YAWNING AWNING

Day 2  Tuesday, 9 September 2014

In which we put up an awning, attempt to buy food at the site shop and I meet a Yorkshireman

I was cold through the night.  I woke up a few times, feeling chilled to the marrow.  The temperature in the van had dropped like a stone because it was a clear black night with a full moon and the caravan has all the insulation of a canvas bag.  I got up just after seven ‘o’ clock.  Dew lay heavy on the grass.  The morning was still cold and light cloud balked the sun.  That soon burned off, however, and this became a hot, sunny and glorious morning.  I have a feeling that this will be the last holiday that this old van will take.  The detergent scoosher for the w.c. packed its hand in today.  The plastic diaphragm that pumps up the blue detergent is punctured and sucks up nothing but air, making a noise like a leaking steam gland every time the huge scoosher knob is turned. There are problems with the shower head, which is made of a sort of cream-coloured bakelite.  It is cracked and worn with age.  I tried to seal the crack this morning, but the glue came away when I tried the shower out later and water sprayed from the crack straight into my eyes.  The hot tap to the sink is often full of air, and burps and belches in a most alarming manner until hot water finally emerges. 

On the site, near the entrance, there is a very old van, which seems to have been manufactured from corrugated iron and old tea-trays.  This incredible contrivance seems to fold in half in the middle, so that the towing hitch is at right angles to the entrance door.  Its breakaway cable is a length of rusty chain and it is towed by an utterly ancient and decrepit Suzuki Swift.  The van must be sixty years old, or more.  I didn’t photograph it in case it fell apart when I pointed the camera at it.

I spent an hour this morning cleaning the kitchenware, of which there is far too much, including a cafetiere, a fish-slice, a butter-dish, and a cake-stand.  I made a mental note to reduce the inventory at some later stage. 
The awning, with which we have had so much trouble over the years, went up much more easily than previously.  I took the precaution of zipping up all the doors, so that you could envisage what it might look like once it was erected.  The poles are of a design so archaic that they might have been designed by the hand of Orville or Wilbur Wright, if not both.   There are inner poles and outer poles for each section. They lengthen or shorten by you releasing fastenings like thumbscrews, sliding in or out the inner poles in the manner of a trombone, and then tightening the thumbscrews by hand.  These bear hard against the inner poles, making (you hope) a permanent bond. You stand inside the tent, which is fed through an awning channel on the caravan, and drape the tent over the duly extended poles.  This activity normally leads to the framework collapsing on your head and the tent almost suffocating you as you become enveloped in its folds, but this time the whole lot went up without a hitch.  The last act is to guy down the awning with tent pegs, using a wooden mallet, which secures the rubber guys to the ground. There are 33 guying points, which seems an awful lot for something the size of a sentry-box outside Buckingham Palace.  At least it gives some precious extra space.  I shall eat my breakfast in there if the weather stays fine.  If it rains, I will eat in the van, for when it rains, water collects on the sloping roof and quite frequently drips down the back of your neck.
There is a dog walk to the north of the site.  It runs for a quarter of a mile through a mess of grass and nettles.  Someone, perhaps Dick Turpin or Paul Revere, has galloped along it on a horse and has churned up so much mud it looks like the Somme, c.1916. That effectively stops people from using it.  Nor, despite all these paths and walks, can I find evidence of any footpath into Barnard Castle, even though one is clearly shown on the ordnance survey map hanging up in reception.  There is a note on the toilet block saying: ‘Do not cycle around the toilet block.’  As the average age of the campers seems to be around seventy, I would have thought that this was a singularly superfluous request.  Every half-hour, a jet screams overhead, presumably from RAF Catterick.   The noise frightens the dog and discomfits the septuagenarians dotted around the site.  They are obliged to turn down their hearing-aids. Apart from that, it’s so quiet around here that even the muted croak of the carrion crow sounds like an oration from Brian Blessed.  I met a Yorkshireman from Featherstone, a stout little fellow with mutton-chop whiskers and a bristly moustache.  We chatted amiably, and parted.  I walked the dog along to the slurry-field.  On my way back, I passed his caravan.  “Hey!” he yelled.  “I just saw your brother back there.”  Who said Yorkshiremen have no sense of humour?  The site brochure said: “The Reception/shop…stock (sic) eggs, bacon, sausages, milk, ice-creams, cold drinks and a selection of groceries.  Cash only.”  We were hungry.  We needed something for tea. We walked the 400 yards to reception. My wife went in.  The dialogue went something like this: “We need something for our tea.  Any sausages?” “No.” “Bacon?” “No.” “Eggs?” “No.” “It says in the pamphlet here that you stock all these things.” “Ah, but it’s out of season now.  Our supplier cuts back on stocks.  Saves money.” “Would it not be sensible to add the words ‘Dairy food available only in the summer season’ to the pamphlet?” “Ah, we don’t print the pamphlet – head office does that.”  “Can you sell us anything to eat?” “Yes.  We’ve got a tin of tuna or one of corned beef hash.” We went back and ate spaghetti hoops on toast.  After tea, I emptied the rubbish into the bins at the water point.  Above, I heard the honking of geese in the clear blue sky.  I watched them flying purposefully in a perfect vee formation towards the Cumbrian coast.  Their courage astounds me, along with their navigational skills, not to mention their complete togetherness.  It was a moving moment, knowing that they had flown thousands of miles to land on these very shores.  I felt humbled.  It also reminded me that winter is a-comin’ and very soon we’ll be back in the thick of it.