Given where we have been for the last few months that is an
odd title given that (as per the previous post) we are now home ... but.
We are in a house having filled a 7.5 tonne truck with the
contents of our container (which we have to say were undamaged and undamped
despite the British winter; maybe assisted by the couple of hundred silicone
desiccant bags I obtained second hand from the Canon Engineer where I used to
work and scattered liberally inside the container). However that’s not the story of the title,
that’s me showing off and being a know all.
The story is of distance and space, habits formed of
rigorous routine over four and a half months now unnecessary in the vast
caverns of our two bed terrace in a Cul De Sac in Highbridge, Somerset.
On the day we arrived I was wearing jeans a Tshirt, socks
etc. Having humped in all our kit I was a sweaty dusty, grimy, sticky, snotty,
smelly wreck (Amanda was of course just
glowing in a ladylike manner) . We had arranged to leave Moho at Essex Storages
yard for three days, while we loaded, drove to Somerset, off loaded unpacked a
little and then drove the lorry back to Essex. I suddenly realised that having
executed operations one to three by late evening on moving day, that I now had
only the Tshirt I was wearing with me. I’d over night bagged underwear and
socks, soap and tooth brush etc, but no spare Tshirts or Jeans.
Digression: We need to say a massive thanks to my elder
brother and my son for assisting us to load in Essex in the morning and an even
bigger thanks to the Somerset Harrisons: Sarah, Andy and Heather, for helping
us unload at the Somerset end having already completed a normal days work. Thus
allowing us to leave an empty lorry parked outback for a day. We had envisaged
offloading essentials on day one and doing the rest on day two, with day three
for the drive home. Having the lorry empty left us a lot of time to get the
basics done.
All the time I/we were moving boxes on arrival evening
getting sweaty and snotty all over again I was mentally kicking myself for not
bringing extra clothes. And wondering if it would be wise to just push on the
following day and take the lorry back so I could access my other four Tshirts, other
pair of Jeans, two pairs of convertible trousers, three fleeces, twenty odd
pairs of pants and socks (you can never have enough underwear). I was concerned
about walking around stinking, carrying dust from the lockup around on my
clothes which had us both suffering from snotty sneezy noses all of moving day,
and I thought the best bet was to just push through the fatigue, get up early
drive at the max 55MPH the lorry allowed, turn myself around and get back with
fresh clothes.
As well as the issue with not being able to change clothes I
was tired and suffering from foolish pride that I’d not prepped properly for
something as simple as a stay away from Moho for two nights, so I’d not
mentioned my concerns to Amanda. And then all of a sudden while shifting boxes
I spotted one that said `Graeme Clothes’. I was confused, WTF did that mean? I
pulled the tape from one end of the box and opened the flaps, and lo and behold
the box was full of clothes that I recognised. Anyone reading this will be
thinking `Duuur twat’ and face palming. But, all that stuff in all those boxes
has been out of site out of mind for the best part of seven months; effectively
redundant.
Everything I own or wear in van life lives in a volume of
maybe 65ltres or a large rucksack. Of the 65ltr space I probably fill 50ltrs the
rest of the space around the stuff makes it easy to grab and tidy without
disturbing the other stowed kit and clothes. Think about a backpacker. What do
they have? Our advantage over them is one of convenient transport, a toilet
that doesn’t require a hazmat suit, and beds. The personal storage space is the
compromise.
It’s hard to explain that sense of dislocation when I
thought I was going to have to go to the High Street to buy a new Tshirt and
jeans to tide me over until I collected the van, or to make the mad dash back
to Essex to obtain clothes, or even the oddness of the realisation that all the
clothes in the box were mine and I could just wear them, whenever I felt like
it, without having to pay a trade for something else penalty, as we did when we
actually packed for the journey.
But the weird doesn’t stop there; that is weird to us, not
weird to everyone else living as ever they have done in a house.
With the combination
of guesting on drives, campsites and the odd wild places, we have become tolerated
itinerants (in a very broad sense). We are used to going to sanitary blocks and
having to wait until one is free for showers or loos. If friends have offered
services, either laundry or showers we have been grateful and aware that while
`mi casa es su casa’ is always implied and probably granted, that you just
don’t take liberties with folks generosity.
So here we are in our home, and I’m sure in time we’ll
adjust back into things. But right now, I go to the loo, and concern myself
with the waiting time of anyone outside. I shower and hit the tap off every few
seconds because on timed showers, every second the water runs leaves you at
risk of walking out covered in soap lather or with conditioner still in your
hair ... or worse still standing in a freezing spray because so often it’s only
the hot water on a timer. I needed a shave a day or so ago, and because I don’t
own a travel plug for sinks, instead I use the small bag I hold my bar of soap
in to retain water while I depilate my chops. Having run the hot water I went
through the process of squishing my bag into place to hold a basin full of
water, laying out my kit so I could keep an eye on it and access everything I may
need. Then I spotted the plug plunger sitting behind the tap that I had turned
on to run to temperature ... Habits. I didn’t see the plug because I’m not used
to seeing plugs, `and you’re back in the room’.
Standing looking around feeling like you just woke up and
stepped out of a dream.
This has been us for the last four days. Looking for stuff
we know is in lockers in the Moho. Things
that are duplicated full size in a purpose built human habitation unit, or
house in common parlance; lost a few feet away by virtue six or seven paces and
a mass of furniture with doors and draws.
As a by volume: the internal space of moho (the bit we live
in) could be shoehorned into our lounge four and a bit times. And believe that
we have both managed to lose things in that tiny space, resulting in the whole
moho, every nook and cranny being eviscerated in the search for a misplaced
bicycle pump, head torch, heap of socks (and in-spite of a 15 page
locker/bag/pocket listing written in pencil so as things move around their
locations can be amended). Accidents happen, a momentary lapse of reason an
idle or tired hand places something for a moment in the wrong place, and the
gremlins surge and sweep the object to the furthest corner draped with a
blanket of invisibility ... the little bastards.
On from the weirdness of being free to walk to the loo at
any time of day or night without doing the Moho get out of bed pirouette, or
walking a hundred yards in the dark, clutching a wodge of bogroll. Or putting a
load of washing in the washing machine, without first finding out if it’s token
or cash, and if you have coins of the correct denomination to operate the
machine, or if the reception where you get change or tokens is actually open
during the hours you normally associate with open.
All these minor logistical bugbears are gone, but. There are
other things that you suddenly see in your life that I think before you just
ignored as a convenience to yourself or are inured to for the reason below.
That nagging of conscience that says we own far too much stuff anyway, that
realisation that has been crystalising
over the months that we are controlled and programmed by enormous media
machines, whether we like it or not, or are even aware of it. Frightened into
buying crap that gathers dust for (some of it) nineteen months. Unseen unmissed
probably unneeded.
Amanda loaded all our glasses into the glasses cupboard in
the kitchen. Somewhere in my deep id I looked in said cupboard to find the pint
glass that I always use (Ruddles straight pint glass). I know it because it’s
the one with most of the Ruddles lettering rubbed off. I picked it from the set
of six, then clocked all the other sets of glasses, then looked at the distance
to the tap, reassured myself that that tap water is safe to drink. Then
wondered why the tap was so far away, and why there were so many glasses to
sort through to find the one I wanted. In moho I have one `quality’ clear
plastic beaker and a china mug I allowed myself. Simple enough. Obviously if we
have guests we need a few more glasses, but five different sets of branded pint
glasses (as an example). How did we get so wrapped up in thinking one set
wasn’t enough?
The mind and the brain are in two separate places. One is
looking at the walls spotting small blemishes that require painting or
tweaking, minor improvements that we discussed while travelling around the
nether regions of greater Europe. The other is wondering why we need all this
space and how much of the conservatory full of boxes do we actually need to
open and stash to create a complete home. FFS we have all the essentials, what
more can there be, now we have the clothes, shoes, plates and cutlery? I said
to Amanda we should just take all the boxes in the conservatory unopened to the
dump and just fling them into the bins, and fuckit if stuffs lost will we ever
miss it or be aware that it got binned.
Part of me is irritated that a whole life that used to be
arms length from everything I need is now gone. In moho we could literally turn
on a penny and grab my one drinking glass, a Tshirt, socks, pants, my mug, a
hairbrush, open the toilet door, grab a box of cereal, open the fridge door.
Now I have to walk to a cupboard to get a drinking glass, walk back across the
same room to get to a tap, walk upstairs to get to a wardrobe full of clothes,
then back downstairs to a hall cupboard to get an outdoor coat, then up by the
front door to get shoes. This isn’t laziness speaking, this is `as little an
amount of time wasted’ before being out the door looking at the wider amazing world
we occupy, and so often blithely ignore. As opposed to looking at a collection
of tut some clever bastard has sublimely convinced me I need to possess and
worship.
There are compensations to home life, I can loaf alone on a
sofa to read, we have a TV that I seem to be looking at, shaking my head at and
switching off a lot. There’s a bath, I haven’t had a bath for seven months,
rain doesn’t wake us up when it hits the roof, and I don’t have to empty a
toilet cassette every few days. However I don’t get to wake up next to a
babbling brook, a beach or looking at a distant set of hills I’m going to walk
up (I may be lying there ... I can see both the Quantocks and the Mendips from
where we live).
We have made our lives complicated, we have made our lives
difficult. We have taken a lifetime of time and tried to make it more convenient
and just made a balls up of it by filling it with excess crap we coveted to
make us feel better about ... the life we feel we should be living instead of
the one we could be living if we weren’t wasting so much time walking around these
big empty spaces we call home and then filling them because they feel so large
and bare when they are empty ... space the final frontier ... it’s outside ... or
is the emptiness in us? Fulfilment through acquisition.
As Mervin the Naturist ex-Tax inspector proposed in El
Portus of the rich man. He may have a fifteen metre motorhome with a full
size bathroom, a garage underneath and a car in it, but when the suns out where
are you going to be? And in truth how much do you need to wear on a sunny day? No
the sun isn’t shining in May in England but just extrapolate and you’ll find
you’ve been guilted or Jones’d into buying a load of crap you don’t want, don’t
need and hardly if ever use. I suspect the contents of the conservatory will
prove it.
Footnote: it’s six days since I wrote the above. It looks
like the conservatory boxes may be going direct to the loft. We have filled
seven boxes with stuff to go to charity shops, and we aren’t finished yet.
