You remember the adventure with the caravan when attempting to leave GB? Well, PA said at the time, 'Something happens to this van at every festival..what next time?' Well, it's true, wrapped round a lamp post at Cambridge, flat tyre on route to Cropredy, stuck under grandstand at GB..what on earth could happen at the next festival?
Nothing, we said. Absolutely nothing...the fact that it was almost lost in an unseasonal flood in June, doesn't mean this van is jinxed...really.
So, there we were, attempting to leave S&gar Hill at a respectable time and get home to eat dinner with our respective families. Then we had the Traveller crisis (see earlier blogs) and we promised the farmer to take full responsibility for them leaving, and we promised not to leave unless they did.
Hmm. Time went on, we packed, they packed, we hung about a bit, and so did they, in an unhurried nice summer evening kind of way, until 7pm when they departed. Hugs and waving and photos, and they were on their way, and so we prepared to depart. I decided to ring home and say something like, you know how we left later than planned from GB cos we got stuck? Well, this time it was because of the gypsies, dear....C no longer seems surprised by what I have to say, but surprised me by saying he wasn't expecting me til tomorrow anyway, and no worries, he would go to bed and not wait up. Ok, no problem, I could relax.
We decided to go up to the farm house and say goodbye before hitching the caravan, and we took a bottle of wine for good measure to celebrate the end of a good festival. As we walked into the warm and welcoming farm house kitchen, dogs chasing about and playing and good food cooking, Farmer's wife gives us both hugs and thanks us for our hard work and insists we stay and eat with them. I open my mouth to say, oh, lvoely, (it's gone 7.30pm at this point and I am starving and it looks like a good lasagne) as DC says, no, sorry, we must get going. He saw my face, and went and made that phone call home..I said no, sorry of course we must go, we will go now, and he said, no, I have rung home now and said we are going to eat first, but we mustn't stay long.... (you can see where this is going...!)
Farmer and wife and so delighted with success of festival and the fact that the travellers have gone, and they are not stuck with a horrible eviction problem, and want champagne, so DC gets some from the caravan. We sit in the lounge, I haev little puppies jumping on me and playing, I have a glass of champagne, I am warm and dry and relaxed and about to eat and Very Happy.
We sit round the big farm house table and eat lasagne, followed by fruit pie and cream, and even coffee, and we talk...and suddenly, oh is it really that time? Almost 11pm? Oh dear....we are well fed, full of champagne and warm..and I am a trifle sleepy....Farmer's wife even offers us to stay the night...
However we take our leave and head back to the pitch black field and tray and find the caravan. Farmer has asked us to do him a little job on the way, which holds us up, but we find the caravan with the help of our headlights, and we stop in the darkness and look up at the wonderful starry sky which is beautiful in the black dark. For a moment it crosses both our minds that all we want to do at this point is sleep...should we stay? But I have work in the morning, and DC confesses he has to leave for North Yorks at 6.30am, so we are brave and sensible and get eh caravan ready to depart, winding up the little legs, etc. DC backs the landy up to hitch up but is an inch short. Hitching is not happening, so i offer to back up the landy an inch. I am holding the torch and shivering in the cold cold dark. I see the farm house lights go out and we are alone.
DC attempts to hitch by undoing the jockey wheel and hopes the caravan will lurch forward and pop on. All that happens is that the jockey wheel comes off completely, the caravan lurches forward and lands on its nose, on the ground, missing the tow hitch. B*ll*cks, he says. We cannot lift the caravan up on our own. DC tries, but it is obvious that he is now tired and cold and not thinking clearly. I however, am ok, in a good mood, being sensible and thinking clearly. Is this possible, can we lift the caravan, if not, we don't even try and go to bed and get Farm help in the morning. No, DC wants to do it. Right, let's wind the front legs up, I say, to take some of the weight and see what we can do. I start doing that, and DC looks at me and thanks me for keeping calm and doing the thinking , and keeping him from 'losing it'.
I say it's my pleasure, and between us in the pitch dark and cold by about a quarter to midnight we get the caravan hitched. What a team. We prepare to leave, but as DC gets more tired he gets slower and more pedantic. He insists on doing the usual light check, he gets in the landy and I stand at the back of the caravan and he says do the indicators work and i say yes they do, no they don't, that old joke. This time he says do the brake lights work, and I say no they don't, and he says don't mess about, and I say, no they really don't. We discover the brake and reversing lights won't work on the caravan or landy. I say oh bugger, can we not go anyway, and DC says no, it's dangerous. I say, do you think God is telling us to stay and sleep and not drive? No...So out comes the manual, we find where the fuses are under the dashboard and which fuse does which set of lights, and I hold the torch and he puts in the spare fuses, and after about half an hour we are ready to go again....
I get in the landy after checking the lights and DC has vanished. I get out and he has taken the number plate off the back of the caravan and says he is not sure it is on securely enough and so we are now looking for blue tak and sticky tape to pout it back on. I hold the torch and help and have got to the helpless light header giggly stage that this will go on all night, and still I feel strangely calm....
We are only in Swindon, an hour and half away from home, so now it's gone 12,30am we will be safely home by 2.15am....
Once we set off, and the landy gets warm, I am out like a light, fast asleep, I knew I would. Every now and then I wake up with the landy lurching or swerving slightly, as DC struggles to keep awake. I try to stay awake too, talk to him, put music on, open the window, but it is like I am drugged and I cannot stay awake. We make good progress down the motorway but DC is really falling asleep, so by Reading we give up and stop for strong coffee. We get coffee to take away, and I say, come on, we are only 45 mins away now, you can do it. (The issue is, dear reader, I should have explained before, that I cannot share the driving because of the caravans, and therefore it is totally his call to stay or go in the first place) Suddenly DC says, it's no good, I have to sleep, let's get in the caravan for a while. It is now gone 1.30am, we sit in the back of the caravan on the bench seats and drink our coffee. The coffee is hot, the van is freezing after the warmth of the car.
I am going to get a couple of hours sleep, says DC, lying down on his bench seat and immediately snoring like you have never heard. I sit there. Of course I am now wide awake, cold and wondering how my life turns out that I am in Reading services in a caravan at almost 2 o'clock in the morning, and we didn't intend this to happen.
After while I realise I had better try and sleep, so I lie down on my bench seat, pull my fleece closer, shivering, and try and ignore the dire snoring 2 feet away. I lie there..I lie there, and just as I am dozing off, I am frightened by DC suddenly sitting up and shouting, B*ll*cks! My nerves are so shot to pieces at this point I panic, saying, now what's happened? He says, can you hear that? No, what? That, I don't believe it. What? I listen..there it is. A bird singing. A bird singing quite loudly (I couldn't hear it for the snoring...) DC is now annoyed, The bright lights in the service station have lulled the birdies into thinking it is morning, and they have started the dawn chorus at 2am. Never mind, I say, try and sleep. No, he says, F8ckit, I am wide awake now, I am driving home. Oh, ok then....
We climb back into the landy, he drives, and I immediately fall asleep again in the warm. It is a very slow, careful progress we make good job the roads are empty, and we crawl into St Albans at gone 3am. I make DC promise on his life not to go to NY at 6.30am, and I at last get into my house and go upstairs to bed, not worrying about waking C as he sleeps like a log and never hears me come in. However, my bedroom light is on. He is lying there, looking at me. What time do you call this, kind of comment....I say he told me he was not waiting up, so I didn't call, but I did point out if he was worried he could have called my mobile....
So as I got ready for bed, I told him the story, telling him how we stayed to eat when we hadn't planned to, then about the caravan not hitching, and half way through my interesting, detailed account, he suddenly got up and said, well yes, I'm tired, I need to sleep, I'll see you in the morning and decamped to his own room.
Oh. I thought it was a funny story. I'll save it and tell it to someone else...in fact, it is my blogger's duty... sorry it took so long...
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