In the end we left our house at about two in the morning.
We had been up since seven, which gives you an idea of how much rushing about we had been doing. We were both jolly thankful to be at work. This felt like a complete and welcome shirk, because apart from occasionally driving up the hill, bearing people with a bad leg who just needed to go around the corner, all I had to do was write to you and stitch up some frayed seams in a couple of dresses. I have been putting this off, but I wanted them to be holiday clothes, and so had to get on with it between customers.
We rushed home as soon as it was dark, which was almost midnight, and then hastily organised ourselves into the camper van. This proved rather more difficult than usual because of some unspecified battery problems, which meant that the battery had not charged from the solar panel, and none of the lights were working.
Mark fixed it under a streetlight at Morrison’s in Kendal, with some swearing.
In the end we got as far as the slopes of Shap Fell, before exhaustion overtook us, and we had to pull in and collapse into bed. Shap Fell is not very far away from our house, but it was a start, and when we woke up this morning we were already on the road, with the joyous feeling of being gypsies again.
Even on the top of Shap the weather was warm, and we walked with the dogs and sighed happily with the pleasure of being free.
I have been quite astonished by how much I love the camper van in its new incarnation of pink cupboards and blue shelves and green carpet. Today every meal has been extended whilst we gaze at the pictorial history on the table, and remember past reconstruction horrors.
For the first time we realised that the poor camper van had been utterly beyond repair when we towed it into Mark’s shed to be refurbished all those years ago. I do not know how on earth we thought it might be all right to fix it. It is quite clear from the pictures that even a scrap yard would have declined to accept its presence. At the time we just thought that everybody who kindly warned us to desist was just being negative, what optimistic idiots we must have been.
For those who do not remember, there is a picture of it with the insides all rotted and completely removed, the engine gone, the gearbox gone, the inside of the cab stripped out, the windscreen gone, the doors all gone, several holes in the sides and the axle gone. I had crashed it and broken one of the panels, and the roof leaked.
We fixed it in the end, though. It took a while.
We stopped near Glasgow for an extremely late breakfast, somewhere around lunchtime, at a service station which wonderfully incorporated a large field, surrounded by a white cascade of elderflower blossom. We threw the thrilling new ball for Roger Poopy, who clowned about excitedly in the baking sun for a while and then collapsed, panting, in the shade of the trees. We breathed in the gorgeous sharp elderflower scent and picked our way through the stinging nettles to discover the ruins of an old stone gateway in the woods.
It was a hot journey. Summer travelling in the camper van is never helped by one of the van’s features being that the heater is stuck on full, which leads to uncomfortably hot feet. It is possible to adjust this, but not without getting out and opening the bonnet, and the procedure means that the engine is in constant danger of overheating afterwards, so we don’t bother.
Hence we took a small detour around what would have been a tarn in the Lake District, but is presumably a loch, because it is Scotland, and dipped our feet joyously in the snow-melt waters.
It has not all melted yet. There is still snow on the mountains.
This turned out to have been a splendid idea, and left us feeling entirely refreshed and encouraged for the last couple of hours of travel.
In the end we chugged into Hopeman harbour, which is where we are now, and where the picture was taken. The picture is a bit dark, because it was eleven at night.
We have arrived. We have got all the way here.
We ate an enormous dinner of thoughtfully pre-prepared curried chicken and sweet potato chips, washed down with apple brandy and shop-bought cheesecake. We both agreed that this last was nice enough for a couple of quid, but that if I had made it I would be upset with myself for incompetence.
In the end we got sick of Roger Poopy’s importunate whining, and took the dogs for a last gallop on the beach before bed, accompanied, of course, by the thrilling new ball, which he has now taken to bed with him.
We have nothing to do tomorrow but walk and eat until we collect Oliver.
We will probably have to throw the ball for Roger Poppy as well.
