Back on the coast - pt 2
Right, here we go again and to be honest there’s not a lot to tell you. In fact if I said that we ate, drank and chatted that would just about cover it – almost. It’s not been the most active few days but very enjoyable nonetheless, so without further unnecessary drivel (yeah, I know, too late!) I’ll carry on from where I left off – more or less.
We didn’t go in to Littlehampton on Thursday afternoon, preferring instead to sit and watch the arrivals from the comfort of a very warm & cosy Patsy. More of the Freedom Club would be arriving too and we wanted to look out for them.
As I’ve said before, with the Caravan Club, you pretty much know what you’re going to get on site. Clean, tidy pitches, tidy surroundings and spotless facilities. You also get rules – many of which make perfect sense and exist for the comfort and safety of fellow caravanners. Some of course don’t and on occasion a little flexibility and application of common sense is required – but of course that is not always forthcoming.
Normally, when you pitch on site – the nose is out and facing the road, so your ‘van door is on the right as you look from the road, thereby affording a degree of privacy from your neighbour and vice versa. Well, two units arrived – one caravan and one motorhome and the caravan pitched nose out and the motorhome went in nose first. They were clearly travelling together and it made sense for them to be facing one another and the the space in between them would be great for the six huge Bernese mountain dogs that had come along too. Shortly after they had finished their erections – the awnings that is, not the dogs, one of the wardens appeared. Now I don’t know exactly what was said, but the result was that the motorhome owners had to take down the awning and turn around – presumably to comply with the ‘rules’. It seemed pointless considering that no harm was being done to anyone, and in my mind a a little discretion and application of common sense wouldn't have gone amiss. Still, there it is. As I heard on a TV programme once “when you have rules, you don’t need common sense”. Gawd help us.
That night we met up with the the other guys from the Freedom Club and had drinks and nibbles in the awning of the host Jason, although to be fair, I devoured most of the nibbles. Inexplicably, for a group of gay men gathered in an awning, the subject of erections was never er, raised. About awnings that is!
Good Friday, and the relaxed chilled out vibe continued – we all relaxed with coffee and biscuits in Jason's awning whilst the weather made sure it was chilled and to be honest, that was it for the day. It was lunchtime when we finished gassing and having returned to Patsy, watched the world - or a least a few caravans – go by for the rest of the day. The site was now quite busy, and it’s smaller size – relative to our last one – was starting to show.
Saturday, and after the usual morning gathering we headed in to Littlehampton for a look around. The high street, with all the usual suspects present was pleasant enough, but the attraction here is the pretty little harbour and walk along to the beach at the end. The sun put in brief and rare appearance and you could at last start to feel the warmth in it – at least for a little while. There was a few people around but not nearly as many as you would hope for on an Easter weekend. The little fun fair, at the end of the beach was doing very little business and you had to feel for them.
With images committed to digital memory we drove around to the west quay for more photos and a healthy lunch of tea and chips before taking a somewhat circuitous route to Worthing for a bit of shopping before heading back to the site. I should report, just for the record, that the residents of both Littlehampton and Worthing did not appear unduly disturbed by the top to toe dead cow look, unlike in Glastonbury.
We met up again with the gang that evening for more drinks nibbles and a had a great time.
Sunday was even lazier, coffee, lunch at the local pub, then drinks again in the evening. We were to leave early on Monday so it was time to say goodbye too. It was our first ‘meet’ with the Freedom Club and certainly won’t be our last. It’s a great way for guys to meet up and share a common interest – well, several. There’s no flag waving, queeny bitchiness (well, not much!) or pretence. We both thoroughly enjoyed it and plan to host our own meet sometime this year.
So, that’s about it. It seemed a little odd being away, yet so close to home but we met some new friends and had a closer look at some familiar places too. I just hope that its soon starts to warm up. Please!