Monday 25 April

The morning starts with the usual muted exchanges of a couple living in close proximity..."What time is it?" Where's my other sock?" Is this your bra or mine?" "Was I snoring?" To which the correct answer is always "no dear", in defiance of any evidence to the country, and so on as we ease ourselves into a moving on day. 

Moving on days are distinct from others as there is a procedure of stacking, storing and stowing away to be done to make Mavis ready to roll on to the next site. Given the confines of motor home life we've established that this is best divided into inside and outside jobs. We learnt early on that otherwise we'd inevitably meet amidships, as it were, both laden with stuff to poke into cupboards with no feasible way of passing, and exchanging our loads demands either a fifth arm or juggling skills of Palladium headlining magnitude. The alternative is for one of us to remain seated but neither feel comfortable watching the other scurry around while we effectively do nothing except watch; although Ray tries to make a virtue of writing this blog while Alison ambles by laden with pots and pans and a determined look about her. 

By the way the main outside job on moving days is emptying the cassette toilet. To make this less unpleasnt than it could be we adopted a motto passed on to us by a friend used to touring with bands - "No solids on the bus."  

Hatches batterned down and suitably refreshed from our morning abultions, and Rays now customary wrestle with the utilities - today the shower snatched a late victory from what looked like a certain 0-0 draw when it had been craftily showering his clean pants with an errant jet of water the whole time he was washing, we set off for Mersea Island.

Mersea is an island because its connected to mainland Essex by a causeway that floods when there is a particularly high tide. It has a long history of occupation, including an ancient burial mound we passed on our way in and was an important settlement in Roman times, where they established the still flourishing oyster trade. It's a special place for us as it is only a few miles from our former home in Colchester so well known and we have several friends who live on the island. 

We are here for the Cosmic Puffin festival, about which we'll update in later blogs. In the meantime we are staying on the Seaview holiday park, which, to be fair, is an accurate description as we can indeed see the sea from Mavis as we've pitched right on the sea front. In fact we are the only people presently on the touring park, the rest is taken up with an extensive estate of elaborate static caravans. Some of these are positively palatial judging by the little we can see, with tiny but immaculate lawns and ornate fences. There is also a surfeit of KEEP OFF and PRIVATE signs suggesting the temporary citizens of this little suburban home from home are intent on protecting their precious little piece of this green and pleasant land. Wandering around its all rather surreal, not unlike a film set where everything is just a little too 'real'. Colours too vibrant, windows sparkling, lawns manicured into perfectly green submission and paintwork fresh and unblemished. 

The facilities in this little oasis of middle England are the most rudimentary we've yet encountered and seemed rather grim and utilitarian, especially in the heavy leaden sky and intermittent rain. Nevertheless we've made good use of the daylight and carried out some adjustments to the living quarters in Mavis as we continue to tweak her into even greater comfort and convenience.