Milton Earnest

I had been due to make the 170 mile trip up North to see my sister and her son, and so last weekend was the time to do it.  When your vehicle is over twenty years old these sort of trips are a real adventure.  You never know whether you will need to be towed to your destination - and just in case I do have a vehicle breakdown policy open with the RAC.  This costs me near to one hundred pounds a year.  But let's face it:  how often do you see a Ford Transit van broken down on the side of the road?  Hardly ever, and in fact most recovery vehicles are actually Ford Transits although of course they are rarely over twenty years old.

Well the trip up North was without advent and the traffic was mild.  The children sat in the back eating crisps and sweets.  I am the sort of father that insists on feeding his kids good wholesome food but I gave in and got these treats for the kids.  Some of the readers who know me personally will smirk somewhat at that last sentence, but really I do insist on feeding the kids well every fortnight when I have them for the weekend in my caravan.  Which reminds me - I just love taking bad photos and I struck gold when I purchased this PRAKTICA camera for six pounds from a car boot sale.  So here is a picture of the inside of my caravan from the back looking forward.

What luxury!!  Being a Nomad doesn't mean you have to live like a hippie - no, I enjoy a living space fit for the Queen herself.  Behind the door is a bathroom with toilet and shower - very useful when you have to combine being a Nomad with the hygiene requirements of also keeping a business contract going.

I had recently met up again with "C" - which was nice since we had split up some time ago and I had been living the life of the lonely singleton.  "C" was happy to come along also since she is a family centred person who likes to adventure out also.

It took a few hours to arrive at Milton Earnest.  There was no drive space for me to park my sizeable van, and so I parked it with the left wheels up on the grass on the side of the road so as not to block the road to other traffic.  It was great to see my sister, her new boyfriend and her son again.  We had our lunch and decided on driving to a nearby camping store - Go Outdoors.  As we left the house the next door neighbour came out with a look on his face as if someone had eaten his Cheezels (a delicious Australian cheese snack).  The poor chap was most upset about my van (he called it a "thing") parked with two wheels on grass - grass which did not even belong to him.  My initial thought was that the grumpy old man needed to chill, perhaps smoke some grass.  If it was my house I would have told this Nimby (Nimby = "Not In My Back Yard - a derogatory term us Nomads use to refer to anal house dwellers) to wind his neck in somewhat and get back into his cave.  But since this was my sister's place I went along with it and agreed the van wouldn't be parked with two wheels on the grass.

At Go Outdoors I bought for myself a stand for the water barrel I use - I am hoping putting it on a stand and putting a barrel coat around it may prevent the contents from freezing.  It is annoying that  the barrel needs to be positioned on the outside - if the inlet and boiler was on the same side as the door, the whole thing would have been inside the awning with less chance of a freeze up.  I think this is a design fault but I guess caravans are mainly used in the milder spring and summer seasons.

Now, whenever I am with my sister she insists on reminding me about how I made her childhood years a misery - and I do feel guilty about this.  It is not nice never to be able to beat your eldest brother at Scrabble or Monopoly or Chess or Checkers.  Well guilt is guilt so to feel a little better I had decided to take everyone out to dinner.  We went to an Italian restaurant called Mama Mia - and the food was very good indeed.  It was then back to the house and the WII games console system was out.  There was a dancing game they played and if one can imagine those tribal communities where the folks dance with spears and chant strange things around a fire.  It was a bit like that and rather embarrassing. I thought "C" was also embarrassed but she later admitted she wanted to join in as well.  After the dancing had worn the family down - they decided to put on a sports game and I tried out the table tennis.  Yes these things are very addictive indeed.

The next morning we drove the vehicles to the Harrold Country Park.  Here we had a nice walk around a scenic lake.  Once again, a good opportunity for me to use my dodgy camera.

And so it was then time to say our farewells and begin the long journey home.  The traffic was bumper to bumper much of the way along the M1.  There had been a pile up and it isn't a nice thing to see the scene of a crash.  There was an ambulance and many police vehicles and I hope no one was seriously hurt.

The trusty old van got us back home without "missing a beat" as the saying goes.  I have decided my next van must have power steering since I have been suffering tennis elbow all week.  It really does require some serious muscle to steer this van at slow speed.  Hope you all have a great weekend.

Peace