Ouch!

Ouch! Day 130 - Sunday 23rd June

When we bought the van nearly new we knew we were going to have to be careful with it.  VW California’s keep their value well, its an investment we reasoned. Obviously though if you damage the thing that can be expensive. We have both always owned older vehicles, a scratch here a missed service there; who cares.  But this new requirement for preciousness has come surprisingly, even suspiciously, easily to us.  Perhaps we have always been closet proud owners.  Anyway we have made it part of our travel culture and careless treatment of the van and its many fittings are second nature.  “Careful! Don’t force it!” we tell each other.  Taran is particularly militant although also, of course, scarily accident prone.  We all look after WOW yet  have known that one day there will be damage.

After a quiet start to the day spending time on our pitch doing stuff  the sun and a refreshing breeze from the Adriatic tempts us down to the seaside.  We swim. We snorkel.  Taran finds a group of boys to play catch with in the sea and Jo and I settle on the sand with a book.  

It is pretty good down there, sheltered but cooled from a freshening wind.  We were there about an hour – watching families play in the breaking waves and kayaks battle out in the bay.

“Excuse me – are you the couple with van at the top of the campsite next to ours?” We are.  “I’m sorry the wind has taken your canvas – my wife and I have lostrapped it up and it is stable but it is broken.  The wind is very strong at the top.  It was flying up in the sky”.

We thank him and rush back to the pitch.  The image of the pop-up roof flying in the sky with no bed for us and thousands of pounds worth of damage is full in black relief in our minds.  It has been so benign the last few weeks.  I am not feeling equipped to cope with homelessness and garages and hotels.  We arrive.  It is the awning (not the roof) that is broken – blown almost clear away from side of the van.  Twisted metal brackets and everything but as the adrenalin of dismay is metabolised and investigation reveals it is not so bad and maybe even fixable.  With relief we lower the pop-up roof in the wind.  With great stupidity we snag a billow of the roof bellow in the retracting struts (there is a whole paragraph on avoiding this injury in the manual) and make a small hole.  Our lovely WOW!  In the long run this will probably be the more troublesome damage and was maddeningly avoidable but it transpires no problem in the moment.  I feel beset by first world incompetence. Useless. An unworthy steward of such a precious possession. 

Fortunately, Damir the retired soldier, campsite handy man and all round incredibly nice guy is there to hold my hand and help me to be a man not a mouse. 

Together we assess the damage and form a plan for the morrow.  8 AM sharp we are ready with vice and hammer and nuts and bolts in his neighbour’s tiny hot basement den full of heat miniature paintings and fishing gear.  Today it is an awning repair workshop.  With serious and shared intent we prod and pull and bend and hammer and……we put up the awning again – strong as new.  

We leave at 1030 am for the bear sanctuary and adventures new.  

Thank you, Damir.

That night we camp wild by the bears and we have our first fire in the wok.  Glad to use it at last and apart from a smoky start it is a great success; warming, cheering over supper and an effective mosquito deterrent.

Over the days the feeling of injury passes and WOW and its owners no longer perfect are just three more campers and a van in the way of the world.  Maybe it is even a relief.  What’s a dent or two now?  We spot a dink in the wheel arch this morning that has mysteriously appeared in the last few days.  Oh well.