08/2003 - Temporarily Static Fruitbats
21st January 2004 - UK
Hello you lot! Still there?
As you'll know if you stoically ploughed through to the end of Bulletin 7, the Rollingfruitbats had to put the olive picking on hold in order to make a mercy dash back to YUK. Jeni's Dad made an unscheduled visit to Eastbourne District General Hospital and we thought a brief inspection 'n' support tour was appropriate. The good news is that The Patriarch is staging a good recovery and, as we write, predictions are that he will be discharged to a short period of convalescence by the end of this week. As we waved goodbye to him on Wednesday evening, Cedric was sitting out of bed, holding court, surrounded by several visitors and plenty of food. His appetite is legendary as many of you know, and once we knew that his fruit intake had resumed its customary high level, we felt able to book our flight back with a sense of great reassurance.
The bad news is that email inboxes across several nations and continents are once again at risk of assault from the Bulletins!
Quick re-cap
Once we'd made the decision to fly back to YUK, we realised that it would be sensible to head back up to Villanova to our previous site and get the train from there direct to Barcelona airport. Courtesy of EasyJet we would then be able to fly into Gatwick and be back in Eastbourne in a few hours.
So back up through the orange groves and hills we drove, using the autopista for speed and convenience (though not cheapness of course, it being a toll road). Mike and Della (a.k.a. Beardy and Ma B), who we'd met before we left Villanova Park the previous week, were treasures (take a bow, you two!) and helped us out in all sorts of ways while we were getting ready to go back. They added to our sense of security by saying they'd keep an eye on the Lorry during our absence, bless. (We flatly refuse to believe the authenticity of the emails, allegedly from the Site Management, trying to charge us extra for 8 people occupying the van each night, and complaining about us running a manure-haulage business. Such innuendos serve only to damage the reputation of this delightful couple. We actually believe they have lovingly spring-cleaned VeeJay, internally and externally, at least twice since we've been gone. And collected our laundry.)
A German couple who we'd met when we were staying at the site previously were very surprised to see us when we got back. Much of our communication with them before had been by a combination of sign language, mime, Dave's origami poses and Jeni's O level (failed) German from 30 years ago. Not deep meaningful conversations then, you'll have realised, but sufficient to be on cordial terms.
Dave was keen to explain to them why we were back, so we scribbled out a few words of German that we felt might be relevant, and Dave drew several (as we thought) self-explanatory cartoons to indicate what was going on. Off he sped towards their van, clutching his bit of paper, looking pleased with himself. Only to be met with total perplexedness on the part of our fellow travellers. Actually it was worse, they looked alarmed and started to back away (though Dave vehemently denies this!). The day was saved by another German couple who spoke some English and were much enlightened when they turned the piece of paper upside down and back to front - 'Aah!'. It turns out our German friends thought first of all Dave was asking who the guy's father was, then maybe it was the whereabouts of another English couple who'd been on the site previously and gone off somewhere by plane!
We have now added a small German phrasebook to the 'Languages' section of the Lorry's Library!
Jeni wondered why Dave was keen to stay in Barcelona at a budget hotel the night before we flew back. She could understand his concerns about her infamous faffing that might delay us in the morning and worrying that the train journey to the airport might take longer than we anticipated, thus creating stress and rush, but she wasn't entirely convinced. All became clear when we arrived at the hotel, Dave hurled down the bags and, trembling, grabbed the TV remote control! All this nonchalance about not missing TV - pah! He explained that watching Bob the Builder in Spanish was part of his language development programme. Are we convinced folks?! Oh well, we did see an excellent programme about 'the new Flamenco', had a jolly decent meal in the hotel restaurant and an interesting conversation with a guy who was en route from his work in Libya (approx 35 degrees Celsius when he left) to his home in the north of Canada (currently minus 40 degrees). No wonder a stop-off in Spain seemed like a good idea!
And thus back to Gatwick, clutching our warmest coats and a borrowed case full of a week's clean undies (our own). We were very pampered as friends Dave and Meri who have been looking after our car while we've been away, scooped us up from the station and took us back to their place for an afternoon fry-up. (Now we realise it was a good thing we didn't manage to sell the car before we left!)
Re-orientation
Although we have only been living in the Lorry full time for just over two months, we both had some problems adjusting to being in bricks and mortar again. We swapped the delights of the moon-lit, star-spangled nocturnal pee for severe disorientation on getting up in the middle of the first few nights. We stayed in Cedric's (Jeni's Dad's) flat in Eastbourne, and Jeni found herself heading first for the front door, then turning round and into the lounge before finally twigging that she wasn't in the Lorry (either ours or a strange one, which was her first thought - she'd blundered into someone else's 'rig' and she didn't know where they'd hidden the loo!). Mind you, it was a near miss when Dave opened the sliding door of the wardrobe during his first few nights of confusion!
The Weather
OK. We know that we've probably rubbed it in a bit about the sunshine and blue sky's that we'd been enjoying in Spain over the past couple of weeks before we left, but come on a joke's a joke! What's with all this Gale Force Winds, Torrential Rain and Giant Water Spouts to welcome us back to England? If ever we needed a reminder as to why we decided to head South in the first place, this would be it. Jeni frequently stood at the window gazing into the grey outside and asked, somewhat plaintively, if the Weather Fairy was taunting us with a parody of all the worst meteorological conditions which we must be forced to endure during our stay or if she was kindly reminding us of what we wanted to escape from?! To be fair, Eastbourne's micro-climate did give us a couple of sunny days, while friends in the Midlands and North shivered in the snow, but we still needed all the layers of clothes we'd brought.
Urgent Supplies
One of the things that we did whilst back in the UK, between visits to the hospital, was to stock up on one or two essentials that we've not been able to find in France or Spain. Shreddies headed Dave's list along with coffee creamer and Tunnocks biscuits (you notice the emphasis on food here?!). Meanwhile Jeni has been seen hunting down printer cartridges, furtively purchasing the current edition of Motorhomes Monthly or similar, and rifling through some of the boxes in our storage room for her larger Spanish-English dictionary (need we say more?!). Sad, yes, but then you know our proclivities (well, some of them!). Actually we're wondering about excess baggage charges now we're all packed up and ready to go, as we seem to have two-thirds of the stock of Waterstones bookstore in our bags.
The Zeal of Converts
We would like to take this opportunity of making a few apologies. Firstly, to those friends who thought we had brought the Lorry home and were back for a good long time. Unaccountably, several people (ok, not that many, but still a few ... ) seemed rather keen to see us while we were on UK soil, so apologies that this was a fleeting visit and we weren't able to take up your M6 / M25 / M1 / general traffic chaos Challenges. Hopefully you won't have let out the drive-tarmacking contract before we return in the spring, so we'll still be handy to have around.
Secondly, abject apologies to those few local friends and family members we did see, who we bored rigid about what a wonderful new life we have. You might have just got a tiny hintette from our Bulletins to date about how much we are enjoying what we are doing, and of course the zeal of converts can be deeply distressing for those on the receiving end. Unless, like Cedric's window-cleaner, you are thinking of driving off down a similar road yourself, in which case being side-tracked from what you're meant to be doing for nearly an hour for an enthusiastic onslaught is probably ok.
Being back in YUK reminds us of last year when we were weighing up our options and occasionally nearly got bogged down in the complexities of it all. We eventually just decided to hold hands, shut our eyes and leap off the Hamster Wheel, not quite knowing what would befall us. We're aware it's early days yet, but suffice to say 'So far, so (very!) good!'.
And it's not just the cost of living within the UK, it's the additional cost of keeping sane in an endlessly grey environment, especially during the Winter months. Or, as Mike and Della put it when they emailed us the other day, 'Heck, you'll appreciate it all the more when you get back after all that yukky greyness. Maybe we're taking it too much for granted and should fly back there for a week or so, stand in a few puddles, get thoroughly chilled waiting for non-existent buses, pay 50 quid for the equivalent of a 5 euro meal and generally just be miserable. What do you think?'. That's one way of confirming it!
Of course, this lifestyle isn't for everyone by any means, and we do know we're lucky to be able to do it, but if you're trying to leap off your own particular Hamster Wheel into the arms of your own particular dream-fairy, we say 'Go for it - follow your dreams!'. Life's too short (and we're not talking mushroom-stuffing here).
The beacon of brightness though is undoubtedly wonderful friends and family, and (at the risk of sounding nauseatingly sentimental) the yukky greyness has been dispelled by you lovely people. We say this even to those of you who didn't manage to invite us round for a meal - don't worry there's always a next time !
And finally ...
And finally, we need to confess that we've been relentlessly zealous about the Boggle as well, and have Boggled our way round several homes in the East Sussex area, with great merriment. (Gamleys will wonder why there's been a run on Boggle sets locally!)
Hopefully our next missive will have an attachment of Spanish sunshine once again, so until then ...
Hasta la proxima!
Jeni y Dave
xx