I could rephrase that, but I'm not gonna. ;)
Yes, finally after such a long time I spent a weekend away in Nina, even though she isn't finished yet, and you know what ? It was great.
A couple of weeks before the camp, I was asked if. I wanted to have my nephew for the weekend before he went back to school, in fact he was just about to start 'Big School'.
As we rescue dogs, and the ones we end up with at home have 'issues', having him stay at our house, which is actually a bungalow, just wasn't an option, it would stress the dogs out in their own home, and put my nephew in a situation where things may have gone wrong, he isn't used to our kind of dogs, he doesn't have a dog at home, so it was quickly ruled out.
Something I had mentioned to him before was camping at our field in Frampton On Severn, it is fairly secluded, off the beaten track so to speak, but next to the canal and a stones throw from the River Severn. A chance to get a bit closer to wildlife (lots of spiders in this case), and for us, us being myself, my nephew, and my brother, his Dad, to spend a bit of time together, generally annoying each other.
So it was arranged, and the couple of weeks leading up to the weekend, I spent sorting out the caravan we have at the field, we use it as a tea room when exercising dogs down there, and getting Nina ready for me to sleep in. The idea being my nephew and his Dad would stay in the caravan and I would have the luxury of a quiet space on my own. This worked out well.
Part of 'readying' meant that I had to prepare two chemical toilets for the first time. Never having used one before, this was going to be a chance to learn, quickly. The caravan had come with a Fiamma one, thankfully it was cleaned out before we got it, all the same I spent half hour or so hosing it through and bleaching every point of contact on it.
Mine, the one Jen bought Nina one year, was brand new and needed no such clean up, just adding water with a nice scented chemical to the flush reservoir, and a litre of water along with a much stronger not so sweet smelling chemical to the bottom reservoir.
When we had Ninas toilet, we bought some special toilet paper that dissolves quickly, no idea where it went, so I bought some of Tescos Value stuff, and in all honesty, it was probably the same as the expensive 'special' paper.
With that done, I turned to my Aldi 12v cool box, and bleach cleaned that out too. Last time we used it for camping was down at Brean, maybe 10 years ago, so its quite old now really, but still works perfectly, keeping everything icy cold all weekend with the help of a big ice block at the bottom.
For a bed in Nina, I would have liked to use her own seating and new seat cushions, but they are stacked at one end of the kitchen at home, and there is lots of 'stuff' piled on top, along with the fact I AM still in the middle of converting, it was too juch hassle to put it all back in for a couple days, so I decided to use a double airbed, which again had never been used to sleep on. With this in mind, and remembering airbeds of the past, I threw in an ex Army cot bed as a 'just in case'.
With everything prepared, the day of the first night camping, I drove Nina down to the field, with Jen following to pick me up, and parked Nina up. The skies were grey, and it was looking bleak for the days ahead.
With work still to do, and my Mums weekly shop to complete and deliver to her just up the road from where my Nephew lives, Jen whisked me off to do that.
After delivering the shopping, then picking my nephew and brother up, time was getting on, and the Autumnal skies were fading, it was a dull day anyway, and even though it was only around 6.30, it was going to be a race to get back on to the other side of the River Severn (we were in the Forest Of Dean) past Gloucester and on down to Frampton. Those of you not familiar with Frampton On Severn, it is just South of Gloucester, and West of Stroud.
So we made haste and promptly stopped off at the old Cattle Market once we got to Gloucester, officially called St Oswalds, and ordered a Dominoes Pizza for our tea. None of us had eaten, well, when I got to my nephews he was technically eating a burger his Nan had just made him, but he is a growing boy, so with a small pizza each, and a portion of wedges to share, we sat outside Dominoes and scoffed the lot. Thats to say I scoffed my lot, my brother and nephew ate half of theirs and put the rest by to torture me with when we got to the field, as mine was all gone.
By the time we left Gloucester it was getting seriously dark, and I was starting to regret stopping, we would all now get to the field in the pitch black, bear in mind that there is no electric, no running water, no street lighting, darkness in the field is fairly total, to the human eye.
I grinned to myself as I pictured the field lighting up like Chevy Chases house in Christmas Vacation when I turned Ninas lights on and opened all the doors !
We got to the field, both my nephew and my brother a little apprehensive at the prospect of two days without a proper toilet, no mains water and more importantly limited phone charging and 3g signal capabilities. I smiled again.
I drove in to the field close to the caravan to unload the car. Using my headtorch I located the caravan (it really is that dark !) unlocked the door, flipped the 12v electrics on via the freshly charged leisure battery, and switched the caravan lights on. The next few minutes were spent dumping stuff in there from the car.
I jumped in Nina and started her up, as usual she started on the button, and repositioned her closer to the caravan but still on level ground. With that done I threw open the back doors and proudly switched on the lights. They looked magnificent ! All I had hoped for and more, and I felt my chest swelling as my brother and nephew poured congratulations on me for making such a good job of them..... "They're alright aren't they." It was so unexpected to have that praise heaped on me, it made the hours of work putting them there worth every solitary second !
The next hour was spent with me sorting my new bedroom out in Nina, in between rushing to the caravan amidst the screams of terror from my brother and nephew yelling at me that "there's another Uncle Damon !!!!!". Yes there are many canal monsters living in and around the field, so terrifying are they, that no-one dare do what we were bravely attempting, by staying not just one whole night there, but two.
I quickly caught the latest spider in a bit of kitchen roll and took it outside.
Once we were all sorted, and I had shown them around the caravan, they noticed a couple of head torches hung up just like mine, very bright cree led, comes with batteries for £7.99, yep you guessed it, in Aldi. They are fab in all honesty, and both Brother and Nephew were pleased to learn that if they were good they could keep them. "DO NOT shine them in peoples faces or I WILL take them off you !" quickly became the catch phrase of the weekend.
After the excitement we put the kettle on for hot drinks and settled down to watch a DVD on my Portable DVD player. Sadly the film I had picked out for us in the bargain £3 section of Tesco, 'Oblivion', they had already watched, and as I got in to the first couple of minutes, their attention span wained and conversation ensued driving me to give up on it to watch at a later date when the gabble boys were no longer around.
After washing the cups up, and showing them how to turn the caravan seating area in to a bed, I said goodnight and made my way across the minefield of mole hills back to Nina for my first EVER nights sleep in her :).
Location:Frampton On Severn
