Snap shot of four days

We went away and got back. Nobody died; no accidental drownings, stabbings or other inadvertent expirations.

Seven of us piled into a very big Land Rover (plug for LR’s capacity for hauling large numbers of people and their stuff about the country), pulling a trailer loaded with assorted tents, cooking, eating, sleeping &etc stuff. The couple we travelled with are old hands and equipped with most of the basic essentials as well as a daughter of their own.

B packed her favourite stuffed toy, their daughter brought a friend along.

The journey out consisted mostly of one motorway after another. I got a bit nostalgic for the days when I was free to jump in my car and move myself a couple of hours away just because I felt like it. I also got a stark reminder of a few reasons for giving up car after I started living with the Fat Bastard.

His incessant smoking and his insistence on smoking in the car, his preference for sailing along at 70 miles an hour with the windows right down. I, on the other hand have an intense dislike of being blown about. Even in the hottest nights I can’t abide a fan; I’d rather be hot. Give me an air-conditioned car one can (and indeed should) drive with the windows UP. Most of all though it’s his insufferable air of knowledgability in all matters motoring-related.

Sailing along, curled up in the middle seats I got the chance to watch many fine examples of bad British driving and admire the determination with which so many Brits continue to flout the exceedingly well publicised laws concerning driving while using a mobile phone. But nothing was as good as the lorry driver upending a bag of some snack or other to pour the contents straight down his gullet (temporarily blinding himself in the meantime).

I was slightly astounded to see a police notice strapped to some central reservation light posts at one stretch, asking for witnesses to an accident on that stretch on a particular date and at a particular date to come forward. We were sailing along at just on the speed limit (unlike those overtaking us) and I couldn’t get the fucking details. Of course as a driver I could have tried, but I’d almost certainly have caused a pile up. I think that the central reservation police notice was the dumbest thing I saw on my travels.

We changed motorways, crossed the Thames and headed into Kent before hooking west and entering Surrey; then made pretty good time until close to where we had to leave this particularly infamous British free car park (the M25, of course). We reached the camp site off, loaded the gear put up the tents, got things straightened and then went for a bit of a drive.

Our driver for the weekend often works in this part of the world and had somewhere in mind to take us. A few country roads and lanes away we parked up beside a derelict farm shed on a concreted over spot at the end of a rutted lane which had a bit of signage planted in its middle.

After a false start involving us tramping in the wrong direction (towards a private gated estate) we headed off across a deserted field, over a bridge and through some riverside woods until quite miraculously we stumbled across one of England’s 50 designated Heritage Trees. This one is a Yew (a species known for its longevity and for being found in churchyards). A little further on we passed the remains of the Priory in the former grounds of which the Yew stands. Beyond the Priory we followed the path through an avenue of Horse Chestnuts to the river and then followed it upstream a bit.

Leaving this heritage site we went shopping. A bill of £100 for one day’s food is not bad going. For seven people, of course, and it must be pointed out that two of those were not purchasing alcohol. Back at the campsite we offloaded the food, got that sorted, put on the evening meal, ate it and then went to bed. Exciting or what?

Actually we did have an illuminating conversation with the two teenagers. Quite a lot of light was shed by them on modern teaching methods, although I’d already experienced the ramifications at first hand. It rained overnight but the day was quite fine. Up and showered I was astonished to find that the Fat Bastard had already crawled out of his tent and been for the newspapers.

Cooked breakfast then off to Windsor, via Eton. I took my camera with me. The first sign of the school was its playing fields. Much quoting of Wellington, then the school itself. I resisted the urge to photograph anything. After all, it’s just a bloody school.

We stopped at a pub for a comfort break and the Fat Bastard managed to tear his pants, creating a hole in a pocket through which most of the money he’d brought with him fell, to be lost forever. He didn’t notice its loss until a couple of hours later, which left me funding our side of the weekend entirely.

We moved on to Windsor which is much bigger than I’d imagined and very much more given over to shopping. We had ice-cream from a shop near the Guildhall, of which building I’ve now tramped the portico. If you want to know what it looks like have a gander at the pictures of Charles and Camilla’s wedding.

From here, and completely ignoring the big old building on what was now our right, we crossed over and plunged down the hill in search of chemists and somewhere for me to purchase warmer clothing for B and me; bad (or just incompetent) mother that I am I’d under catered for this wonderful English late summer weather.

Shopped out we wandered down to the river and hired a motor boat in which we pootled about for an hour; being half an hour up stream then half an hour the other way. Lots of river, river bank, other boats, big houses can be seen from the inside of a small hire boat pootling about in the stretches twenty minutes either way from Windsor in Royal Berkshire. My fourth county in under a day!

After that we went back to the supermarket to buy more food. Amazingly this bill came to somewhat less than or in fact half of that of the previous day. No one bought any sun cream and some of the stuff that we’d bought the previous day hadn’t been used up. For example we didn’t get through all 15 eggs at breakfast (being slightly filled up with a large bloomer, a packet and a half of bacon, a packet of sausages, mushrooms, tomatoes). And we hadn’t used up all the kitchen roll, either.

By this time we needed to get back to the camp and cook, it being a bit late in the day.

The next day we went shopping early, just to break things up a bit. Actually that isn’t entirely true; we did shop early but not for that reason.

The previous evening we’d had a run in with the fascistic side of this particular site’s operating committee. I don’t know the ins and outs but the site’s been in operation since nineteen-0-something, presumably arising from a bequest with certain stipulations attached. The thing is run by a committee elected from within the body of members. There are rules. The most bizarre (and in terms of such sites, unusual) is that cars may not be kept on the site.

Cars may be brought onto the site to get you and your stuff to your pitch, but once you’ve off-loaded you must take your car and park it in the car park. Well that night we’d found the car park full. And we’d found the parking along the opposite wall (reserved for committee members) also full. And finally we found that the barrier to the nearby public car park is so low as to preclude a Land Rover such as the one we’re travelling in getting under.

One or other of us kept going back looking for a newly created space or signs of someone leaving as the deadline loomed. Finally someone in a people carrier moved out, as did the car next to it. But the little car next to the people carrier then drove back in, perfectly taking out both spaces. I remonstrated with the smug cow who got out and explained to her that while she and her little yuppie-mobile could slide under pretty much anywhere (and boy did I wish she would) we couldn’t get the LR in anywhere but in the camp car park. A decent human being would have offered to hold the place while we got the LR round after which she’d retire with what good grace she could muster to the public car park.

I was blanked. She sauntered off so I chased down, peg leg who’d been giving us grief over the LR still being on site and explained what had happened. After sending one of the teenagers back to get the car’s registration we watched in delight as the site manager’s mate reluctantly gave another committee member a ticking-off for double parking less than a couple of hours after the matter had been discussed in committee and an announcement reminding people not to do it had been put out over the speaker system.

It was pretty damned obvious that if he could have found a way of letting them have their way he would have done. But I’m bigger than him as it happens and he decided I suppose that discretion would be the better part of valour, at least on this occasion. The smug cow was dragged, spitting and scratching all the way, to her yuppie-mobile which she moved over so that we could get the LR in. We were left next to the gate to the car park. During the night someone slammed the gate into the rear mudguard. None of us are in any doubt as to who that might have been.

We went shopping early so as to be back before the car park filled. Having got back the energetic amongst us walked what turned out to be three miles down stream to the nearest riverside town only to find that it doesn’t have any river side pubs and also that the pubs it does have are either Weatherspoons make-over jobs (ghastly) or operate a strict Over-21 policy.

This might go someway towards explaining any trouble this town might have with its youth who having attained the age of majority and the legal right to consume alcohol, then do so on street corners in a mildly threatening and thoroughly anti-social fashion. Reluctantly we had a drink in the make-over before yomping back to site to put on the evening meal which, as it happens was a rather splendid roast beef with all the trimmings (some of the veggies and the gravy were not done of the barbeque).

That evening the weekend social for adults took place: a quiz. Another great British institution. We won the first round then lost the next three in part because there’s only so many rounds of those image puzzles (Thing Bats? Ding Bats?) any of us can do before starting to toss our toys out of the pram. I’m nearly certain that we won every round of general knowledge, but the general knowledge only ever made up less than half of a round’s points.

Not only that but the team that won the third round was the woman who’d set the questions. Possibly the fix was in.

Today we came back via non-Motorways. We travelled instead through some of Surrey’s greenest scenery and stopped for a quick drink at a pub offering panoramic views of Box Hill. And then we got home.

My application went in and now I’m on tenterhooks. Pretty much everything else becomes displacement activity for the anxiety I’ll otherwise feel until a decision is announced one way or another.

We collected Monty from the neighbours who’ve been taking care of him: they decided he’d be miserable locked up in our house so they took him back to theirs. Now he’s depressed. Maybe they should keep him. I certain don’t want him. I know that sounds mean, and I don’t actually wish him harm – I just don’t see him or want him as my cat.

We have to take him back to the vet tomorrow for a check up. If he gets the stitches out and the all clear he can be let out doors to make up his own mind.

This long weekend has been reasonably relaxing and enjoyable. I kept wishing though, that I was actually sharing it with someone. We were like two long-term acquaintances rather than husband and wife. At one point the husband in the other couple (who is the Fat Bastard’s best mate with the cable subscription, the great sound system and the even better music collection) said something that made me realise he too has seen through him but tolerates him.

In a way I’m rather admiring of his ability to treat so many people so badly (either with acts of bastardry or by dealing out lots and lots of small disappointments) and yet be held, at least in some quarters, in such affection.

Like me he (Top Buddy who is his Best Mate) has recognised the Fat Bastard’s propensity for what the generous hearted might call tall stories. I heard from TB some variations on some of FB’s cherished stories. One of them concerns driving. Specifically it concerns driving in the US. The Fat Bastard has never held a full British driving licence but he’ll tell you about how he spent some time in the US and did some driving. I heard one version (uncle who is or was a bishop in Florida) lending him a car; TB, it transpires, has heard another which involves driving a car from one coast to another for a relative. Note how the story has been worked on since he told it to me.

The truth is he doesn’t know enough about driving to have ever done much of it. The only words of real criticism of the Fat Bastard I heard the Top Buddy utter were connected with the Fat Bastard actually grabbing the steering wheel while Top Buddy was driving. That little revelation emerged after I’d explained that I’d given up the car in fear of killing the pair of us during a fit of road rage brought about by his instinct for side seat driving.

I’ve got an advanced driving certificate (for what it’s worth now) while he has a Learner Permit.

The flip side of enjoying what I did enjoy about our holiday is that I had it brought home to me the extent to which my current existence is little better than that of a ‘resident’ in one of Her Maj’s Open Prisons. The open road, the leisure activities; they’re all stuff I’ve had to leave behind. The passage of time has acted as a kind of anaesthetic but the wounds are now smarting as they haven’t in a long time. Hopefully that will act as motivation.

‘Nuff rambling. Supplementary posts and corrections to follow.