We are somewhere in Dumfries.
The sun is shining, the wind is billowing through the open windows, which actually it needs to be because regular readers might recall that the camper van heater is permanently stuck on full. We are listening to Queen, loudly, on the stereo.
It is partly loud because of the general rock and roll cool vibe and partly because we would not be able to hear it otherwise, because of the racket from the billowing wind and the noisily ancient engine.
We are having a very nice time.
We have been stopped by the police once, not for being rock and roll cool, but because they observantly spotted that we had no MOT, and less observantly neglected to notice that the whole outfit is so crumblingly elderly that it no longer needs one.
Roger Poopy did not like the policemen, and had to have his mouth held closed by means of restraint, as he was growling in a most frantically unfriendly manner.
Mark said afterwards that the camper van was very probably older than both of the policemen put together.
Oliver has gone, a little sadly on my part because he has been quietly at home for ages now, and it will be odd not to have him there. All the same it is ace to think of him having adventures. He is in his GCSE year now. It will go quickly. It always does.
We are not going straight home. We have got to divert to Darlington, which on a journey of this length is practically on the way, being only a hundred miles there and back. Mark has bought a new draw bar for the camper van from the chap in Darlington who dismantles ancient trucks, and we have got to go and collect it.
In fact ours has one already but not only is it very elderly and rusty, it has been significantly abused during our proprietorship, not least when we harnessed a seriously overloaded trailer to it on the way home from France once. We will not go into detail but suffice to say that the trailer’s own draw bar snapped under the strain, and we were obliged to steal some steel and make another one in a desperate day in a lay-by near Lyons.
We need the trailer because in another week or two we have got to go and help Lucy move house. We contemplated hiring a van for this project, but in the interest of economy, decided that the thing to do would be to empty the farm trailer of junk, and take that with us instead. This led to the observation of the collapsing and powdery state of our tow-bar, and hence our current trip.
LATER NOTE: It is very late. We are are now home, complete with draw bar, which obviously does not fit and will have to be engineered into a different shape in order to be glued on to the back of the camper van.
Mark says that he can probably do it.
I am sure he is right.
