Comment

Caravan

As far as I'm aware it's not advertised anywhere, but by and large people agree. The Friday before the May Bank Holiday marks the start of the caravanning season. You'd do well to bear this in mind if you've got to drive in the direction of the coast this weekend.

The caravan seems to be a uniquely British phenomenon. While the word exists in other dialects of English, nowhere else does it convey the same degree of optimism as it does on these shores.

In no other country - as far as I known - is it considered normal to tow a shed a couple of hundred miles so that you can spend a week in it on holiday.

Elsewhere this would be marked down as folly. But here, the talk is of taking your home on the road. (Really? Your home? If it's your home, why is it abandoned in your back garden for the winter months, slowly gathering dust and damp?)

I think it's something to do with the British need to feel independent. Or our cheapskate attitude to hotel prices.

But really all this whining of mine is just jealousy. Given half the chance I'd join them, pootling round the lanes with my single-axle, dual-berth, snow-white mobile mansion in tow.

You wouldn't see me for dust.