 85 miles with no breakaway cable. Every time I went over a bump, I felt that the caravan was going to part company with the car and would end up straddling two lanes of the M9, with disastrous results for ten miles of traffic behind it, prevented from moving as neatly as if someone built a wall across the road. I kept my speed down to 34 miles per hour maximum and took almost three hours to get home. I think I moved up from third gear twice. Caravans twenty feet long sailed past me at 60 mph, children waving at me from the back seat, whilst I clung so grimly to the steering-wheel in the inside lane, I almost developed carpal tunnel syndrome. I ground my teeth so badly on the way back to the caravan pound that I ground out a filling.
After I had parked up, I was relieved to announce that that was the caravanning adventure over until next year. Who knows, by then, I might be off the medication.
