Just a few very quick words, because it has happened, and I am here.
Like the Queen leaving us, I never imagined that it would really happen.
Like the poor Queen, I have made the long journey south. South is very nice but I can entirely see why she preferred to buzz off to Scotland. There are a very lot of people here, although I am pleased to tell you that it is very comfortably warm. This is lovely after the Lake District, where I have once again taken to wearing my thermal vest.
I am in the car park at Madingley Hall, which is the part of Cambridge where I will be studying.
I am parked in a corner, in the camper van, trying to look discreet. This is about as likely as a walrus not being spotted trying to hide behind a walking stick. Everything else in the car park is dignified and expensive. Madingley Hall is trimmed and polished and beautiful.
I am a scruffy elderly lady in a floppy hat, in the camper van, about which no description is necessary, and worse, I have brought the dog.
I am accompanied by Roger Poopy’s ancient father. This is because he has only one affection, in his grumpy, miserable old life, and that is me, at least if you don’t include a passion for the wee of other dogs. He is never far from my heels, and I know that he would pine terribly if I left him.
Also his savagely unfriendly belligerence means that I can leave the camper van wide open to dry out thoroughly here in the Cambridge sunshine. He has become so gaunt and ugly, and suspicious of the world that he would be an entirely effective, if bad-tempered deterrent for any opportunist van-robber.
Nobody is going to steal the camper van, nor does it look as though it conceals untold riches hidden away inside.
I am glad of his snoring presence under the bed, although he has been suffering from some very unpleasant wind all the way here, which did not improve the journey.
It was a difficult journey. I do not mind driving the camper van, despite its Inverse Room Of Requirement second gear, and Mark came with me as far as the garage at the motorway, so that we could refill the gas and also the new diesel tank. This was good, because on the way there I discovered that all the mirrors needed adjusting, and unlike the modern ones which twiddle around at the effortless twitch of an electronic button, of course the camper van mirrors need some swearing and a spanner.
After that things became tiresome. We lurched steadily down the motorway between Sunday night road closures, roadworks and accidents. Instead of taking the four hours proposed by my wildly over-optimistic telephone, the journey took from five in the afternoon until midnight.
That is a long time to be in a van with a dog with wind.
We staggered around the car park for a little while, looking at the things that would be green and lush if only they got some proper weather, and then came in for a shower and bed.
It all starts tomorrow.
Wish me luck.
PS. The Lake District is not exactly an antique land but I like the poem.
1 Comment
In fairness the lake district is as antique as anywhere else. I read about Coniston Water (Swallows and Amazons) in the 1940s, so it is quite old.