BOUNCING DOWN UP TO BELLINGHAM

A couple of days of hot sunshine amongst the general drear of autumn persuaded me to take the ancient caravan for a week's holiday.  The only place I could book was Bellingham, in Northumberland.  I'd been there before, several times, and I recalled that its main claim to fame was that it had a Co-op and a church with a stone roof.  The vicar had told me that it was built thus to stop the marauding Scots from their arsonist intentions, though she impugned that that wasn't recent.  I awoke to as gloomy and dismal a day as any November has to offer.  The distance was only 80 miles but it felt like 200, up hills, down dales and around bendy, twisty roads through the Scottish Borders.  North Northumberland was covered in a shroud of thick grey cloud that seemed to stretch down to the very roof of the van, and it was cold enough to numb the senses.  The journey took three hours and I had used half a tank of petrol.  The site was crammed.  I couldn't believe it.  This was the low season, for heaven's sake.  Caravans, tents, motor homes, folding campers abounded as far as the eye could see.  I was allotted about the only space that was left, five yards from the waste bins.  Thankfully, I didn't have to reverse the caravan.  For once, the awning went up smoothly.  Normally, all of the poles collapse on top of me, and I end up swathed in the tent part of the awning, as if I'd been laid out in a winding sheet.  The handbook said the job should take ten minutes, and I thought I'd done well to bring it in at slightly under an hour.  After tea, I took the little black spaniel for a walk into the village.  A local youth said to his mates - 'Look at that dog's tail - it's unreal.' He only spoke the truth - it's half the length of her body.  Further on, six young men with Lancashire accents stopped me and asked: 'Where can we get a drink round here?'  I had read a brochure at the caravan site that stated that the Rose and Crown in the market square was homely, friendly and served excellent local ales.  I had just seen it.  From the outside it looked splendidly olde-worldly.  I looked through a window.  Inside, it looked more like a funeral parlour.  I said to the young men 'The Rose and Crown, over there in the market square.  It's homely, friendly and serves excellent ales.'  They thanked me and turned about to walk there.  I sauntered away, an experienced resident of the place only to willing to help out strangers.  The site brochure said the site had a new games room - 'fun for all the family with a TV, a PC, a log fire and plenty of games.' I went to have a look.  There was a television and a pc that couldn't connect to the internet.  It did have a chess game, but when my opponent, the computer, playing black, took my queen with a shifty manouevre after five moves, I lost interest and switched it off.  Apart from that there was a battered tin containing dominoes, a jigsaw puzzle of Scarborough's headland, a child's board game called 'Whoosh!' and a dog-eared copy of 'Antiques Now.' There was nothing else.  The log fire was off, but there were instructions as to how to light it.  In the log basket, there was a box of Bryant and May matches and just two logs that were more like twigs, so I couldn't have kept the fire going for very long.  I left, to face a night where the temperature would drop almost to freezing, and to sleep in a caravan in conditions that would have suited Sir Ranulph Fiennes far better than me.