Shepton Mallet - 8th / 10th September 2006

For the first time, we took the van to work on Friday, in order to get a quick start to the weekend. I didn’t know how quick a start Annie had in mind, as we pushed our way through schoolchildren crossing the car park. “Go on,” said Annie. “Away you go.” The fact that there was a pram with several tiny tots either in it or hanging off it wasn’t going to delay the start of her weekend.

The Dartford River Crossing was slow, as usual on a Friday teatime. The M25 was .. well, pretty much like it always is. It used to be called “The Largest Car Park in the World,” back in the days when a 10 mile tailback had an amusing aspect to it. Nowadays, the M25 is something you need to have disappearing behind you from your back window.

We took the M3 after stop-start-stopping for an hour, and then stopped again at the services to take on board some diesel. Not long afterwards, we left the M3 and pointed the van east, along the A303. It’s quite a nice road, being mainly fast dual carriageway for quite a few miles. The problem occurred when we were approaching Stonehenge, apparently. The road goes from mainly fast dual carriageway to something approaching a rural single carriageway, only slower. A two-lane queue up a steep hill was caused by said two lanes becoming one. We waited ages in that queue, and we were only barely able to hang on to our minds by listening to some audio book short stories, on the TomTom via a piece of wire into the new stereo. And “The News Quiz” on Radio 4.

On and on we drove, and the audiobook was worryingly about a guy driving a BMW down a deserted motorway, and he kept ending up at the same service station. I did begin to wonder whether the TomTom, being the source of the story, might have its navigation system infected by said story.

At around 8.15, we arrived at the <>. We had been unable to book our place in the Motorhome Facts rally pitch, because it had already been filled up by the time we had decided to come to the show. We had resolved to park in the general camping area, but as we arrived at the gate, I had a change of mind.

“Motorhome Facts?” I asked. Obviously, within those two words was the implicit question “do you happen to know whether the Motorhome Facts rally pitch has been filled up yet, or would there possible be a small place for us on it?” the guy on the gate obviously knew the MHF pitch, and its status, because he directed us to: “turn right here, go straight up, …” and that was the last I heard, As in, actually listened to. At the time, I was taking it all in, and moved forward and turned right as I’d been instructed. And then? Who knows? “I think there may have been something about going through a hedge,” I said, so we headed for a hedge.

There was clearly nothing on the other side, so we turned round, and went a different way. We twisted and turned, and although being at the top of the campsite, we had no idea where we were going. And it was turning from dusk into dark very quickly.

We hailed a passing couple, who had no idea where the Motorhome Facts pitch was, but asked “have you looked at the map?” I turned to Annie. She looked at me. The couple said: “it’s in the information pack they gave you on the gate. Annie sorted through, and found the map. We passed it across, and our guides looked at it, and: “yes, there you are,” and pointed to a rectangle on the paper, whose writing was far too small for me to read, but I was reliably informed it said Motorhome Facts.

We thanked them profusely, and they passed the map back, and turned to go. I had a sudden thought. “Err … I’m sorry, but where are we now?” They smiled, traced our location on the map, and we turned round.

Heading back down the hill, it really was getting dark, and I was thinking of giving up and finding a piece of grass to park on, when I noticed a yellow pennant flying, and a small wooden sign. We had arrived!

I jumped out, and asked for Jacquie. She appeared with clipboard. I told her who we were, and as she checked down the list, I admitted: “we haven’t booked. It was full before we’d decided to come. Can you squeeze us in?” Jacquie looked down the list, told us she was one van down anyway, although they might come tomorrow, which could mean we’d have to move. But we were in. Thanks, Jacquie.

We parked up, and as usual in front of other motorhomers, I hade a hash of the levelling ramps. During our two weeks in France, I became an expert. Although I used the tiny level Annie had bought me for a present, I could pretty well tell how we were lying. I’d put the ramps down, sometimes offset front to back to allow for a sideways lean, a quick forward, a quick reverse, bump, and we were there. At Sheptom Mallet, I could feel pairs of eyes watching me from behind blinds and curtains. I got the level out just in case, but I could see we were pretty much level side-to-side, but nose down on the slight hill.

No problem. We’d go forwards onto the ramps, nicely aligned with each other, I reckoned about a third of the way up, and we’d be right. Ramps were nonchalantly dropped and nudged into place with my foot – a particularly suave action, which I thought would get the watching audience nodding silently in appreciation. Start engine, back a little, brum, brum, and up she goes.

Something didn’t feel right. I got out, and looked at the ramps. One front wheel was half off the side of the ramp, which as a result had dug into the soft earth, meaning that we were tilted. I was crestfallen. This had never happened before! Honest!

Fortunately, I’d left the engine running, so I didn’t draw too much attention when I backed off the ramps again, and jumped out to line them up again. All thoughts of my debonair style were cast away, as I knelt down, and had to pull the corner of the ramp out of the ground. In rea;ity, I should have moved the van sideways a little, to find fresh ground, but I was afraid that my inexperienced juggling would draw crowds from other camping fields, as word would no doubt quickly spread of this eejit on the MHF site who couldn’t even park his van properly.

I decided to risk it, carefully placing the ramp dead-centre of the tyre, carefully lined it up, and jumped in the cab for another go. Of course, what I’d forgotten is that I’d backed off both ramps, so now I was some foot or so behind the nearside ramp, and on the plastic off the offside ramp. Even as I type this now, I can hear the sniggers of people around me at the time, fully realising what was going to happen. “Is everything all right?” Annie asked. “Yeah, fine, just need to level it up a bit.” “It feels level enough to me.”

This last comment is one rarely heard in our household. We both know that I have a good eye for levels – pictures on the walls, cupboards, just about anything. And so it is with a motorhome. But for me, there is irritation when something like that isn’t right. There’s no reason why it shouldn’t be right. Annie is more accepting of a status quo, that near enough is good enough if it means we don’t spend ages fiddling about with lumps of yellow plastic under the wheels, and we can get on with the evening. But for me, a couple of minutes spent getting it right is well worth it.

So forward we went, and I felt the offside ramp bump, but no nearside. Surely I can ‘t have completely missed it? This was turning into a complete disaster (Note: my definition of a disaster may be somewhat lower than many others. But believe me, to me, this was a disaster of epic proportions).

“It seems worse now,” said Annie, although I pretended not to hear her over the rattle of the engine. I jumped out, and immediately realised what had gone wrong. Should I leave it like it was? I thought about it for a second, but quickly realised that rectifying the obvious sideways lilt couldn’t be done until people around me were up in the morning, but experience had shown me that sometimes, this wasn’t until after 10am, or even later. By which time, everyone in the area would have walked past and noticed a slantily-parked van, bringing down the formerly fine collection of vehicles in the MHF parking lot.

Quickly, I jumped back behind the wheel (leaving the door open lest I attract too much attention), took off the handbrake to let the van slide slowly down the ramp (singular), jumped back down AGAIN, lined up the nearside ramp, back into the cab, back up a bit, and then brum, brum, bump.

Engine off.

It wasn’t perfect, but I’m afraid it would have to do (I can’t believe I even thought that, never mind admitting to it in print). The silence which descended upon the field was disturbed only by the “swish” and “rustle” of curtains and blinds being put back into place. Glad to be of entertainment, you voyeurs! Although, to be fair, were I to be in their place, I’d probably have been standing around with a bottle of beer in my hand, offering helpful advice like: “it’s not level, you know,” and “surely you’re not going to leave it like that?”

Annie started swishing curtains of her own, and announced: “come on, there’s a bar open until midnight.” And so we made up the bed, locked the door, and went in search of entertainment.

We found it, in the form of a huge barn-like building, the other side of the showground. A busker had got lost on the underground, and had found himself in, of all places, Shepton Mellet. We looked on as he sang snatched of sixties songs from Manfred Mann, and seventies songs from band like The Sweet and Slade. To be fair, he was … well, fair. The megawatt backing tracks were a tad more musical than he, and the whole ensemble looked and sounded more like karaoke night down the local than entertainment for an international show.

We queued up at the mobile bar for some drinks, Annie unsure whether to have a large gin and tonic or a cider. She opted for cider when she heard someone else being told there was no ice nor lemon. For me, I was tempted as always by the lure of the Guinness, but recurring flashbacks always caused me anguish whenever I see a Guinness tap. I won't go into it now, but it involved a good idea, some "export Guinness", and the good idea turning out to be a bad idea.

At Shepton Mallet, I had lager. The Guinness looked lovely, but I still had the lager.

Annie went searching for a table, and in true Annie style, asked this old guy, who was sitting on his own with two chairs leaning against his table, if we could have the chairs. Frankie told us that he was here with two friends, and they’d gone to make a phone call, but that was an hour ago. We took the chairs, and joined him at his table.

The pub singer embarked on this dreary Irish ballad-type thing, which went on and on, and although he looked very earnest, we kinda switched off, and spoke to Franklin (known as Frankie). We had a lovely evening, and Frankie was great company. I bought him a beer. He was drinking Guinness, and I envied him. I stuck to my lager. He told us of his life, having lost his wife a few years before, and how he loved getting away in his little camper van. We learnt of his children, his business life. We ignored the balladeer, who was still droning on.

A flashy young lady came on the stage next, when Donald O’Connor, or whoever he was, finally finished his masterpiece. She had a bash at “Big Spender”, although her lower notes were a bit of a struggle. She was better, good in fact, when she sang the theme from “Titanic”, belting out the song with considerable gusto.

After her there was a comedian, who was okay, although not as good as everyone else thought. After several pints, it was time to say goodnight, and we left Franklin to finish his beer, and we headed back to the van, thoroughly relaxed.

Saturday 9th September 2006

We were awake early, as usual, and 9 o’clock saw us marching into the show area to see what was what. First stall open was outdoor clothing, and Annie bought some stuff, and I bought some stuff. Then we wandered. We looked in vans which were too expensive for us, and found fault with most of them. There was one where you had to climb over the toilet to get to the shower – there was no room to slide past. This was a source of great credulity, especially to the women who, it must be said, are slightly more fastidious in the toilet department than most of us blokes. People walking past were dragged in to be shocked at the design, and they in turn invited others.

We saw only one which tickled our fancy, which was an Adria. We couldn’t afford that either, but I took pictures of it anyway. Maybe if I printed off the pictures, put them on the wall, maybe in a little dream bubble, then we might find a way sometime in the future. At least, we could get to the shower in that one.

We bought a paper from the excellent on-site shop, as well as sweet, sticky pastries. There was a load of stuff available, and it was doing very good business.

We bought more stuff. On recommendation, we had Cornish pasties for lunch, which were beautiful. We bought a thing runner carpet for the centre of the van. I bought an awning hold-down strap, with which I was delighted. We didn’t buy the comfy chairs, although Annie did her best to persuade me. The half-price ones from Tesco would suffice until something went wrong with them. We ogled at the Rvs – in fact, we ogled at the prices more. They looked beautiful, although unaccompanied visits were forbidden. We didn’t look round them. We only had two days, after all. We bought an external screen for the cab windows. Expensive, but it’s what we wanted, and surprisingly, the only thing on the list of “the only things we’re going to buy at the show” which we’d actually bought.

We had a chat to a few other people in the MHF area, especially Spacerunner whose clear-panelled windbreak had Annie slavering.

After a hard day’s shopping, we went back to the van, opened the beer and wine, and read the paper. We were just failing in our attempt to answer The Guardian Saturday quiz, when Phil, who we’d met on the full-timers’ meet, passed by. We said hello, Annie said give him a beer, and he stayed for a while. Then Jan came over, and they both stayed for a while.

Then it got cold.

Maybe not exactly cold, but there was certainly a little nip in the air, so Phil said: “do you want to come over to our van? We’ve got the heating on.” I turned to Annie, but she was already out of her seat, grabbing the wine bottle. I guessed the answer was “yes, please.”

We had a lovely evening with Phil and Jan, and they were talking about their plans for the future – winter in the south of Europe, and then back in the spring to take up positions as Caravan Club assistant wardens. The fireworks started, and we ventured outside to watch them. Eventually, Annie got tired, and we left to return to our van.

Sunday 10th September 2006

Up not quite so early today, but an early morning stroll to buy more stuff (a fleece for ‘er to stay in the van) and a discussion ensued about smaller vans. The rest of the morning, we wandered round campervans, had a nice chat with a chap from Timberland, and poked our heads in an iH van. All very fascinating, and shows how much you can get into a fairly small space without it feeling overcrowded.

Oh, and we bought an awning with clear panels in it. Not as fancy as Spacerunner’s, but time will tell how substantial it is in some actual wind.

At around lunchtime, we decided to depart. Most of the rest of the MHF-ers were still wandering around the show, and we snuck off down the hill.

The journey home was fairly uneventful, except for when we passed this field, with a bunch of people looking at some rocks. “Blimey!” I said (or something like) – “that’s Stonehenge.” I don’t know exactly what I was expecting, but whatever it was, I was thinking of something a bit more substantial that the scattering of boulders that I cruised past. Not terribly impressed. Annie said that they must be bigger close up. So’s a lot of things, but I fear we’ll never find out about Stonehenge. Not on our list of ‘must-sees’.