025 - Summer Juggling, UK
September 2004 - Basecamp Fulking, Sussex
Hi Folks,
We're back! You can't shake us off that easily! We've returned with a whole new methodology for bringing you our news, and hope you're going to continue to vicariously share our travels (and more!) via our website. We're very excited about it and have had some fun putting it all together with Ken, our Wondrous Webmaster, whose creativity and dazzling techno-skills have been keys to this development.
So, we thought we'd do an update to summarise what's been going on in Fruitbat World of late, and get our new system launched. There's been a bit of a gap since our last proper bulletin, and we can only apologise and explain that we spent a busy few months in the UK (aka YUK) learning some circus skills...
Well, you get the picture. We were trying to revive our rusty juggling, multi-tasking skills. Not that we were exactly idle during our previous six or seven months of Rolling, as you'll probably be aware, but somehow there was so much to do and so many people to see over the summer months that we felt we were in a constant whirl.
A fair bit of time was spent on paid work to top up the coffers and help out friends, relatives and colleagues (renovations, decorating, electrical and even some cartooning for Dave; the tiniest bit of co-training and working on a research project for Jeni). We also spent lots of time with family and friends, though never enough of course - there were friends we desperately wanted to see around YUK but couldn't, and others we tried to see more often but didn't quite manage that either. We enjoyed the generous hospitality of numerous friends and family members (this activity is also known as Eating Our Way Round Our Address Book!). On the eating theme, maybe the principle that it's always good to come away from the meal table feeling like you could manage a wee bit more food, applies here ... perhaps no-one had quite enough time to get heartily sick of us and we always felt like just a bit longer/just one more get-together would have been good?! (That was a rhetorical remark. Please - don't queue to contradict!)
Then of course there was The Patriarch's 88th birthday celebrations when we (together with siblings Jerry, Jane and sib-in-law Julie) took him up to London for a trip on the London Eye and lunch at Fortnum and Mason's ... there was tracking down our dear 'missing' friends Anthony and Allan from Brazil who we feared we'd lost touch with ... oh all sorts of jolly goings on.
We also made the momentous decision to sell virtually all that we'd kept (expensively) in storage since the previous autumn. It felt like a significant step, but the right one, as we're sure now that what we're doing is for us for the foreseeable future. Boot fairs, auctions, twisting friends' arms, driving about the county with vans and cars stuffed with furniture, arranging and re-arranging storage boxes in The Patriarch's garage - we did it all. Numerous times. The lovely thing is that most of our favourite furniture was bought by some good friends - and they've extended an open invitation to go and stroke it any time we like!
Basecamp
We spent much of our time parked up at Basecamp Fulking, just outside Brighton and Hove, on Sarah's land. Hence dogs, cats, chickens, ride-on lawnmowers, pitchforks, apple trees and rolling South Downs were recurring motifs of our happy summer. There were those memorable moments, like when Jeni was hacking with a scythe through the prolific early summer foliage to clear a better path to the hen-house. Exclamations issued forth - 'B*st*rd! Swine! Wretch! Take that! [Thwack!] And that! [Whack!]' as she annihilated vicious nettles, sticky weed and brambles - to the alarm and consternation of a small group of older women ramblers who just happened to be marching along the perimeter footpath up onto the Downs. They could hear the noises, but couldn't quite see through the hedge to determine who or what was at the receiving end of all this violence!
We had lots of visitors whilst we were at Basecamp, and it was great to see friends and family in such a lovely environment (even if occasionally the frequent rain had us huddled in rather crowded conditions in The Lorry). Our senior grand-daughter, Sorrell, spent a fair bit of time with us over the summer (including having her first experience of a world music festival) - she spent many happy hours leaping on the trampoline, collecting the eggs for her 'Dippy Egg' breakfasts, being pushed round the grounds in wheelbarrows or pulled on trailers behind the mini-tractor and enjoying the Sussex fresh air (as a change from Isle of Wight fresh air). She also got to see Great Grandad Cedric ('The Patriarch') in Eastbourne quite a lot, as well as Jeni's siblings and their Significant Others. We were also able to babysit-in-Basecamp-situ frequently for another Magnificent Little One, Amber, the daughter of our friends Colin and Liz. Such times we saw very much as Development Opportunities - a chance for the Free Child to come to the fore. (As if we needed any encouragement!)
Sarah was, as ever, our generous 'landlady' at Basecamp and we hope that she found it useful having us there for animal-minding, greenhouse-watering and land-management purposes.
And a bit of Rolling ...
We weren't static all the time though. We did get some travelling in, with several trips to the Isle of Wight to see family there; to Reading to 'coo' and 'aah' at the progress of our youngest grand-daughter, Hannah, and also to the Womad festival; down to the West Country for Sidmouth Folk Festival and our favourite Didjin' in Devon Fest. We also popped up a few too many times at the Forestry Commission site at Ocknell in the New Forest to harass our fellow full-timers Gill and Pete, and we had a memorable trip to North Wales.There's Lovely!
We have a wonderful group of friends who Jeni originally met on holiday in Spain some years ago, with whom we meet up fairly regularly, usually in unlikely locations. (Indeed, this is how we know Webmaster Ken.) This time it was all up to North Wales for some of the group to stay in a breathtaking, mountain-lake-side location in an old, ex-slate quarry building with water available via a bucket from the stream running down the nearby hill. Even a car couldn't get right up there, so no chance The Lorry. We found a small Camping in nearby Trefriw village, adjacent the hotel where others of the group were installed. We had a great weekend eating and drinking, tramping the hills, sitting by the lake drinking coffee and eating scones, nattering, singing and drumming by the log fire (whilst drinking wine of course) - oh and building an open fire for a big barbeque - you get the drift. What a great way to celebrate Dave's birthday and the Fruitbat Wedding Anniversary!Top Royal Etiquette Tips
But possibly the important learning point of the weekend was how to entertain Prince Charles should he pop in unexpectedly. We share this with you now, so as to rescue you from a potential Royal Etiquette Emergency - we know that so many of you have sleepless nights worrying about what you should serve him if the Royal Entourage stops by. At no extra charge to yourselves, we can reveal that Earl Grey tea - no milk and sweetened with honey - is the preferred Royal Tipple, and a slice of Barra Brith is welcome too. Don't be parsimonious, though, as he's likely to go for two slices - as indeed he did when he popped onto the very Camping in which we were residing.
Hardly an unexpected call, though, as our hosts on the Camping had been working up to this Royal Visit for weeks, if not months, and were all of a flutter about the fact that he was going to be calling in to their house. It stemmed from the massive floods in the area early in the year which had devastated the village and virtually washed away the campsite. Bit late with the morale-boosting call, we thought, but didn't quite like to say.
Anyroadup - the roads were indeed up on the Monday of the Royal Drop In. It was three choices, basically - (a) out of the village by about 7.30 a.m. to avoid the road-blocks, (b) sneak away by perilously hilly routes or (c) accept the curfew would last until about 1.30p.m. and hole up for the duration. Naturally, we Fruitbats preferred the least stressful option (c). Dave toyed with the idea of wandering out with a full toilet cassette, intent on 'Cludgie' Duties, during the Royal Tour and delivering his own speech. However, he couldn't find anyone who knew the Welsh for 'Jug Eared Sponger', so in the event we slept through the jollifications. Well, at least, we tried to sleep through them, but got awoken by the security helicopters doing a sweep of the area. Or, we wondered later, was it Himself, dangling from the helicopter, peering in through our rooflight thinking 'Cosy! One could enjoy a lifestyle such as theirs!'?
Close Encounters of the Full-Timing Kind
As well as distracting Gill and Pete on the Ocknell Campsite when they were trying to work, we also had a couple of meetings-up with Mike and Della, who we originally met down in Vilanova over the winter. They kept following us around - or was it that we just kept sneaking up on them? Whichever, we met up with them in Sidmouth (on the one day it decided to rain while we were down there!) and later on when they breezed by Brighton for a couple of days. Good to see them and swap news since we last met up over 1000 miles away in Spain!
Then a funny thing happened on the way to The Patriarch's one day. There we were in Eastbourne, innocently darting from Homebase, to Brewers, to Plumb Base, to B&Q and all other ferreteria/bricolage/DIY-store points between, as we gathered up the last bits for Dave to finish The Patriarch's shower installation. And, lo!, we saw a motorhome. Not unusual of course, but I started to say to Dave 'Oh look it's an older Kon-Tiki like .... ooooooh .... I think it is Dave and Pat!'. They went round the roundabout past us and we checked the back of their van. Yes it was them - no-one else we've ever seen has a sign on the back of their Lorry saying 'If the van's rockin', don't come knockin'!'. So we did a second circuit of the roundabout and headed behind them up to the park where they were stopping to give the dog a run ... and we crept up on them. These were people we'd last seen down in Moraira in Spain back in February at Kamping Killer Katerpillar! What a surprise.
We had a great hour and a half drinking tea in their van swapping stories. They were obviously as pleased to see us as we were thrilled to catch up with them. (Well okay, they feigned delight - good actors maybe!) And it was odd that we got to the roundabout at that precise moment ... a series of 'if B&Q hadn't been out of stock of that sealant', 'if we hadn't stopped and chatted with the Occupational Therapist about the flip-down shower-seat for Dad', if we hadn't tried to rat-run to avoid a traffic queue' - etc. etc. Funny how the Universe works, isn't it?!
We unanimously agreed that we all look so well, happy, unstressed and generally thriving that we were rolling adverts for this grey-nomadic lifestyle! True though. They showed us lots of photos of fab wild places in Portugal which got us inspired and made us impatient for the 'off'.
Itchy Wheels
There were lots of reasons to hang on in YUK for a bit longer ... and a bit longer ... and a bit longer. We had some angst about various members of the family and whether it was the right moment to go from their points of view. But we were definitely getting Itchy Wheels. Maybe what finally clinched it was that first significantly chilly morning when we were gazing out of the Lorry window and noticed that the swallows were gathering - yes, it was definitely time to head South.
We'll leave you there, but promise (or should that be threaten?) more regular Bulletins again now that we're On The Road Again (surely a song in that?!).
Wherever you are, be safe, be happy, be silly and hug someone today!
Lots of fruitiness,
Jeni and Dave
xx
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