or How Harry Met Harriette and How Carol Became a Breaker-and-Enterer.

also, Harry’s first Bump.

So it was time to spend a night or two out and see how we got on. We had planned to go to Eskdale for some pleasant walking, but the the weather on Tuesday (8th June) was awful and so was the forecast, so we abandoned that plan. We decided on a campsite / caravan park just north of Carlisle and set off early afternoon. Not having had lunch we stopped at Reghed for sandwiches and there had the first of two experiences we could have done without! In view of the weather I ran back to the van and jumped in as quickly as I could. A freak accident developed. The handbrake is between the driver’s seat and the door. I had no idea it could be done, but while jumping in, I knocked it off. Harry was parked on a downhill and started moving. It took me a second or two to realise what I’d done. My first attempt at stopping it resulted in a stab at the clutch instead of the footbrake. That didn’t help! Harry came to rest against a lighting bollard on the left hand side. The bollard came off worse. Well bent, it was. I did the right thing (polish my halo!) and went in to report what had happened. Haven’t heard anything about it since…

When we got to the site we found everything dry and the warden told us that for days there had been rain all around but none there! We chose a corner pitch on grass and set about trying to assemble ‘Harriette’. We weren’t doing very well, having only a numbered diagram to work to. A nice Scottish couple with a large tent next door came and offered help – and mugs of tea – and that moved things on. Then the bit we anticipated would be tricky – marrying Harry to Harriette.

Trapping the figure-of-eight strip into the roll-out awning as had been suggested, might have worked if there’d been three people all with ladders and a fourth to wind the roll-out, but it was never going to work otherwise. So it was guy ropes over the van roof, pull tight and peg down. Job done!? Seemed to be, so we were able to spread things out a bit and enjoy the evening meal, ‘one I prepared earlier’.

As can be seen on the photo, it was quite windy! Result was that at various moments during the night the plastic strip in the webbing of the tunnel – now on the roof – woke us up with hammering in the wind. That’ll need further thought.

Next morning and next unfortunate event! Something else I didn’t realise could be done. Carol was away at the shower block (without her key to the van), the cab doors were still locked from overnight, and I came out through the hab door and happened to rest my right hand on the locking mechanism. Usually if you lock a vehicle’s door that way you have to take deliberate action for the door to stay locked when closed. Not this one! It was locked behind me, and my keys were inside! So were phones, money, everything. All I could think to do was ask at the warden’s to use a phone to call the RAC, but Carol came across and said the garage door was open (under the bed) and she’d reached up and opened a window. She thought with a ladder she could get in through that window! And she did!! I didn’t know she had these skills. Nor would I have thought entry through that window was possible other that by Dickensian use of a child. Glad she’s on my side!

Yes – that’s the window! Opened it from the ‘garage’ door and climbed in off a ladder.

Would you believe it?!