01 February 2014

Caravan heaven ...

It certainly is an interesting inspiration picture on Archi-scraps this month ... shipping containers in a block puzzle ... a blocked caravan ... a blocked car ... how about a tractor ... red, blue and grey or a combination of them all.  Wow so much scope ... where do you start??



The very first thing I saw was the caravan - it just screamed out at me and I remembered a time which seems so long ago now, when I went caravaning in something that looked remarkably like this.



We weren't a caravan family.  My Dad preferred to camp under canvas and back when I was a kid you didn't have nifty little two-man nylon jobs which you could put up with one hand in 5 minutes flat.  Oh no, these were serious canvas tents, with poles and ropes and 30 minutes of hard yakka to get them upright.  You cooked on a campfire in a camp stove, tea was via a billy and sleep (if you got any) was on a camp bed which sagged in the middle and collapsed under you if you moved too quickly (or heavily) during the night.  A trip to the loo was a dash into the bush with shovel, trailing toilet paper in your wake, a wash was a dip in the river and aeroguard was for sissies.  My Dad loved it, I embraced it and my Mum ... well let's just say she put on a brave face ....

One year my Dad must have relented and hired (or borrowed) a caravan for a long weekend.  My mother was overjoyed, packed it with spare crockery and shiny cooking utensils, proper sheets and blankets and we headed out into the great unknown.  It was bliss - Mum happily producing caravan cordon bleu, serving it on white dinner plates on a table-clothed melamine table.  Me and a girl friend content, tucked up in clean sheets in our matching bunk beds, reading by camp light and Dad?  - yep Dad was happy too .. in his canvas tent, in his saggy camp bed with faithful dog by his side, a good thirty feet from the caravan door.


1 comment:

Unknown said...

Jane...I really enjoyed reading your story! We used to go camping with the kids and yes with a tent that took so long to put up...but they were such fun times....now as I am older....really would rather having a caravan or at least a camper trailer! Still trying to persuade the old boy on that one...he is a bit like your Dad ...likes to rough it!