Schools and Students

Caravan school has started in earnest. The girls have a story and poem book, a geography and history book, a diary and a scooter for play time. I explain the work they have to do during the day. They are excited and enthusiastic and I leave them, sticking tracing paper to their atlas and rifling amongst their box of pens, to continue work on the caravan. It is slow progress and my concentration span and staying power are fading fast. I manage to clean half of the back window shield. No scratches, beautifully shiny.

Mike McCabe arrives. He is a student from Falmouth College of Arts who has travelled to London to photograph the house and use it for one of his final year projects. We chat, leave him to take photographs, and return to our chores. The girls help me during play time. They buff the surface between scooter rides, like a perpetual relay. Up and down the street twice, then switch - cloth and scooter change hands and we continue. We all have lunch together, Mike and us. Beans on toast for five. It is rather like having the lovely Ottilie at home. They are the same age, both in their final year, and it lifts my spirits to have this opportunity to think about her. After plates are cleared, Jonny and Sandra arrive. I have promised them pumpkins from the allotment, so I take the girls for their biology lesson, and me and the Pod make our way to Taylors Lane. He chooses two and we dig up the fresh horseradish I have recently discovered. I pull up carrots and onions for dinner. We go home to cook it, Frida chopping the onions with her medium sized knife and Silvie cutting carrots with her small one. I keep my eyes peeled for their fingers.

Not much progress made today.

Working out the best way to let the flat is proving to be incredibly stressful. It is virgin territory. We start to panic about what we will do if someone doesn't pay the rent and we're 600 miles away. But it soon passes. No doubt the stress is starting to play tricks with our minds. Only two more weeks before we sail off and leave it all behind us.

Stay focussed 'Miss Kate'.

Rollercoaster

Beautiful beginnings. Rapturous welcome from the girls as I arrived in Bristol 10 minutes late for Frida's Newsround debut. Despite taking a car load of possession for Mum and Dad to store when we leave, I manage to come away with a broken BMX and a scooter for the girls. More things to store. Gathering fixable items is verging on obsession.

Arrive home at 10.30pm to see a light in the caravan. Mark is moving around frantically with sticky tape and cardboard. It seems some numbskull has put the window through. We discuss how it happened and put our heads in our hands, imagining the hassle involved in getting it fixed.

I take the girls to bed as Mark effects a temporary repair. They are happy and relaxed. School is off for six months. Tomorrow they start at 'Caravan School' and are excited at the prospect. They go straight to sleep, cuddling their new pillows - a gift for their travels from my mother. They are obsessed by the smell of them. Silvie's smells of raisins and Frida's smells of 'new' - the word has taken on the form of abstract noun.

We paste a 'Staff Room' sign on the dining room door in preparation for the morning.

Good fortune smiles on us. I check my emails and get an update from the 'safari enthususiasts' club. Seems a member had his window smashed that very day. For a moment, I think Mark has been supremely organised and has posted our problem on the message board. Just underneath is a remedy. 'If someone put it in you can take it out'. Ah, the simplicity of old things. It includes concise instructions on what to do. Thank you AlecGatherer.

We plan the day ahead.

Mark debates whether to sleep in the caravan, Rambo style, in case of repeat attacks. We decide against it.

scrubbing and clearing

Got up, went out. The usual pattern. The usual clothes. We have been living like gypsies. I get out of bed, put on socks, dress on top of nightie, jeans, jumper, coat and boots - without even thinking. Making a decision about what to wear takes time, which is at a premium. so we wear the same clothes day in day out. I haven't been naked for three days - preparing ourselves physically as well as practically for the trip.

The caravan is looking good. I can see it finished in my mind's eye, I can imagine overtaking us on a Spanish motorway, seeing ourselves reflected in the mirrored, buffed up aluminium surface. I imagine it in slow motion. I have restored the front, the back and part of one side. The transformation is attracting interest. Today, I conversed with a couple who could remember the caravan 'the first time round'. Prestigious in those days, it seems. I imagine a cocktail cabinet, or optics dotted around the confined space inside. Bill came and chatted about Spain and architecture - I think he rarely has the chance to talk of these 'high minded' topics amongst his social circle. Yesterday, a 95 year old man recited love poetry to me, something he had written for his wife. He tells me she isn't interested in the same things that he is. A cyclist stopped just to see what was going on and we chatted for a while about destinations and hard work. It's good being amongst the people, and lovely to share these revelations.

Cleared out the girls' room. After panicking for months that the electrics in the loft were faulty, we found out the extension lead had been unplugged. Paul didn't even have to change the fuse. I went through the room methodically. Clearing the products of childrens long forgotten activities from under beds and cupboards. A hard job. I sorted - to children we know; car boot (saleable) and charity shop. Some things have to go. Not recyclable. There will be more rubbish than recycling this week. It will be a first.

I had a bath tonight. I had forgotten what my body looked like.

preparations

Preparations are finally underway for the grand tour. Today we managed to get a whole section of the caravan up to a fine gleam, and found a little treasure under the cracking paintwork, which could have been lost forever. It kept our spirits up on this cold and breezy day. 6 hours of scraping and wiping, mindless repetition, with the leaves constantly floating down, forming themselves into little brown piles in the gutter which disguised the similar toned dog shit that i managed to step in twice.

Recycled a cooker to Jules. We 'inherited' it from Margaret, our previous neighbour, after she died. Seemed sad to see it dumped outside the flat so we took it in and thought about her when we cooked on it. After its brief sojourn with the ShippHill household its moved on to jules. As if the cooker's taken on a life of it's own, we've been around for the first three stages. new, 2nd hand, recycled. who knows, one day it might achieve 'vintage', 'rarity' even 'antique'.

The house is full of dust, it billows from the kitchen, through the weave of the sheet that hangs pinned to the doorframe. Paul comes out grey, and we realise we shouldn't complain. The kitchen is being rewired, and we find countless wires hanging plugless out of the walls behind the cupboards. We've lived like this for 2 years, but we can't expect a tenant to take on such a high risk lifestyle it seems.

No heat, so we've resorted to wearing our outdoor clothes indoors.

The place is in semi chaos, the kitchen has moved into ottilie's room, mark's studio has moved into the dining room, and the living room is covered with lists of jobs to be done - no children this week so the motivation to tidy has ceased to exist.
So much to do and so little time.