Road Kill on Exmoor
This story happened on: 27/10/2012
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After waving Son#2 off to college, Son#1 was dragged out of bed to
1 – see his mother before we left; and
2 – give me a hand to push the caravan out of it’s hidey hole and get hitched up. We do this whilst the Mrs hides in the house, curled up in a corner rocking back and fore humming nursery rhymes! We live on a main road, and the process of getting the van out terrifies the life out of her.
I spend the journey through South Wales waving at people I know in Transit vans, including a good friend who hurtles past us in his works van on his way to St Mellons to fit a carpet, which is some way outside his comfort zone (I can almost hear the cursing from inside the cocooned interior of our vehicle).
In the past I’ve always had the utmost respect for Eddie Stobbard drivers. Well, the clown that almost ran me off the road near Cardiff Gate has put a big huge dent in that respect I had for them ….. Idiot !!!
Anyway, we towed through the drizzle in South Wales, over the Severn Crossing in the drizzle we carried on, and turning left towards Avonmouth and signs for the West Country and the M5 in thick fog! The drizzle continued as we headed south west, and 2 hrs after starting from home we pulled into the Sedgmoor services on the M5 for a comfort break.
Harmony restored we have lunch overlooking the potholes pice of waste ground that purports itself as the caravan parking area at Sedgmoor, before hitting the road for the rest of the journey. It’s still drizzling as we exit the M5 at junction 27 and head up towards Exmoor. The mood is set with trees being ablaze with the deep colours of Autumn. The roads narrow as we get nearer the national park and we grow a tail of impatient locals. We pull through the gates of Exmoor HouseCaravan Club site at 1315 hrs and the front of the van is pastered in mud and leaves kicked up off the winding country roads.
We take our time setting up before putting the dogs on their leads to walk into the nearby village of Dulverton. It’s a pretty village with narrow streets and quaint buildings, and the chimneys bellow the smoke from the woodburning stoves within. I love the smell of woodsmoke!
We head back to the van to chill for a while before tea. I have a bag full of fresh spices and have promised herself a chicken curry to die for. I am now Jamie Oliver mode as the onions and spices are being fried off before adding the chopped chicken breast. I crack open a can of John Smiths before my sixth sense (the wife) lets me know something is up. The pan is no longer sizzling as the gas had gone out. The conversation went something like this …..
“Probably!” I answer sheepishly. “Well you’ll just have to connect the spare bottle.”
“You did get us a fresh spare didn’t you?”
I go through the motions outside, in the pitch dark, on my knees in the damp switching over the bottles. I know in my heart of hearts this is a fruitless task as I had not replaced it when is ran low itself last time (tight as cramp me) and was very nearly empty. I go back inside to light the cooker, but the flame coming off the hob would struggle to light a piece of paper, let alone cook a meal.
A grouse wandered into the path of the car, I slammed on her breaks, but that only served to lower her nose and close the gap between her front spoiler and the road below. The wife gasps and is almost in tears as the bird's colourful feathers fly in every direction as it gets snarled up in the front grill. I try to console her by pointing out that we didn’t kill it as I saw it scurrying towards the shelter of a hedge, but she is worried about the prospects of it’s survival. I am thinking of pointing out that as the shooting season is due to start next week it’s chances of a long and happy life were quite slim anyway, but think better of it and look straight ahead, knowing that now would be a bad time to say anything. Suffice to say that after his close encounter with the car's grill he won’t be modelling for any Whisky adverts in the near future.
brue
Motorhomer