I am so tired that I can hardly keep my eyes open to write.
We are on the beach at St. Bees.
We are having our very first night in the camper van for two years.
It doesn’t feel like any time at all.
It is all a bit odd, because we haven’t got properly packed yet, and things are in the wrong places or not here at all, but even so it seems as though it was only a few days ago since the last time.
We are stealth camping because you are not allowed to park here overnight, but Mark pointed out that probably nobody is going to say anything about that until morning. This is well after the event, and so even if anybody does notice us, it won’t matter, we can always apologise and leave.
The reason you are not allowed to park overnight is that there is a camper van park about fifty yards away. We don’t want to park there because they charge about thirty quid and offer loads of facilities that we don’t need, having got perfectly adequate ones of our own that Mark has built.
Also camp sites tend to have lots of sternly-expressed rules about dogs and children and noise, and although we don’t remotely want to play loud music, we are far too uncooperative to like being told that we Must Not. It is much nicer to creep into a dark corner of the beach and not play loud music because we don’t want to disturb anybody and we do want to listen to the wind and the seagulls.
The van is working splendidly, in a sort of teething-problems sort of way. We have now got the shower tray in and useable, although no shower, and we completely forgot that in order to have a bedtime wash in the newly-fitted shower tray we would need to see what we are doing, and so far we have not thought to put lights in the bathroom. I have just had a stealth wash in the dark, which was like a shower but with a jug and a bucket, and which has actually left me feeling gloriously glowing and clean.
The children spent the afternoon doing Krav Maga with their gently-spoken, mild-mannered and terrifying teacher, and we came here to the beach.
It could not have been more perfect. The skies were a gorgeous, end-of-summer blue, and the seagulls wheeled and shrieked over our heads. The dogs hurtled through little pools and jumped over waves and barked madly, and we paddled.
The sea was warm, and we dreadfully regretted that we had not thought to bring swimming costumes, because it would have been ace to have been able to swim. We hadn’t, though, so we splashed peaceably through the little waves and held hands and laughed at the dogs.
When the children came back everybody was ravenous. We ate masses of buttery potatoes and cheese and crackers and little sausages, and agreed that it had been a brilliant day.
It was eight o’ clock but we all wanted to go to bed.
Mark and Oliver and I wandered along the beach for a last time with the dogs, and Oliver dived off for a last exciting lurch along the zip wire.
We are really in our real camper van at last.
I took the picture on the way here, it is Thirlmere.
