Campsite etiquette
Day 1 .Once safari tent is erected , position chairs and table to give optimum people watching opportunities whilst actually not being too visual yourself
sit down
pretend to read paper
stare at people ( or in some cases , don’t even bother with the paper )
Day 2. Give people names
We had..
Mr and Mrs Buster – middle aged couple whose dog Buster did everything except what they asked him to do .
The Surfer. – man with a wet suit hanging up outside his tent and a beer in his hand
Jane and Roy – cos they had the same van as our friend’s Jane and Roy, used to have
The Tough Cookies – 3 people in 2 tiny tents that survived the gales
and finally
The Racists
Yes sadly , they are everywhere .
in the whole campsite there is one washing- up sink , so while washing,drying or waiting for your turn , you get chatting .
The conversation normally revolves around vans/tents/campsites/wind/walks etc ..and then may get personal ..where you live ( rarely names – probably as we’ve already given each other names ) etc .
I was going through the usual chat and I asked ”where do you live?” , to which the lady who was drying up , replied ( and not in a positive way ) ”Hereford – which used to be very nice ,but now it’s full of immigrants ”
I made my exit and spent the rest of the week avoiding her .
Then I thought about it and aren’t we all immigrants or emigrants ?
Take my little family ………..
Apart from J,J,and F ,I don’t have many blood relatives ( Mother was an only child , but Dad had 3 siblings ) .
My brother and ALL his family live in Denmark
4 of my cousins live in NZ , 2 in Aus ,1 in Dubai
I have 1 cousin over here
John’s Mum and Dad came over from Ireland
People like her make me very angry
Yup, they’re everywhere. And walking the away is the only option. I still get blown away whenI come across such bigotry, though.
I’m seeing a very popular TV show starring Surfer, Buster and the Tough Cookies in the pipeline.
I always feel, after I have made my exit, that I should have stayed and had the discussion, but I’m just so taken aback that people can actually think that way, that I’m left speechless, and unfortunately my faith in mankind is not big enough to convince me, that the discussion will change anything 🙁 And I live in DK which used to be a nice place, but is now governed by people who wants to place adds i newspapers, telling refugees to stay away……
I know it is tricky . I tend to close the conversation down very quickly and make an exit ..and then avoid the person .
It was made even more scary as she is a primary school teacher and had moved to Hereford from South Africa.
I’ve started writing the script for the TV show ! Did you ever see the film ‘Sightseers’ about a couple who go off caravanning – absolutely brilliant
I want to know if Jane and Roy looked like Jane and Roy.
No the real Jane and Roy are much better looking – think Beyonce and Jay Z ( in Kagouls and wellies )
Roy says you can only call them jane and Roy if they had three wind breaks a barbecue and a chandelier.
I’ve tried the rationale conversation root, and my experience has generally been that, whatever you say, the mere fact that you’re engaging makes the bigot think it’s perfectly acceptable to up the outrageous things they’re saying. I loved that movie!
Tell Roy , they started with those , but by day 2 ,they’d all blown off the cliff !