Tag: campervans

Who knew that the world is so noisy?

Hazel catkins on the riverside path

Well, this is a new one! At last, yesterday I had my new hearing aids fitted after a six month wait. I mentioned the long wait to the audiologist at the hospital and she looked so troubled I immediately changed the subject. Poor things, they must have had a battering from angry patients. These new ones are a bit of a game changer because they’re bluetooth capable and they’ve also got some kind of wizardry built in that generates faint white noise which subdues the tinnitus noises. They’re caused by the brain which doesn’t like the silence of deafness so it generates some very unappealing whistling sounds to compensate. I think the hearing aids, by making sure that it’s never silent, stop the brain having to fill in the gap. Nature abhors a vacuum even when it’s between your ears.

Anyway, she also said that although it would be uncomfortable it was better to wear them continually so that the brain would get used to the change in sounds faster. I now know what she meant. We walked down Green Park road yesterday and the high frequency noise of passing car tyres was almost unbearable. By the evening I was completely exhausted by beeping kettles and roaring washing machine and so (as you do) I asked Google Gemini whether the tiredness was a known side effect of new hearing aids. And it seems that it’s well known enough to have a name – “listening fatigue” which results from the brain – which even on a quiet day burns 20% of your energy – desperately trying to catch up with this new sound environment. The upside is that I can now (with some help from my friend Kate) listen to music, take phone calls and turn off the subtitles on the telly while reducing the volume. Our neighbours will be rejoicing . My dad used to have the telly on so loud you could hear it halfway down the road.

When, last January I had a routine blood test I had no idea what a storm of hospital appointments and procedures would be unleashed. I am now grimly familiar with the Royal United Hospital and hope – in the nicest possible way – that after one last appointment with the glaucoma clinic in January and one more blood test, we’ll be able to go our separate ways; but I can’t leave without saying how great they’ve been and how grateful I am that the many overseas nurses and doctors who helped to find out what was really wrong were prepared to stay here and keep the NHS running in spite of the racist abuse they have to put up with. In the end it turned out to be a pretty non-lethal and treatable combination of troubles and I’m glad to say that the engine is now running smoothly again; my appetite is returning along with a lovely touch of optimism. Madame too is practically back to normal after her knee replacement and the campervan is back on the road with a reconditioned engine, new clutch, cambelt and alternator so 2026 is filled with the promise of new adventures. In a month’s time we’ll be back in Cornwall armed with the trailcam and moth trap. Can’t wait.

On an equally celebratory note, I managed to fulfil two of the three resolutions by going back through all the old jumble of photos, stored – shoe-box style and beyond reach. I managed to turn the 22,000 photos into 1000 records and I identified 500 species of plants growing in the places we visited. The only resolution I didn’t meet was to complete a million words on this blog – but I’m only 8000 words short and they’ll be written before we go down to Cornwall and start a new set of lists; this time including moths. I’ve started the fungus records as well, so there will be hours of head scratching to look forward to.

2025 was the year in which we decided to give up the allotment and then changed our minds when I was well enough to walk up to the track without stopping three times. So now we’re ready for whatever the climate crisis throws at us next season. As always the point of growth is the place of injury and we’ve learned a great deal about gardening through extreme weather and even managed some decent crops right at the end of September. The apple crop was magnificent and we’ve still got a few fresh allotment apples in store.

At home the Pensions Board have finally begun to plan how they’re going to deal with the black mould in our flat – it’s only ten years after all since we first complained, and the Church of England never rushes a decision when it can be kicked into the long grass for a decade.

So that’s it. The Potwell Inn is signing off for 2025 but the doors will probably be open again tomorrow. I suppose someone will call last orders at some point, but for now we seem to have escaped, Bon Voyage mes amis!

A catch up on the allotment and a warning to be careful what you wish for – just in case you get it!

So here, at the end of a heavy duty week on the allotment are some of the fruits of our labours after a long and difficult winter. Crops are growing; even broad beans in the polytunnel are in pod and fattening up – which was especially nice when we saw that they were selling at £7 a kilo in the supermarket yesterday. Spuds are pushing through and the tunnel strawberries are about to begin their ripening. Spared any early frosts this year the trees have had a good fruit set. The bottom right photo is of a hybrid blackberry that languished in the fruit cage for three seasons so we took a chance on moving it to a better position with more light and air. Eight years after taking over an overgrown field, the plot is finally looking established. There’s a settled feel to it that; after a lot of to-ing and fro-ing; suggests that the allotment has accepted our guardianship. There’s a profound difference in the progress of happy plants over unhappy ones and any successes we have are down to noticing what the plants like best and making sure they get it. The strawberries, for instance, have runnered all over the place and made their way to a narrow bed beside the polytunnel where they are protected from winds in any quarter, and bask in its radiated warmth. It would be the last place I’d have chosen to put them! – but the earth is kept moist from rain runoff, the sun passes happily through the polythene cover and it’s one of the few low-traffic areas on the plot.

Gardening takes up a lot of time and energy, but I’m a great believer in texture and so we’ve tried hard to keep going on other things – like botanising and taking trips in the campervan. I’ve written before about the degree of planning that I do before a trip and I’ve made great use of the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland’s magnificent databases and distribution maps. But one thing that’s always frustrated me in the past was the fact that ordinary members of the public (like me) only got limited access to the detailed information contained in 40 million records. This meant that if I wanted to check the location of a plant I was interested in I could only get an approximate 2X2 kilometer square on the map. Trust me, scouring 4 square kilometers of bare countryside for a tiny clump of flowers doesn’t half slow you down. There is one particular plant that I’ve been looking for for three years.

Anyway this last week the database was opened up to all BSBI members, with some provisions for protecting especially rare and endangered plants and this gave far more detailed locational information. I’m much more interested in the kind of unthreatened plants which are especially fussy about their environment whether that be pavements or lead mining slag heaps. I had to apply for access and rather to my surprise it was granted. I fell on the database like a hungry wolf and quickly discovered how close I’d been to finding my three year quarry – that’s a trip for the next couple of weeks. But then we’d also been to a lecture on ferns a few weeks ago and one difficult to find plant had cropped up in the midst of one of my favourite places on earth; not pretty but, let’s say, post-industrial. So a quick search online and within seconds I’d got a reasonably precise location. But instead of the adrenaline rush I’d expected I felt a bit ashamed of myself – as if it was cheating. That’s one to resolve later but it feels as if I enjoy hunting more than finding.

My research into AI wildlife recording applications took another step forward when the BSBI released a phone recording app at the same time. Good for them! Of course we shot out for a walk as soon as it stopped raining and I entered a record on the hoof, as it were, with a minimum of fuss. Coincidentally I’d been tasked to produce a precis of several longish reports on the work of the Natural History Society that we’re members of. I always swore that I’d never go to another meeting after I retired but I relented in a moment of weakness. So – and here’s a major confession – I fed all three long reports into Gemini, the Google AI machine and analysed them one at a time and then it took less than half a minute to produce a brilliant summary of all three, of a quality it would have taken me days to produce. My personal prejudices, likes and dislikes played absolutely no part in it because it was produced by a deep text machine with no knowledge of which ideas I liked and which I hated. All my work was focused on asking the best possible question and setting the task in logical and unambiguous terms. You might call it a scientific approach.

I presented the report to the committee and one member kicked off about the absence of the term “research” that wasn’t in any of the contributory papers. I could see that the discussion wasn’t going anywhere and backed off, but I left the meeting feeling that I’d been the victim of gaslighting. My hard work was being dismissed because -well because what? Antonio Gramsci, the Italian political theorist distinguished between organic and traditional intellectuals; the first group theorizing from a world of lived experience and the second (such as philosophers and clergy) giving history and tradition the whip hand. Give me the wisdom that comes from lived experience any day!

Back in the real world, I read two articles that seemed to treat plant recording as a kind of Ian Allan trainspotter discipline – more was clearly better. I get very fed up about this kind of thing, because it puts the amateur naturalist at a tremendous disadvantage. In one instance a recorder had submitted 135 thousand records to the big database. A little bit of basic maths suggests that with 3,500 plant species in the UK you’d have to find every one of them almost 40 times to amass such a score. The real scientific impact of such a magnificent effort is not in the gross total, but in building our knowledge concerning the distribution of plants across the country, their seasonality and preferred environments, the variations in their appearance and whether they are increasing or decreasing in number or in danger of disappearing altogether. Ten thousand records of a single plant – let’s say, bluebell hybrids made right across the length and breadth of the country could be tremendously useful. Amateur naturalists can be a vast army of potential volunteer recorders who, with targeted and appropriate help from the professionals, would get better and better at identifying plants and therefore contribute to the data that scientific research depends upon. There’s no hierarchy needed here; no need for anyone to feel intimidated or inhibited from having a try by the thought that they might get laughed at or patronized. The academic gatekeepers, far from preserving the integrity of the discipline are holding it back; squeezing the life out of it.

But hey! we’re off down to beloved Cornwall in the campervan and I’ll be testing the apps, looking for plants, doing a bit of recording and hopefully some sunbathing too, alongside a few trips to the pub. Here at the Potwell Inn, we celebrate the life ordinary. This weekend an old friend died of Motor Neurone disease. I have no idea how to process that.

An evening in the campervan with an excellent documentary series on Frida Kahlo. I really didn’t notice she wasn’t wearing much when I took it. Madame was consulted and she approved before I included this photo!

Old campervans ….. they’re not all wine and roses!

July 2017 – one of our earlier trips to Wales

We came to buy our 2009 MURVI campervan almost by accident. We’d always been hardcore tent campers; even to the extent that we’d given up on modern fabrics because they were far too noisy in bad weather and reverted to cotton which was quieter and more breathable. The thought of caravans or campervans hadn’t entered our minds. Then one day we were out for a walk and we passed a school sports field where we saw our first MURVI and fell for it instantly. We even had a conversation about it and agreed that in the unlikely event that we ever had a campervan that would be the one.

The next thing that happened was that a couple of friends drove up to see us in exactly the same model we’d seen – so we were able to inspect it at close quarters and we loved it even more. The big mistake was to drive down to Exeter one Sunday afternoon to a regional show – just to look. Ha Ha! There was never any possibility of us buying a new van but we still got the full sales pitch so while I enjoyed the moment Madame went off and found a postcard small ad for an older 09 model second hand. Of course we still couldn’t afford even this one – we were about to blow most of our savings – and so we drove home empty handed. This next bit is amazing and rather beautiful because that very week an old friend offered to make a substantial and completely unexpected gift so that we could afford the van – and so we finally got our MURVI eleven years ago and it’s become our little place in the country, our field station and our solace in stressful times.

Now if that sounds exactly what you’d most love go ahead, but you need to factor in the constant need to maintain. Aside from tax, insurance and secure storage, all of which add up to just over £1000 a year; parts wear out and need replacing and whilst it’s possible to retain a head full of elaborate workarounds to keep the show on the road sooner or later everything finally wears out. So we put up with the minor inconvenience of having to blow up one of the tyres every week because in spite of all our attempts neither we nor the tyre centre can discover what’s causing it to deflate. The wonderful onboard heater is a highly sophisticated piece of German engineering but when the controller goes wrong it’s three figures. Water pumps wear out and the batteries – three in total – also have a finite life, and be warned, everything in a campervan runs on 12V, so if a leisure battery fails everything else goes as well. It’s no use thinking the mains electricity hookup will take over. Fancy alarm systems will drain the battery almost overnight. We once spent an icy week sitting in sleeping bags using head torches for light. That was fun! Oh and three way fridges well least said soonest mended – or perhaps you can do what we do and rejoice in the simplicity of the two-way fridge. Ten minutes on any campervan club website will give an abundance of ways of bringing the gas mode to life and trust me I’ve tried them all.

So we carry a reasonably comprehensive toolkit including a multimeter and we find that most things can be lashed up or repaired without resorting to ‘experts‘. The essence of campervanning is an ability to have fun even in a van that’s not quite perfect. Good enough is king! and it’s always better to use the onboard cludger than to trudge across a field in the middle of the night in a force 8 storm – we’ve done that and dried the T shirt, which takes days – especially in Wales. The campervan is the ultimate go anywhere home from home – with all my books for plant hunting, a portable router that can find a signal almost anywhere and a bottle of wine or three.

Possibly the best thing of all is that provided you’re prepared to be a bit flexible, you can be spontaneous and take off at the drop of a hat, even out of season. We’re not fans. we’re addicts; but the key thing is that in 30 years of tent camping taught us that the key to a happy camping life is resilience.

Two rooms, two views, one home.

I’ve got two competing ideas in my mind at the moment so rather than choose one of them I’ll recount both of them and leave it to you to decide if either of them carry any weight. On Saturday we were in full-on packing mode and at the last moment I decided to clean and waterproof our walking boots – there they are drying on the window ledge. Packing is hard work. We once set out with a tent and no poles, and on another occasion with no bivvy mats. I used to keep long lists and tick each item off as we went along, but as our needs changed and the three boys left home, the list became obsolete and we went back to making it up as we went along. There’s always the danger that I’ll forget something important. Running out of medicines on a trip to Snowdonia taught us the importance of carrying the NHS app on our phones.

Then we graduated to a campervan after 40+ years of tent camping and a whole new world opened up to us; a whole new world in which the second thread of my post becomes important. This was a comment on the radio by a woman recounting her childhood memories. Her father was what was then known as a travelling salesman and spent much of his life on the road in North America. Consequently he spent a great deal of time in motels. He used to let his daughter travel with him occasionally and he would invariably say as they swept past the tumbleweed into the car park of a motel in – let’s say – North Dakota – “Ah well, if we lived here we’d be home now”.

Right from the first trip we fell in love with the campervan because it felt like a second home which could go anywhere. Inside was always home and outside – through the windows – was the wide world. For some the appeal of campervanning is chintzy curtains, gleaming chrome work and matching T shirts. Also for some – and I bear them no ill will – the very thought of using the built in cludger is anathema; the idea of sleeping near a tank full of human effluent is horrible beyond imagining. Not for me, though. For me the very thought of pulling on a raincoat and wellies and sploshing across a field in the rain at 3.am is truly hell on earth. After four decades of tenting, cooking kneeling down, sniffing gone-off milk, schlepping across muddy fields and queueing for the toilet or a shower which eats money like a hungry crocodile, oh and waking up frozen stiff; I’m now firmly on the side of convenience and comfort. Spartan virtue scores zero but the built in shower and toilet, fridge and cooker are a joy. We even had a satellite television until the dish fell apart on the roof accompanied by terrible groaning noises. Ours is an old van and it’s extremely temperamental so we carry a full tool kit and expect to have to do running repairs and even resign ourselves to life without an appliance if the replacement is beyond our reach. I’m aware I may be underselling the thrills at the moment and if you’re the kind of person who wants five star luxury on wheels you wouldn’t want to get into budget campervanning. If you read the accounts of extreme suffering on some websites you will discover that for a certain sub-group of wannabe campers, noisy suspension or a certain lack of power whilst towing the family Range Rover on a trailer can ruin lives.

A campervan is just like home, but home in a submarine! So packing becomes an exercise in setting priorities. So long as I’ve got my laptop, the portable router and an aerial on a magnetic base I can usually find a phone signal and internet so I can carry on writing and posting. That’s a lot of fairly expensive kit but it works for me. Madame and I also need a lot of books around us, in my case for reference, plant and fungus ID’s. We have drawing equipment too. We only bring a small quantity of lightweight clothing and a washing line. If the weather is lousy we can dry clothes in the bathroom which has its own heating outlet and becomes a wet room in thirty seconds. As for the long dark nights, the router is usually just about fast enough to drive a TV even where the phones can’t find a signal – but it uses a fabulous amount of expensive data and in any case there are better things to do on long dark nights – including (but not exclusively) listening to life enhancing music on the bluetooth speaker and drinking wine.

I toyed with but rejected calling this piece “These boots are made for walking” – but good walking boots are the number one priority, especially for septuagenarian plant hunters, and we always take out hand lenses and collecting kit as well as my favourite notebooks which have wax coated pages and – with a pressurised space pen – can be written on even underwater. As you may know, if you’ve been following this blog for any length of time, I love a good list – our oldest son is sure that this is an indicative sign of some sort of spectrum!

Anyway – you can thank the rain for this posting – but the sun is coming through now and I can feel a walk coming on. Our immediate neighbours on the site are a dozen young people in little festival tents. Our hearts dipped when we saw them arrive but in fact they’ve been extremely quiet and superficially at least, well behaved. I mentioned this to our youngest son who told me they were all probably taking magic mushrooms. I couldn’t possibly comment but we wish them well – there’s not much going for young people at the moment and they must needs take their pleasures where they find them.

Uncle Jim drops by

The shed – damaged by vandals two years ago

Our hearts sank when a post on the allotment group Facebook page alerted us to the fact that once again we’d had intruders on the site who had broken into about 15 sheds. Luckily, this time we had escaped their attention. It’s impossible to overstate how insecure this made us feel. Theft and vandalism are almost universal on allotment sites and the emotional damage is enormous. There’s a huge difference between a garden and an allotment plot because your garden is usually attached to, and part of your home – whereas an allotment is often several miles away and also open to all comers. It’s almost impossible to insure your tools for that reason, and of course vandalism and theft of crops puts your plans back by a whole season.

A couple of nights ago I couldn’t sleep. My mind was churning over some big issues when I had a flash of inspiration about one aspect of the Potwell Inn that I’d never really articulated. The reasoning behind the name of this fictitious place comes from the HG Wells novel “A History of Mr Polly” and the campervan is called Polly for that reason. I first read the novel as an English set book when I was at school. I’d reached that awkward stage in life – my early teens – when nothing seemed to work. Nothing fitted or suited me and I felt bolshy and shy in equal measure. Most of my teachers had fought in the war and their various traumas were all too apparent – often rude, domineering and gimlet eyed when it came to any deviation from the straight and narrow of a lesson plan that could never ever accommodate my restless mind. There were exceptions of course. Bill Williams could make maths into an intellectual adventure; Chris Levinson introduced me to modern American poetry and literature. Whacker Allan, notwithstanding his considerable and violent canings never dimmed my determination to get to France; but Punch Neesham thought that a headlock was the best way to facilitate the removal of a sweet from a fourteen year old’s mouth. So reading “Polly” was a bit of a revelation to me – offering an escape route from all that. I didn’t identify with Polly, because for a while I became him. I wanted to fall in love – anyone would do. I wanted to clown around and, if need be, burn down the crippling suburban prison in which I felt trapped.

When eventually aged 17 I was escorted out of school by the scruff of the neck by a Headmaster who had a great deal to be modest about, it felt like a kind of liberation. Whatever crap I found myself wading through, I knew that it was my crap; my choice and I could endure it because the alternative was to fall into a pit of mediocrity in which you were promoted for not threatening the system.

The thought of finding or creating my own version of the Potwell Inn never left me. Sometimes it came to me as a kind of vision – like the memory of drinking a pint of Exmoor Gold leaning on the sea wall outside the Griffin at Dale. If ever anyone saw my eyes drifting away during times of particular hardship it was because I’d have taken a temporary absence in my mind. Back to the pub and the sea. Once I’d got together with Madame – I was 18 and she was only 15 – we were able to break away and create the first of many iterations of the Potwell Inn together.

But there was always Uncle Jim to contend with. In the novel he’s the landlady of the Potwell Inn (AKA the plump woman’s) nephew. He’s a violent drunk who believes he has been cheated of his inheritance – the pub – and occasionally turns up in the midst of their little paradise threatening terrible things. In our own lives there were lots of Uncle Jims and you never knew when, or in what disguise, they were going to turn up; often in the form of someone claiming to want to help, and especially as people who thought my whole purpose as a parish priest was to do exactly what they required of me and act as some kind of chaplain to their mysterious status quo.

My restless night suddenly reminded me that that Potwell Inn – that’s to say this particular version of it – is a very precious and visionary place that somehow overlaps our real lives and sometimes for a few hours or even days actually becomes our real lives. Most of the time, living in the centre of the city where in winter the sun really does set over the needle exchange we need the Potwell Inn to help us recover. In our souls we take it everywhere, especially in Polly the campervan.

Today, across the Green, the river is running higher than we’ve ever seen over the past seven years. The riverside paths are covered by up to a couple of feet of muddy water travelling faster than I could run, and Pulteney Weir has all but disappeared. We’ve had drought and record summer temperatures, a vicious cold spell, unduly warm winter weather and now days and days of heavy rain. We’re at a bit of a loss to decide what to grow next year because this global climate catastrophe is galloping up on us. A less than divine visitation by an all too humanly created Uncle Jim. And suddenly the Potwell Inn takes on a whole new dimension and becomes a kind of Ark.

December 2020 – this year the water is two rails higher.

“If we lived here we’d be home now”

The headline, by the way, isn’t mine. I once heard an American writer describing her childhood during which her father – who was a travelling salesman – would take her on interminable road trips which always ended in a more or less seedy motel.

Far be it from me to describe our campervan, which we call Polly – the hero of the Potwell Inn – as seedy. We’d prefer to call Polly “lived in” . Who cares about the odd battle scar or missing wheel trim? It is completely true that when we roll onto a campsite loaded with field guides, binoculars, drawing equipment and wine, we are at home already, surrounded by our familiar objects. After a flurry of hammering to put up the windbreak and then experimenting with the aerial to see if we can get a comms signal, we’re done. The new Netgear router and Ponting omnidirectional aerial have managed to turn a weak or invisible phone signal into a very tolerable 4g+ signal between 10 and 50 Mb/sec.

This time we’re in the Cambrian Mountains in mid Wales – not very far into them because the roads are at best tiny and more likely nonexistent. However we’re parked up next to the River Towy which surrounds us with a comfortable babbling sound overlaid by sheep on the hills- could anything be more restful? It’s one of the least visited wild places in Wales which means it’s really quiet. Typically, as we drove in, I remembered that we’re in yet another quarry/mine. The last campsite which was only ten miles away by road had seen 500,000 tons of shale rock extracted to get at the “dirty” quartz” which, when each 10 tons was pounded, milled and treated with mercury (which necessitated it being taken to Germany for processing), yielded 1g of gold. The mines were first opened in Roman times but then became disused pretty much until a succession of Victorian and early 20th century entrepreneurs lost their shirts on them. The problem seems to be that they needed to pay their miners whereas the Romans used slaves. As you see – nothing much changes. A perfectly viable industry closed down by militants who expected to be paid for risking their lives!

Anyway the trip round the mine was fascinating, especially as we had a professional geologist as a guide. What was equally interesting for us was that we emerged into a path that took us through a lovely wildflower meadow where we clocked several plants I’d never seen before including one relative rarity which necessitated a very friendly exchange of emails with the County Recorder who corrected one and verified another, (whorled Caraway). Yesterday we went back again for a closer look and confirmed that the whole field was full of marsh plants – a highly distinctive habitat known in Wales as Rhos and in Devon as Culm. Who’d have thought of marsh plants on a boiling hot day 600 feet up a hill. Happy days! So, with a couple or three records accepted we wandered back down and found Valerian, Bilberries and these stunning Fox and Cubs – at least three times as tall as I’ve ever seen them before. An ideal photo to accompany a piece about gold mines I think.

Fox and Cubs – Pilosella aurantiaca

The mine workings have mostly been removed, but some authentic pithead gear was brought from another gold mine in North Wales and there were enough industrial artifacts around to give a real sense of what went on there.

So today we drove around to Rhandirmwyn where we found many interesting fungi three autumns ago. The immediate quarry (deliberate pun I’m afraid) is to find Spring Sandwort which I’ve probably missed on Velvet Bottom but may well still be in flower here – if it even grows here. On the map there’s one record somewhere near here but nothing else for many miles. That’s one I’d love to get a record for! – it’s one of those lead loving plants that thrives on polluted slag and there’s an enormous abandoned lead mine within easy walking distance – as long as Madame doesn’t put her foot down; or rather refuses to put it down in search of yet another little white job!

What about the allotment? you may well ask – in the tone of a concerned social worker. Well, allotments are communities and we look out for one another so our neighbours are watering the polytunnel and the rest can look after itself. Meanwhile we’re having a ball in spite of the fact that rain is forecast for the whole of our stay here.

“Do not go gentle into that good night” – first, clear up the mess in your head!

The vandalizing of the allotment at Christmas knocked the stuffing out of us. Aside from the feelings of vulnerability which are inevitable, I suppose, the replacement toughened glass for the greenhouse has been difficult to source and the whole area inside and out needs clearing of broken shards. The polytunnel – less than a year old – is now patched with tape. In fact we were so knocked off course I mooted the idea of giving up the allotment and working as volunteers in a community garden – it’s fair to say that one didn’t go well with Madame. We discussed whether to step back and grow more perennials and fruit, which need far less attention, so we could spend more time away in the campervan. That was one of the underlying reasons for trial renting the cottage in Cornwall; selling the van would pay for a lot of holidays.

On the other hand, the campervan brings us the freedom to travel as and when we feel like it, without booking months ahead; and it’s bought and paid for – although storage, maintenance, tax and insurance can mount up unpredictably. A van is a very costly bit of kit – especially when it’s sitting outside in the rain rotting away gently at roughly the same speed as we’re getting older. Two years of lockdown had given us plenty of time to reflect on what the van gives us, and it’s clear that it’s become essential to us. When we’re away we sleep better, walk and explore more. I treasure the time and space to turn on my botanical eyes so that plants I’ve never seen before suddenly become visible. We find time to talk and reflect and – if I’m honest – carouse and drink wine and abandon the ghastly effort of acting our age. You can’t do this when your children (and grandchildren) are around because it makes them cringe!

The net result of the holiday was a kind of mixture because we decided that we would keep the van and try to take much more time away in it, as well as carrying on with the allotment and on meeting up with friends we’ve not seen for two years. Last week we lashed out on 4 new tyres and windscreen wiper blades – they hadn’t been replaced in over a decade, and a new (yet to be installed) WiFi aerial and router to get over the constant lack of signal when we’re out in the wilds. In any case the old satellite dish is so enormous we look like a TV outside broadcast van in spite of the fact that – large as it is – it can’t see past a tree with leaves on.

I think any allotmenteer will recognise that feeling when the plot isn’t going well and you almost dread the thought of going to it. As a seasonal (winter) melancholic I often have to force myself to get off my backside and do some work. On the other hand any allotmenteer will recognise that once the work is in progress there’s a tremendous sense of wellbeing: why ever did I make such a fuss? you ask.

Truth to tell, though, I think it was the greenhouse bringing me back to life

Yesterday the sun shone and we went to the plot where I cleaned up the mess in the greenhouse while Madame weeded and tended the polytunnel. Safety glass shatters into a million fragments and so kneeling in a confined space with so many sharp edges around needed extra care; however after a couple of hours the greenhouse was clean, safe, and relatively tidy and I was surrounded by reminders of past seasons like root trainers – empty and stacked neatly in their containers. Is there a psychological term for that warmth that spread through me as I worked there? Previous notions to replace the glass with polycarbonate sheets seemed to fade and I began to think – ‘let’s replace and restore it properly, otherwise the vandals win. It’s depressing seeing the greenhouse, shrink wrapped in weed control mat, bits of black polythene and duct tape, so let’s bring it fully back to life.’ Truth to tell, though, I think it was the greenhouse bringing me back to life. As we worked there in our usual contemplative silence it was obvious that the allotment was as essential to us as the campervan. Madame had a long conversation with a fellow allotmenteer whose home built polytunnel had also been slashed and he told her that watering for us while we were away in the summer was an especial pleasure because the perfume of the ripening melons, basil and tomatoes filled the tunnel. As soon as we got home I turned to the photos on the laptop and I knew that there’s no way we we can thrive without growing food. Without the allotment we shrink; our souls starve.

We’re growing old, so there’s not so much time left we can afford to waste any of it. We’ve been inseparable since we met when Madame was fifteen and the prospect of our eventual infirmity and even separation hangs over us. The earth, our earth, becomes more precious as we share in her processes and dimly understand her grace and complexity, and although this might sound counterintuitive to a much younger person, it gives us comfort. We can’t win the environmental battle without a revolution fired by collective action. So long as we’re governed by wilfully stupid, squalid, and greedy governments none of the actions we know we need to carry out, will happen. Lying awake at night in a fury because they have just licenced the use of poisonous neonicotinoids to protect sugar beet – and who needs reminding that excess sugar consumption is killing and maiming millions of people? – well, it’s a waste of emotional energy.

So long as we have our wits, and enough physical energy to do it we’ll grow food and travel whenever we can so that we can record and enjoy the natural world in all its ludicrous generosity; write about it, photograph it and draw it. What’s happening to the earth demands witnesses because without witnesses there will be no time of reckoning. So no – we won’t be going anywhere quietly, thanks!