The little caravan sat in the pound, redundant
since last autumn. It looked as though someone had shot-blasted it with coal
dust. I hitched it up and drove it
home. I had to use Brillo pads to clean
the glass-fibre front and the roof. Even
with the help of my stepladder, there was a strip of dirt on the roof I
couldn't reach, so it was a two-tone caravan that pulled away the next
morning. I had bought and fitted a new
number plate to the caravan and that fell off somewhere en route. Ten pounds
wasted and the traffic regualtions broken.
Rain swept in from the west and, climbing the hills into the North Tyne valley, my vision was almost entirely obscured by low cloud and mist. The road to Bellingham is twisting, narrow and rutted, and I felt as if I was driving a Roman chariot. Allied to that, my car is not an ideal tow-car and it felt like I was in an upturned boat on a choppy sea.
The site manager directed me to a pitch under a fir tree. "Best take this one", he said - "I'm expecting another thirty vans today." It took me about an hour to reverse the caravan, as usual. The grass around the hard-standing was more like sphagnum moss, so much rain had it absorbed. I quite expected Dr David Bellamy to emerge triumphantly from the forest behind to declare this wetland an area of special scientific intewest.
I had to walk through a cloud of midges to gain entrance to the van. They all followed me inside and started to nibble at the lobes of my ears. "I thought you only had midges in the west of Scotland" said my wife. "Regrettably, they don't stop at the Border," I replied.
I booked for four days, to leave on Sunday 24th June. Thus far, on the 23rd, it has rained more or less permanently, and when it does briefly stop, a fearsome wind takes up and threatens to blow the caravan over. The fir trees amuse themselves by ejecting one of their cones every so often, which hits the caravan roof with the force of a .38 calibre bullet and gives you the shock of your life, especially whilst you are lying asleep with no other sound to disturb you. I woke once and thought I was under a defibrollator.
On the first evening, when the rain had briefly died down, I walked the half-mile to the village. I wore a short blue raincoat and a black homburg hat that made me look like Fred Scuttle. The rain recommenced when I was level with the Co-operative store and it was as if some celestial Percy Thrower had turned on a hose in his heavenly greenhouse. By the time I returned to the van, I had to be wrung out, like a dish-mop.
We went for a drive last night and on the road to Otterburn, there was a ford every twenty yards. Water cascaded down from the fields and the hills and ran in a brown torrent down the camber of the narrow road. Sheep mewed piteously as they plodged in and out of clumps of mud, and the cattle simply lay down and waited for everything to pass over.
This morning, we fetched up at Bellingham village. Two ancients stood outside of the country store. One said: "I hear we're going to have three days of this". He gestured at the sky. The other said: "It's something to do with a depression in the Atlantic." The first said drily: "Never mind a depression in the Atlantic - look at the depression around here - I've never seen the folk so miserable."
Outside the Black Bull, Diamond Jubilee bunting waved feebly. A Howard Snaith bus to Hexham pulled out, its wipers clacking wildly. In front of the village bakery, two middle-aged hikers discussed the possibilities. "We need to make Wark by lunchtime" said one, a short, plump man with a bald head, a white goatee beard and an unfortunate pair of shorts. His companion, also small but almost square, with a ludicrous comb-over and a permanently pained expression, replied: "You can't expect the women to push on in this - Helen's just complained that her hair is a brittle as toffee. I tell you, they're getting fed up - there's mutiny afoot." "Don't tell me", said the Goatee "Sylvia's had that many bites, her neck looks like a chess-board. I feel like turning it in myself".
Incredibly, Bellingham once had a station, though it must have carried about five people a week. The station house, a modest but pleasing stone affair on two storeys, is still there. The station yard is now a car park. Someone has had the foresight to apply for lottery money, buy two British Railways Mark I coaches, settle them on a length of track in front of the bay platform, paint them splendidly in rhubarb and custard, have the seats retrimmed in a natty blue moquette, and turn them into tea-rooms. Over an expensive latte, I marvelled at just how well-made these Derby-built coaches were and how much more comfortable the seats are than the dreadful "Mallard" efforts offered on East Coast Main Line trains. It was quite easy to imagine yourself in one of these BR coaches, waiting to set out on the hour-long journey into Hexham, with time on your hands and no eurozone crisis to worry about. It's a pity that Dr Beeching so swiftly put paid to that dream.
Rain swept in from the west and, climbing the hills into the North Tyne valley, my vision was almost entirely obscured by low cloud and mist. The road to Bellingham is twisting, narrow and rutted, and I felt as if I was driving a Roman chariot. Allied to that, my car is not an ideal tow-car and it felt like I was in an upturned boat on a choppy sea.
The site manager directed me to a pitch under a fir tree. "Best take this one", he said - "I'm expecting another thirty vans today." It took me about an hour to reverse the caravan, as usual. The grass around the hard-standing was more like sphagnum moss, so much rain had it absorbed. I quite expected Dr David Bellamy to emerge triumphantly from the forest behind to declare this wetland an area of special scientific intewest.
I had to walk through a cloud of midges to gain entrance to the van. They all followed me inside and started to nibble at the lobes of my ears. "I thought you only had midges in the west of Scotland" said my wife. "Regrettably, they don't stop at the Border," I replied.
I booked for four days, to leave on Sunday 24th June. Thus far, on the 23rd, it has rained more or less permanently, and when it does briefly stop, a fearsome wind takes up and threatens to blow the caravan over. The fir trees amuse themselves by ejecting one of their cones every so often, which hits the caravan roof with the force of a .38 calibre bullet and gives you the shock of your life, especially whilst you are lying asleep with no other sound to disturb you. I woke once and thought I was under a defibrollator.
On the first evening, when the rain had briefly died down, I walked the half-mile to the village. I wore a short blue raincoat and a black homburg hat that made me look like Fred Scuttle. The rain recommenced when I was level with the Co-operative store and it was as if some celestial Percy Thrower had turned on a hose in his heavenly greenhouse. By the time I returned to the van, I had to be wrung out, like a dish-mop.
We went for a drive last night and on the road to Otterburn, there was a ford every twenty yards. Water cascaded down from the fields and the hills and ran in a brown torrent down the camber of the narrow road. Sheep mewed piteously as they plodged in and out of clumps of mud, and the cattle simply lay down and waited for everything to pass over.
This morning, we fetched up at Bellingham village. Two ancients stood outside of the country store. One said: "I hear we're going to have three days of this". He gestured at the sky. The other said: "It's something to do with a depression in the Atlantic." The first said drily: "Never mind a depression in the Atlantic - look at the depression around here - I've never seen the folk so miserable."
Outside the Black Bull, Diamond Jubilee bunting waved feebly. A Howard Snaith bus to Hexham pulled out, its wipers clacking wildly. In front of the village bakery, two middle-aged hikers discussed the possibilities. "We need to make Wark by lunchtime" said one, a short, plump man with a bald head, a white goatee beard and an unfortunate pair of shorts. His companion, also small but almost square, with a ludicrous comb-over and a permanently pained expression, replied: "You can't expect the women to push on in this - Helen's just complained that her hair is a brittle as toffee. I tell you, they're getting fed up - there's mutiny afoot." "Don't tell me", said the Goatee "Sylvia's had that many bites, her neck looks like a chess-board. I feel like turning it in myself".
Incredibly, Bellingham once had a station, though it must have carried about five people a week. The station house, a modest but pleasing stone affair on two storeys, is still there. The station yard is now a car park. Someone has had the foresight to apply for lottery money, buy two British Railways Mark I coaches, settle them on a length of track in front of the bay platform, paint them splendidly in rhubarb and custard, have the seats retrimmed in a natty blue moquette, and turn them into tea-rooms. Over an expensive latte, I marvelled at just how well-made these Derby-built coaches were and how much more comfortable the seats are than the dreadful "Mallard" efforts offered on East Coast Main Line trains. It was quite easy to imagine yourself in one of these BR coaches, waiting to set out on the hour-long journey into Hexham, with time on your hands and no eurozone crisis to worry about. It's a pity that Dr Beeching so swiftly put paid to that dream.
