I just went in to buy some rubber bands …

… and ended up buying a caravan.

Last Sunday we were a bit early for a family lunch. The M25 and A3 had been astonishingly clear, and we were at least half an hour ahead of schedule. Passing a camping accessories shop, I remembered that we needed some of those stout rubber bands that you use to peg tents down. We’d been camping in the peak district a couple of weeks before, and two of the rubber bands had broken.

Sure enough, the nice lady had them in stock, so that was good. Then we found some plates that we liked. Then we wandered out the back, and found ourselves in a wonderland of second-hand caravans. We’d been thinking of perhaps one more outing with the tent in September, then packing it away for the winter.

Anyway, we went back after lunch and ended up buying this:

Very nice people, Harris Caravans in Liss.

I’m not entirely sure what we’ve let ourselves in for. Quite apart from anything else, we don’t normally buy kit like this without a whole bunch of research first. This was an impulse buy, pure and simple. It may work out wonderfully well. I might equally have bought in to a world of grief.

I hadn’t even got a towbar on the car. That’s how unprepared we were.

Anyway, in the last week we’ve found somewhere secure to store it, arranged insurance, got a numberplate, and various other bits’n’pieces. We’re picking it up on 2nd September, and we’ve booked ourselves in to a Caravan Club training course on the following weekend.

This is what it looks like inside. The front has a U shaped couch that becomes a double bed at night.

The back has a nice large kitchen area. We imagine ourselves buying beautiful fresh produce in French markets and cooking delicious suppers.

There’s a little loo and shower to the left of the kitchen. Some caravans have the proportions reversed, with spacious washing facilities, a separate loo, but a correspondingly small kitchen. We like to be clean, but we also like to be well-fed, so we think ours is a good choice.

Down one side are cupboards, a wardrobe, and a fridge. One the other side is a “dinette”, that also converts into 2 bunk beds if needed. But for the two of us, we’ll leave it as it is.

It was the rain that clinched it for us. We were sitting in the caravan, with the salesman going on about what a wonderful deal he could do for us, thinking, why don’t we just stick with our trusty tent? Then a thunder shower broke overhead. There we were, warm and dry, sitting on a comfortable couch. If we’d wanted to brew up a coffee, there was the stove. Cold beer? There was the fridge.