June the 19th..myself, my Corsa and a full tank of fuel travelled the 200 or so miles from Gloucestershire to West Wales - NewQuay to be precise - arriving at the caravan at 1pm. I met my land lady, a wonderful woman with a smokers cough and short grey hair who liked to have money and spend it fast, she walked me to the van and introduced me to Bo, the French girl I was to share my room in the van with..I say room..My arm span was the width and it was about 7ft long..there were two "beds" in it. Each bed was about half the size of a single bed with about the same sized gap between the two..this was to be home for the next two weeks. I descovered a couple of days later that a plant was growing in the grill and gas fire and when it rained it also rained in the shower..but can't complain..!
As it happened the two weeks I was there were about the hottest two weeks in the uk..so rain and getting cold were the last of our fears!! The other occupant of the caravan was a boy, Aut, he had Aspergus syndrome and drove Bo up the wall! I thought he was alright at first, my nephew has aspergus syndrome so I kinda recognised the signs and was able to relate to him, however my attempts to get Bo to lay off him a bit endeared me to him and he told the other guys that I was the love of his life - etc etc complete with details that I wish I hadn't been told - and he began to follow me everywhere and even one evening stalked me - and to avoid a very awkward conversation which would have made life in the caravan appaulling, I basically just had to keep as far away from him as possible. The other caravan however were all lovely, Hawkins - the gossip girl guy, Eddy - mr elusive and Helena - the hippie.
We we're all volunteering at CBMWC - which did land and sea dolphin surveys, Bo did the rota every evening for the next day and we were all distributed between tasks..land survey, boat survey, data entry or project. On one of my last 4 hour boat trips I saw around 40 bottle nose dolphins and a scattering of porpoise and seals along with some fascinating barrel jelly fish! It was a breathtaking experience!! Every day was ended with a group get together in the pub with a mug of coffee (latte) and a huge chunk of cake before going back to cook tea and then go to the pub nr the vans later on! If we had gotten paid it would have been the most perfect job in the world as we got to walk home along the beach everynight and got discount on watersports activities!
On one of my last evenings I cooked the 7 of us a good old Sunday Roast as the two international girls Bo and Fai had never before had a roast dinner! Roast chicken..pigs in blankets..roast potatos..yorkshire pudding..gravey..it was divine (even if I do say so myself!!) followed my a lovely ice cream pudding and washed down with plenty of wine!! A perfect ending to a lovely two weeks!!
