Home from Home

Having lived mostly mobile for nearly 23 years, we've seen a lot of caravan sites!  We tend to favour the small, 5 van sites of the Caravan Club, not really being party people, and we've pitched in all sorts of nooks and crannies, and in capacious open spaces. Some we delight in leaving, others we depart from with many a regretful backward glance.  For the past 2 months our temporary home has been a large and luxurious site on the borders of Hampshire and Wiltshire, and we will depart with regret - even though we are delighted to be going home!

www.greenhillholidays.co.uk is a large site with fishing lakes, wildlife, a forest walk and easy walking access to the New Forest. It has plush 'log cabin' style facilities blocks nestling in the wooded grounds, a special family area with a smashing playground (my son would have loved it as a child!) a agin with a bar when it's busy, as well as onsite take away, laundry, shop etc etc etc - just the sort of site we usually avoid!

I'm so glad we didn't avoid it this time, it's one of the nicest places we've stayed, and marvellous value (I usually resent the high prices these 'all singing all dancing' sites charge) Only one site we've stayed on has been grander and beautiful, and that was a 'Stately Home' with grounds laid out by 'Capability' Brown - Burton Constable, in Yorkshire, where the caravans were laid out around the Georgian lake, with its elegant bridge. However, Green Hill Farm is much more a home - and you can watch the Boss herself digging holes, fixing the electrics and laying turves! The owners are working hard to make the site ever better, yet are managing to maintain a friendly atmosphere at the same time - an impressive trick.

Many large sites are a bit snobbish about the vans or tents they allow on their premises - not Green Hill Farm, I've seen some delightful vintage vans, as well as some that are more like a science fiction fantasy!  If you're an early bird, from some pitches you get glorious dawns, rising over the edge of the Forest - on our pitch, we've been blessed with some magnificent sunsets. Yes, we'll miss Green Hill Farm, many thanks to Lorna and her staff for making us feel at home, we'll be back when we get an excuse!

A Crystal Palace with wheels.

In1990 we started out on our 'mobile living' adventure. Jeffery's father had recently had a heart attack, and, as his home was on the south coast while ours was in mid Wales, visiting him had been difficult - we could not afford a car as well as a mortgage and 3 children! Becoming mobile was clearly important, but so was having a home - how to square this particular circle? At this time i was home schooling the children (the eldest of the 3 had become school-phobic, following major bullying, and the 2nd had specific learning difficulties which were neither acknowledged nor supported) so staying close to school was not a problem, the only tie was the house and my husband's job.

So, we asked ourselves, could we combine home & transport? To cut a long story short, we decided that a large American-style motorhome would give enough space and conveniences, and give us independent transport, too. With the dubious support of the Bank, and putting our house on the market, we invested in a 'Camp Mate' RV on a Chevrolet base vehicle. The next year or 2 were a VERY sharp learning curve! Over the past 20 years we've had an eclectic collection of vehicles, ranging from our swank RV through a converted ambulance, a bus we converted ourselves and a real Gipsy Vardo (20th century style!) to our present, brand new caravan.

It really has been an adventure, or rather, a succession of them! Nor have they ended yet, the comfort our present home has offered us through the recent, harsh winter has far surpassed any previous home - with or without wheels - so we are not tempted to return to bricks and mortar. We have survived losing a wheel at speed from our caravan while towing (I recommend Al-Ko's safety hitch!) many snowy winters when house dwellers shivered in cold, disconnected houses, and lots of trying extrications of large vehicles from small spaces (e.g. tiny Welsh country lanes!) We have enjoyed spending nights in many glorious locations, such as a lay-by overlooking Jura, where we watched the sunset over the Paps with amazement, or another where we had no tv, phone or radio signal, but were lulled to sleep by the rushing of water flowing down the granite cliffs on the opposite side of the glen.

Our gipsy caravan was probably the most spectacular of our homes, with its glittering chrome, mirrors and glass everywhere - including engraved windows! Tasteful it may not have been, but glorious it most certainly was - if it hadn't weighed so much, we'd probably still have it, but it simply took way too long to get from A to B, and climbing a hill was a nail-biting affair!

Our present, luxurious Abbey Spectrum535 will certainly remain home for some time (barring disaster) and I am confident it will be our window on many new, exciting aspects of Britain, and possibly further afield.

Houses, good thing/bad thing?

"And tell me, people of Orphalese, what have you in these houses? And what is it you guard with fastened doors?

Have you peace, the quiet urge that reveals your power?

Have you remembrances, the glimmering arches that span the summits of the mind?

Have you beauty, that leads the heart from things fashioned of wood and stone to the holy mountains?

Tell me, have you these in your houses?

Or have you only comfort, and the lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master?"

Kahlil Gibran 'The Prophet'

I'm not about to pretend that we had such worthy thoughts in our minds when we gave up living in houses, lack of liquidity and a need for flexibility had much more to with it! However, the truth of Gibran's words have come home to me more and more, particularly over the past year, since we have returned to the road after 3 misguided years in bricks and mortar, which cost us money and much heartache. Neither am I going to pretend that we don't have a very high degree of comfort, ours is a brand new caravan, with heating, electricity and all that that brings with it, but it does limit how much 'stuff' we carry with us, literally and metaphorically, and requires us to prioritise quite carefully how we apportion space and weight quotas.

I remember when we first took to the road, there was a phrase being used in the media and amongst Friends (we were Quakers at the time) that talked about 'knowing the difference between need and greed' Our current lifestyle certainly helps us with that! An ex of mine used to say that 'one expands to fill the space available' - just for once, he was quite right! (actually, he was right quite often, but don't tell him) There is a wonderful freedom about reducing not just the space in which to hoard things, but also the capacity to distance yourself from the power of nature. In houses, when there is serious rainfall you are hardly aware of it until you step outside and find yourself knee deep! When so much of your identity is tied up with your home, and all the stuff in it that announces to the world what kind of person you perceive yourself to be, losing all or part of it is devastating, not just on a practical level, but on a personal, identity level. I watch the flood victims in Britain on TV with an aching heart, and see these interviews with those returning from their caravans to their bricks and mortar with equal sorrow, for they are returning to an old identity for themselves and the old vulnerability. Don't think I'm being superior here, I'm more sad that they have been given a chance by life to look at themselves, and the world, through a different lens and have rejected it. Instead of treating their stay in a caravan as if it were a holiday, a window on a different life, and an opportunity to learn how well they can cope without all their comforts and 'stuff', they have reduced themselves to 'victim' status, seen themselves as helpless. "Whatever you believe, it's true" were the words of a wise man, whose name I can't recall, and believing themselves to be helpless and suffering, they become so - we all do, if that is what we believe.

This week and last, we had some spectacular storms here, and there has been some flooding elsewhere, I believe. For me, these storms were a delight, snug in my flimsy walls, I watched the light show with wonder, and the play of water and wind with delight, rather than fear. My walls are very flimsy, in every sense, although we are insured, disaster to the van would be a misery indeed, but mainly on a practical level. It would be enormously inconvenient, and, despite the insurance, costly in financial terms, but what matters to me most cannot be taken away by natural or physical upheavals, it's internal. Kahlil Gibran closes that passage about houses with these words:-'For that which is boundless in you abides in the mansion of the sky, whose door is the morning mist, and whose windows are the songs and silences of night.' To many, this will seem like mystical double talk, for me, it's a profound truth at the heart of my world view. It has liberated me from years of fear and uncertainty, and the anxiety of seeing myself through the eyes of those who would judge me by what I own/have/how I dress etc. I hope that any who read this can also find that freedom and peace of mind, nothing beats it.

A new view

When I look out, now, instead of the small paddock and buildings of the Bubble Car Museum, I see a 10 acre field, liberally dotted with tents and caravans, surrounded by woodland, where the dog is delighted to take her daily rambles. We're on a proper farm, with eggs etc for sale at the farmhouse door and it feels a bit like a pop festival without the music, mud and crowds! A very happy atmosphere, with everyone relaxed and having a good time, and none of the jostling for status that you can get on "posh" sites.

We moved here on Saturday. Living the way we do means that every time we move, we spend about 90 minutes making sure everything is secure, disconnecting plumbing and electrics, making sure that weight is properly distributed, then hooking up to the car, sorting out those electrics and rear view mirrors etc, before we actually get on the road. Depending how far we have to go, we then have the journey, which can be exhausting and frightening, as many drivers are so impatient they overtake in dangerous situations, which can make for a white-knuckle ride - who needs fairgrounds! These drivers seem totally oblivious to our lack of ability to brake suddenly, for instance, and usually underestimate how long we are, leading to some tight squeezes. Then, of course, we have the fun of actually finding the new site - the directions can be a bit woolly sometimes, and turning a car and caravan around in someone's farm yard is an unpopular but sometimes required manouvre. Having found our destination, we have to check and pay up, find our pitch and site ourselves ( sometimes very entertaining and time consuming in congested spaces) then find the water, drainage, sewage, electric hook up, bins . . . not always as straightforward as you might expect! Some site owners seem to delight in making us play hide and seek for these essentials, hiding taps drains in hedges, behind sheds, halfway down a long drive . . . .Then we have to spend some time searching out the local Laundrette and shops, as we won't have time after work. After all that, we're lucky if there's any day left! Still, it does often mean that neither of us can be bothered to cook, so we get fish and chips, or push the boat out and have a bar meal!

All this means we only have Sunday to explore the sights, especially in the winter months - at least we can do a bit of exploring on summer evenings, even if it's British summer weather i.e. wet! It's hot and dry at present, well dry as in 'not raining' being an island we always have a fair degree of humidity, which can make it feel like you're trying to breathe soup and makes me very tired (poor old thing!) If we have to move every weekend, it does get a bit wearing, to say the least, and as I (a) don't drive and (b) can't stand or walk for very long, it means that all I ever see is the camp site! Not that I'm complaining, we've been on some lovely sites - in Yorkshire we stayed for a couple of months in the grounds of a stately home, by the lake that was part of "Capability" Brown's landscaping, it was gorgeous, and the wildlife was rampant and highly entertaining (especially for the dog, but she never did manage to catch a water vole!)

If it wasn't for our mobile modem and the dog, I could get pretty bored and lonely, but Sioni (the dog) drags me out of doors and into some exercise, even if it's pouring. We've always had dogs in our family, apart from the gaps between losing the last and gaining the next, even when we have been very hard up, somehow we always found a way to feed a dog as well as us, and they have always given full value for money! The first dog I remember was Scallywag, a golden brown spaniel, who was far too fat. I was very small, it was when my father was still alive, and I suspect my mother had panic attacks everyday, taking him ashore on the raft, so that he could have his walks, for she was severely aquaphobic and being willing to live on a boat is a measure of how much she loved my father, I think. Apparently, I nearly killed poor Scally, by putting an elastic band around his neck - with all the folds of flesh, no-one realised till he was at death's door. Luckily he survived this trauma, to become even fatter, and ended up being sent away to special kennels to lose weight! He was still there, I believe, when my father died so I can tell you no more about him. Once we were settled at Castle Street, I managed to inveigle my mother into adopting another dog.

Looking back with the wisdom of hindsight, I realise that what happened must have given Mummy many a sleepless night over money, but children are oblivious to the implications of poverty. Mummy worked part time at a restaurant down the road, a very upmarket place, and the daughter of the house became my friend - are you out there, Yvonne? During the summer holidays we would sometimes hang out around town together, and in the Cathedral precints we met a man (a Traveller, I now realise) with a cute terrier puppy and we both fell in love with his delightful little creature. Now, Yvonne, bless her, was rich from my perspective, and got real pocket money, reliably, every week, and she'd just got the latest ration - the enormous sum of 10 shillings. To cut a long story short, Yvonne blew her pocket money on the puppy. When she got home, the smelly stuff really hit the fan! No way were her parents going to have a dog in their high class restaurant. They were quite right, of course, but that didn't help Yvonne or the dog. I ran home and pleaded with my mother - the dog would have be put down if we didn't rescue it, cos the man at the Cathedral had gone and Yvonne's parents didn't care about the dog and they were incandescent about her throwing away all that money on the dog, and couldn't we possibly rescue the dog and Yvonne from the wrath of her parents? I must have been distraught, because Mummy said we would take the dog and they could dock the 10 shillings from her wages! That was a very special dog, my mother named her 'Patum Pepparium' which is the name of an anchovy paste (very expensive) known as 'The Gentleman's Relish' because she was such a pretty dog!

Patum was very intelligent, and Mummy was a dedicated and responsible dog owner. Patum learned many tricks and became our favourite companion. She would allow us to dress her in baby clothes and would lie, patiently, in the dolls pram for a surprisingly long time, being pushed around the park and up and down the street. She could open and close doors, fetch all sorts of things reliably and perform remarkable acrobatics. She became my mother's true companion and comfort through many ups and downs, and gave birth to 2 litters who gave the family more generations of loving support, as well as some of our friends who adopted the puppies. One little charmer went to an actress ( that's a whole new bunch of stories!) and even went on stage himself - his name was Fabrizzio, known as 'Brizzi", and some wicked wit taught him to believe that the word 'sex' meant 'chocolate', predictably, he went hysterical whenever the 'S' word was mentioned!