False Start

The day started well, awake at 6, dozing til 7, leaving at 8, all of us on a high. We drove off, with Shippy filming us on her phone, waving and emotional, and soon out of sight. The car was like a dream, cruising along the motorway, music playing, looking out the window at the beautiful somerset countryside, the sun low in the autumn sky, filtering between the branches of the passing trees, glaring into my camera lens.

I don't know what went wrong, but suddenly, after a mere ten word exchange, we weren't speaking, and the vibe had gone. It seemed the road went only up, and the car performed magnificently, good practice for the Spanish mountains. At one point we slowed to thirty, second gear engaged, but she climbed and climbed onwards and upwards. We arrived at Plymouth with 15 minutes to spare, filled up with diesel then went to find the port. We had allowed ourselves four hours when the journey should have taken three, we were self satisfied and confident, but when we arrived at the ferry terminal, it became obvious that we had made a mistake. Wrong time. I had read the arrival time as the departure time. Despite our good intentions, we had missed the ferry. We saw her waiting as we cruised up to the port, but she was departing as we arrived. I can't describe the feeling of self loathing, of waiting so long already only to be faced with another set back due to my own stupidity. I did scream like a madwoman for a full ten minutes – such a drama queen.

Thirty minutes and a cup of coffee later, we sat in the port eating lunch in the caravan, deciding what to do for three days until the next one. Wild camp on Dartmoor? Vetoed by Mark. The guy at the ferry terminal offered us a pitch in the carpark, or the wasteland next the sea, tempting (not the carpark!) but we take the safe option and find a campsite and embark in our first night in the caravan since February.

I can report that it is very cosy. Right now the girls are sleeping in their bunks after hot dogs and chocolate, yahtzee and stories. They have explored the site, climbed the trees, rated the toilets, practiced morse code with the old war time torch Mark has lent them, and seem not too disappointed.