Long long week & even longer weekend nights

Where to start? Last Monday is as good a place as any. Paul texted to say he'd sorted the wheelbearing for £60 & that I could pick up that night. He also mentioned that "the whining noise had gone". To be honest, I wasn't quite sure what he meant because if there was any noise as Arthur goes along, it's more of a roar that I always felt was coming from the dodgy gearbox. Anyway, got up there to pick up, pushed cash under door, found keys on top of sun visor (nice Hollywood touch there I thought) & off we go......

A 1984 Transporter with god knows how many miles on the clock is never going to be silent running but we are certainly now in the quiet category - good result for £60 & a little grief last Saturday. Actually, the result is that I can hear a few other squeaks & rattles that the old roar had been blotting out but nothing to compare to before. The radio can now be used for the spoken word & music other than the mad bad loud stuff that I had to (had to?) listen to before.

Tuesday - long night working on Arthur after work. Got the 240v hook-up finished (so I thought, see later), cupboard mountings fitted, curtains fitted with wires to tuck the bottom of them behind when in use, tiebacks fitted. Came in feeling like a bit of an Alpha Male (after fitting curtains? yes I know, it's all relative) & slept the sleep of the righteous.

Wednesday - went round to the eldests to meet his girlfriends mum but ended up dragging all out of the house to show off my handywork. Bore? Me? Never.................

Thursday - did a preliminary pack-up of all the bits n bobs. We had been thinking that space would be tight but in the end it turned out that there's more room than we thought. Didn't sleep well, really worried that Ann wouldn't like it & that things would go wrong.

Friday, before work - packed a few more bits & went off to the Workhouse with a head full of campsites, sunshine & promise of real ale. Can't remember much about the day but suppose it was a day like any other full of appreciative articulate customers.

Friday , after work - the descent into Hell began. For some reason, we'd agreed to food-shop for the weekend after work on Friday - YES I KNOW, WHAT WERE WE THINKING?

Dropped Ann at Tesco, took the middle one home & came back to Tesco. Met the youngest there & in we go to find Ann. Methodical sweeps of the aisles found nothing, I'd left my mobile in the car so I sent the boy in to look while I continued to prowl up & down looking along aisles. Lost 15 minutes I didn't want to lose doing this before finding them both. Got home, finished packing, gathered us all together in a kind of pre-match huddle & gave the pep talk, "Lets all try to be calm, we've waited a long time for this, things will go wrong & we will have forgotten things but lets not stress each other out"

Off we go.

1 mile down the road, I realise I've forgotten my wallet. Ah, the joys of telephone banking, I can call First Direct & get them to transfer cash to Ann & we'll find a cash-point somewhere.

2 miles down the road, I realise I've forgotten my painkillers. Bigger problem here, I can cease to function as a polite human being without Tramadol if I take too much exercise & the intention is to drive, pitch camp, sleep out, walk all day Sat & then break camp again Sunday. Traffic back to home is horrendous due to roadworks so I decide to say nothing for a bit so I don't get pressurised into turning back. Can't spare the time, putting up a new awning for the first time with the light fading is no basis for a stress-free weekend, so decide to go up the A6 to get cash and armfuls of Paracetamol/Ibuprofen at the Sainsburys in Hazel Grove.

Did I mention that it was Friday rush-hour? The A6 in Friday rush-hour? A fully laden bus with a decidedly iffy 1st gear on the A6 in Friday rush-hour........great. A nose to tail 45 minutes later, we broke free & raced off through Disley, Chapel & over the top down towards Castleton. Winnets Pass is a 1 in 5 descent but nothing was stopping us now as we charged downhill. The brakes worked as intended & we proceeded calmly through Castleton, into Hope, out the other side & arrived at Laneside Caravan Park (www.lanesidecaravanpark.co.uk).

Friendly owners showed us to our pitch & left us to it. My biggest worry was that we would provide some kind of floorshow for others as we demonstrated our brand-new status by cocking everything up, by me using my very best polite sarcasm "Actually, you'll find if you do it this way, it is perfectly simple" etc, etc.......Didn't turn out like that. Awning went up easy enough though pegging out was a struggle. I'd booked a hard-standing pitch thinking this meant a strip of concrete for the bus to sit on while the awning was on grass. It didn't, it meant hard-packed limestone all over that you have to pound pegs into with the back of an axe because you've lost your mallet. Never mind, live & learn.

Sent Ann & Stu off to the village to find the Chinese take-away while I finished off setting up. It was at this point that I discovered that the hook-up didn't work so mobiles would be flat & coolbox would be battery only. No matter, you live & learn. They came back with a great big box, we ate like kings (should be Emperors I suppose) & we settled down for the night. No toothpaste, ah well, you live & learn.

Off to bed, Stu in the awning, me & Ann in the bus. Ann couldn't sleep, draughty, cold & what I thought was the best sleeping bag & had given to my lovely wife clearly was not up to the job of keeping her warm. Tears followed, not mine, but felt dreadful. Ann was only doing all this to humour me & to not feel excluded when me & Stu nip off camping somewhere. It was a long, long, night...........Still, a nice bacon & sausage barm in the morning will help to, ah, no, wait, forgot the fry pan. You live & learn...................

Saturday dawned bright & noisy. So many birds tweeting, sheep bleating, etc. Sounds I love but not after probably 4 hours sleep between us. Stu, of course, slept like the dead & awoke bright and so happy we could have strangled him. Previous nights Chinese made the missing fry pan a moot point as the thought of food was far from our minds. Bought toothpaste on site, got clean & we wandered off. Site has a river running past with stepping stones so a morning went just passed by wandering about & watching Stu getting his feet wet. Into Hope, found a cafe & had breakfast for lunch then wandered off to Castleton - 2 miles across fields full of lambs. Possibly the best walk ever.

Back to Hope by bus & into a pub for the FA Semi - least said about that the better. My one comment would be that if you truly wish to appreciate "citeh" & their 6 woolly-toed following, do it in a small Derbyshire village pub.

Return to site & Ann decided to sleep in the awning rather than the van, swapping places with Stu. The price you pay for a crystal clear April day is a bitterly cold April night so she was back in the van in the small hours - good job it's a full width bed.

Morning came & armed with a fry pan bought in the site shop, bacon & sausage barms were made & tasted as good as anything I've ever had on a campsite. Packing up after this was a breeze & back home via the Snake Pass - Arthur performed brilliantly & although the road was clear ahead, I was only holding up 5 cars at the most.

Today was spent washing & putting stuff away and thinking of next time & what can be done better. Whether Ann will be with us is up for debate - will depend on whether the brilliant days can offset the horrible nights - will get a 3-season sleeping bag if nothing else & I suppose better planning/execution on my part will help. Lets see - days are long enough when Ann isn't by my side & nights are even longer x