Love them or loathe them they are a perfect indicator of holiday activity for me.
Caravans !!
Having a keen interest in the flow of holiday visitors into the south west, both as a landlady in the early 80's and for the last 20 years as tourist information, I tend to head count the caravan traffic to gauge overall incomers whenever we travel into Exeter, which these days is about once a week. On the stretch from Whiddon Down to the city, after all these years I can't help myself from looking out at the start of each year for any significant show of caravans.
In the early days with the kids in the back, we would count the caravans from A to B and cheer if the numbers were high. From memory the highest we counted before the Exeter turn off was 120+, but then again we rarely covered the journey on a Friday evening, as we would usually have bed and breakfast guests indoors ourselves.
But how things have changed in those few short years.....
There was a time when the girls saw in the distance coming towards us what we all thought to be a caravan only to discover as it drew closer that it was a motor home. Points had to be deducted !
they didn't count !
Today the motorhome seems to have outnumbered the caravans. Last night on our journey home from the supermarket shop, there were over a dozen motorhomes cruising along and only 2 caravans hooked up and travelling.
Our pals George and Linda have a state of the art motorhome which they take out at the start and end of the season and they absolutely love it.
Myself I can see the appeal. When our two were very little we would pack up our secondhand teeny tiny caravan, the smallest one in the Sprite range, (naturally we called it the Sprout) and secondhand at that. I would spend most of Friday packing in home cooking and a change of clothes, the dog bed, potty, matches etc and off we would go into some neighbouring county for the weekend. We rarely went on long excursions, chiefly because in those days we couldn't afford the petrol. Which was of course much less miles per gallon even with a small outfit being towed on the back.
We used to belong to the Caravan Club, and they would organise some great family events. In the early 80's we took ourselves off to Dovedale and had a great Easter weekend making new friends and winning the Easter Bonnet competition hands down. Fortunately for me we had taken Easter Eggs and a things to do box with scissors, glue and a old yellow towel for drying off the dog which when cut into long strips, came in very handy as trimmings !!
Ever resourceful hey ?
I don't think the owners of some of the expensive campervan outfits would want us to pitch up next to them in such a tinkerish way today. Their vehicles are all shiny and stuffed with every conceivable mod con. But we all need to get away from our daily routine now and again and take a fresh look at life whether it's in expensive swank or 'let's just go' mode. And the weather is certainly cheering up in Devon. Hawthorn is showing proper green, the daffs this year are the best show ever and I am picking up my latest clutch of ex-battery hens this Thursday.
I've already been out and turned my compost heap this morning and I plan to pick purple sprouting and rhubarb off the veg patch before lunch.
Maybe tomorrow we can take ourselves off over the Moor to see all the new growth and catch a good sunset shot. The skies have been clear blue just lately with a touch of frost overnight. Perfect for pix.
Have a great weekend yourself.
Come down to Dartmoor why not ?
See you soon I hope !!
Jilly P
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