Caravanning Cock-Ups

We’ve now been away in our caravan for two whole weekends and therefore feel we can now be classed as ‘veterans’.  We’ve lived and learnt…the hard way.  Here are our top ‘Caravanning Cock-Ups’ so that you can avoid the same pitfalls:

1. Don’t buy Special K microwaveable porridge…unless you actually have a microwave in which to cook it.
2. Do correctly match up the cushions when you convert the sofas into beds, otherwise you will wake up with a spine that resembles a Curly-Wurly in its attempts to align itself with the contours of your uneven ‘bed’.
3. Do make sure you check with your three-year old in advance that he is only using the teeny tiny toilet for a teeny tiny wee and nothing more; otherwise you may find yourself suddenly claustrophobic and gagging for air, desperately scrabbling at the many fiddly knobs and catches on the teeny tiny windows for what will seem like hours before you can breathe freely once more.
4. Do make sure your five-year old is securely enclosed on the top bunk before you go to sleep; if not, be prepared to wake to find his legs still in bed but the rest of him asleep on top of the fridge.
5. Don’t forget about the cupboards just above your head each time you get out of bed…failing that (and you will), just remember that your children are in close proximity and you will only be able to sprinkle the air with a few ‘sugar’s and ‘flipping heck’s rather than the expletives you really want to scream.
6. Do learn the ‘tricks of the trade’ when it come to having a poo in communal toilets:

• hide your book (or other carefully selected reading matter) to avoid knowing looks from other caravanners.
• Choose your toilet carefully; close enough to the communal showers so that the noise of the showers drowns out those of your ablutions but not so close that you overpower the smell of their shower gel.
• LISTEN – you can tell another person’s intentions when they walk through the door; if they need a poo too you’re OK, you’re in the same boat.  Neither of you will judge.  If they’ve just come in to clean their teeth and do their make-up, be kind.  Just wait for a bit.  It will be better for both of you in the long run.
• Finally, if you want to be really inconspicuous, remove your shoes.  The gaps under the doors will reveal the bottom half of your legs and you don’t want people recognising your footwear if they have to send in a canary after you.

7. Do think carefully of the consequences of telling a three-year old that there is a ‘clubhouse’; he WILL think it belongs to Mickey Mouse, complete with Handy Helpers, Toodles and Minnie Mouse making cupcakes.

8. Do keep careful track of your socks.  We already know socks are bastards.  They WILL take advantage of your inexperience, lack of space and limited facilities to go missing, only to turn up on your last day after your nine-year old has been wearing the same pair for three consecutive days.

9.  Do check the caravan site’s facilities in advance; if the on-site shop doesn’t sell yellow wings for flying over rainbows, you may need to look for a site that does…or suffer the wrath of your three-year old who has made the, not unreasonable, request…several times.

10. Finally, and most importantly, DO NOT take wrong turns with a caravan.  In particular, don’t go up an extremely narrow road only intended as access for cars because it leads to the static caravans and not the pitches for tourers.  You may find yourself (or your husband; I would have just sat there and cried) doing an approximately ten million point turn on slippy, slidey gravel in a turning point just about big enough in which to swing a cat.  If you manage to turn around (which my husband did), be prepared to have aged ten years and looking as though you’ve just spent two hours in the gym 😉