The begining of the dream

This year all hell broke out in my life, worst of all, I lost the job I'd lived for and loved for the whole of my adult life. To cheer myself up, and to try and believe there was life outside work, I fulfilled a dream and took the kids away camping for the whole summer school holidays. We had a wonderful time, ambling slowly from West London, to the very edge of the country, in a fantastic camp site at Sennen Cove. We learnt a lot in that 6 weeks, in some order of priority

• I'm never spending August in London again, I want to work in the winter, and escape in the summer, and thats way I'm going to organise my career from now on
• I just totally love the West Country, the beaches, the countryside, the pasties.
• Outdoor life is perfect for us, and I really hated coming back to living in a house
• But, the tent doesnt work for all of us, the airbeds werent comfy enough for Mr Chantelle, theres nowhere to keep anything, and there were too many days when we couldnt cook at all 'cos the wind kept blowing the cooker out, or the tent leaked all night, and we woke up soaking.
• The weather finally killed our tent by buffeting her so much all the poles broke, and she tore, and leaked and had to be buried at the end of the summer, so something had to be done
• We went to 5 festivals last year, and 3 campsites, so lost count of the number of times we put up and took down the tents, which got quicker as the summer went on, but no less tedious.

We'd often seen ramshackle hippy buses at festivals, and thought they were brill, and suddenly that just seemed to be the answer, an old beautiful bus, converted inside to our perfect summer home. We could still live outside with our tables and chairs, but have a real bed to retreat to and the proverbial hook for our hats.