The Caravan Revisited: Annie's Journal

By Annie Lancaster

Two years have passed since Annie closed the last page of her journal, The Caravan of Love. In The Caravan Revisited her journal continues. But what became of that family living on the edge of madness? Did they turn their back on The Emerald Isle and go back to Newcastle after all?

There’s only one way to find out. Put the kettle on, stoke the fire and take some time out to peep inside the pages of Annie’s Journal where you’ll find the answers to your questions. Wherever they did end up, be assured it’s a laugh-a-minute in Annie and Tom’s house. Not! There’s a brand new business venture on the horizon - followed closely by a worldwide recession, a multitude of mounting bills and debts, a few more nervous breakdowns, two Antarctic winters… and we mustn’t forget the terrorists! But don’t feel too downhearted. Annie doesn’t. She’s a fighter, a survivor with a dream of becoming a great writer one day! Will she ever save up enough change in that bottle to enrol on a writing course? There are some new additions to the family and loved ones aren’t the only people to come and stay. There are also some visitors from the other side!

Read ‘The Caravan Revisited’ and find yourself transported into the often deranged mind of Annie, who shares the good, the bad and the hilarious aspects of her daily life. Oh, and I forget to mention… there’s even a new caravan!

• Language: English
• Publisher: AUK Authors
• Release date: Dec 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9781785383625

Book preview

coincidental.

Thursday 4th June 2009

Well, come on. I couldn’t just leave it like that could I? Leave you all wondering what happened to us, wondering if we’re still living in Ireland, or even dead or alive. Well you probably guessed that I’m not dead as I’m writing this.

So firstly, before I begin boring you with a fresh chapter of my daily toil what is life, I’ll provide you with a brief overview of what’s been going on since we met last.

Looking Back

Well on the animal front, we adopted Jamie’s dog, Ben when Jamie moved away. We promised we’d always look after him for Jamie, and we kept our promise. He is a fully-fledged member of the family now. He was bred with Hilda, to allow her to have one litter of pups before getting sterilized. It was mid-October when she went into labour. I have to say it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life seeing the birth of the puppies. The scene was like the Nativity: the small stable full of hay and the warm light from a lamp glowing through the little window. It was so exciting, and we stayed with Hilda all the while. Unfortunately she had a very difficult labour and three dead puppies. They were perfect to look at. One pup survived, so we kept her and called her Peaches. She’s one now, completely mad and is twice the size of her mother.

Poor Wallace died in February. He died in tragic circumstances, and Tom and me wrapped his broken little body in the sunshine throw over, carried him into the house and lay him on the hearth in front of the fire. We stroked and hugged him till he slipped away. He knew we were there, and he knew we loved him. We were all heartbroken.

We waited until it started to get light then went in the garden to dig a grave, removing the endless massive rocks with our hands. It was horrible. We were traumatised.

That day will haunt us forever, as well as the guilt that we weren’t there when he needed us. We didn’t get to him in time. He was the first of all our pets and came over from England with us. We buried him in a high area of the front garden so he could see everyone, and wouldn’t feel alone. Then we laid flowers and a lantern with a candle in.

R.I.P. Wallace

Last summer we acquired two more geese, some friends for Harry (who incidentally had a sex change, as did the cat. I think we should have gone to Specsavers.) We called the new arrivals Jimmy and Martha. Jimmy is grey and white like Harry, and Martha is white with blue eyes. They’re canny yokes.

We saw the advert in the local paper ‘This year’s goslings’, and decided to go get some since the place the goslings were residing at wasn’t too far away from us. We were so, so wrong! We left Rob in the house and said we’d be back in about half an hour.

We were out for hours, and I was totally panicking for the whole duration, but it was pointless turning back. We’d gone this far. We finally found the farm, but the woman said she couldn’t do anything till her hubby got back from wherever he was. So we sat around for ages waiting for him. This had turned into a journey from hell.

Eventually we were given Jimmy and Martha from a crowded barn. And no way were they this year’s bloody goslings! They were quite massive and Martha looked like she’d already had eggs. But we didn’t care.

The farmer’s wife stuffed the poor things into stiff plastic sacks with a hole for their heads to stick out, and some rope round the necks, after which they were placed in the back seat of my car for the long journey home. They hated it and kept putting their heads inside the bags to hide.

We didn’t get home till 9.00pm opened the bags and tipped the fowl out. And foul they were indeed. They were covered in poo and so were we by then. They jumped straight into the pond for a swim and made themselves right at home.

These days Jimmy is kept very busy with his two chicks. He keeps breeding with Harry and Martha who sit on nests all day waiting for their eggs to hatch, but they never do.

Before they came along, we bought four tiny baby geese. They were hilarious running round together as if one brain was controlling all of them. The poor mites just vanished one day. They must have been taken by a fox even though there was no sign of feathers around.

Robin now has an Iguana called Herb. He’s about one and a half years old and thriving unlike his predecessors, big and little Rex. Yes, our garden is a bit like a pet cemetery now.

Noah, our Billy goat is two. He’s like a pony and when he throws a tantrum you wouldn’t want to get in his way.

The final addition to the family is baby Porcha, the pot belly pig. She’s gorgeous and was given to Tom as a gift from one of his friends.

Jamie recently celebrated his 21st birthday. He moved back to England last summer and we’ve only seen him once since then before Christmas when he was doing tests for the army. Even though he did great in everything, he failed the last requirement, the eye test. We were gutted for him. But he’s tattooing away and has just got keys to a flat at last after living with his Nana and Granda for a year. I hope this is going to be a great fresh start for him.

Jack is very settled and happy in the army now. He still lives in the barracks, and we see very little of him since he was banned from driving and had his car crushed for having no tax and NCT although fully insured. So he’s stranded, but has to go back to court to appeal against it. We collect him on Sundays and take him out for dinner. He’s recently been to Arizona for a month on a parachuting course.

Robin is twelve and a half now. He’s going into the last class of primary school after summer. He still spends all his time on the computer and Game Boy and loves all his animals. He’s quite certain he wants to join the army as well when he leaves school.

As for myself and Tom: in December 2007 we took out a hefty (well more than hefty, more of a ball and chain) three year business loan and took over the tattoo shop where Tom was working in Cork. We re-named the shop and set out into the world of self-employment. I left my job at the deli to go and help him and since then have been receptionist, body piercer, cleaner, shopper and account/book keeper.

In January 2009 we moved from the city centre just in time as the recession hit the country. The 480 Euros a week shop rent was crippling us and no one had much money to spend on tattoos. We got a lovely shop, twenty minutes from home for a fraction of what we were paying in the city. We had the place done out lovely, and I have a separate cosy room for piercing and treatments. No, I still haven’t given up on the treatments, well at least the reflexology, but still not much success.

We are still in our house and we’ve just put it up for sale again, but house prices have plummeted. We have lovely pine stairs now and the floors have just gone down upstairs. Doors are going on soon. We still want our cottage and it is still for sale. We still have no showers but are getting small jobs done a bit at a time.

We are even more up to our necks in debt. Even with the cheaper shop we still struggle to make ends meet. That business loan was the straw that broke the camel’s back. We have a queue of people waiting for money from us, but they’ll have to wait. We can’t pay what we don’t have. So we’ll just keep struggling on from day to day and hope things get better soon. But I know our business will end up a great success. We must have faith. It will take time for things to pick up again. We’re not the only ones in this position due to the recession. Everyone is losing their jobs and their homes.

So that’s our last two years or so in a nut shell. Not a lot has changed. We’re all still alive and well, still in the house, still in debt, and with a few more additions to the family. I’m sorry there was nothing more exciting to tell, like we’d won the lottery or been travelling the world.

Ah but there is one thing I forgot to say. We’ve just put down a deposit on a small caravan in case Jamie ever wants to come home for a holiday.

Now there’s a thought. We could all move into the caravan when our house gets repossessed. And let the cycle begin again.

OH NO!

What a nightmare!

***

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin, again.

Present Day

And start of journal entries

Tuesday 25th August 2009

It’s hard to believe that Robin goes back to school on Tuesday. He’s starting sixth class, the last year in primary school. But he’s not happy at all since he’s the oldest in the class and feels he should be going to high school with the others. I hate back to school time as well, trying to get him out of bed and in to school on time. Thinking what to make him for packed lunch is impossible as he doesn’t like anything, and the homework, my God, the homework! Don’t the teachers think the poor kids do enough work all day at school, without sending them home with more to do?

Well, that’s another summer over, another summer of rain and miserable grey days. And of course we’ve done nothing over the holidays, except one day out at Fota Wildlife Park and a trip to the cinema to see Harry Potter, but I didn’t go as I was in bed with suspected swine flu. The time has just flown, and already the dark and cold nights are cutting in.

On Saturday we had a lad out doing some work in the garden with his digger, levelling and scraping the back and side gardens and the big front driveway bit. The garden looks huge now and is ready to have top soil put down for grass then the sides and driveway parts will be gravelled. It won’t be for ages though, as there is a pecking order for jobs, and payments that need to be made. At least now, instead of stumbling over rocks and twisting ankles, we have a good flat area for playing tennis and badminton. It hasn’t improved the game play though. We’re still crap, but, practice makes perfect, so they say. We’ve already lost about ten tennis balls in as many serves. Robin seems to lose all control of his arms during tennis and sends balls flying straight into fields and bushes.

Two weeks ago Tom and me went to England for a tattoo convention at Doncaster race course. Robin stayed a night with Jack then spent a night with his friend. I have to say the convention was brilliant with loads of artists, stalls with stuff to buy and plenty of good food. The venue was great, a huge comfortable building with plenty of sitting places inside and out and great views. The weather was gorgeous. I never usually have that many good things to say on the subject of tattoo conventions. I usually find them boring and cold. But this one I will give five gold stars, and will definitely go next year if at all possible. Funds were desperate as usual, but we managed to buy some new tattoo designs for the shop, care of the exhausted credit card. However, the accommodation we stayed in for the duration of our weekend, a well-known chain as it happens would not even score one star. We had been placed in a disabled room, which I was not impressed with at all. Not that I have a problem with disabled people but I am not disabled and didn’t really want to stay in a room with safety bars around the toilet, shower chairs, emergency alarm buttons and a sink so low down that if you weren’t in a wheel chair when you arrived, you certainly would be by the time you left the place after stooping over that sink to clean your teeth and wash your face for two days.

The next problem was the heating, or lack of it. We got back our room at 11.00pm, frozen to the bone, only to discover the heating didn’t work. I phoned reception and a young girl with a grin on her face, fiddled with the buttons and said, Ah, I don’t think it’s working. I’ll see if I can get you another room tomorrow but we’re really full. Bearing in mind we booked our room well in advance we should have been given a proper room to start with. She fetched me a second quilt so I could lie there smothered in covers, with icicles hanging off my nose, nursing my back which was crippled from stooping over the sink. We didn’t get another room and froze for the weekend. Before leaving, I filled in their questionnaire on how we enjoyed our stay, with the type of answers they certainly weren’t expecting. Ha Ha Ha.

Later, while sitting having a drink with our nice Irish friends there was a small group of tattoo artists sitting behind us talking. We were astounded to hear an American amongst them, talking loudly and insulting Irish, English and Welsh people all in one sentence. Bearing in mind he was in England working, and sitting in proximity to English, Irish and Welsh people... Apparently his father was Scottish. That’s why the Scottish escaped the insults. The cheeky sod should have stayed in America!

Thursday 27th August 2009

Rain! Rain! Rain! What a change. The whole garden is like a quagmire. This afternoon on walking to the car, my foot got sucked into some quicksand. I had to trail round the supermarket looking like the creature from the black lagoon, my black shoes and purple tights caked in hard mud.

We have finally made the final blood-curdling payment off the new caravan. When I say new, you know I don’t actually mean new as in new. It’s not a huge thing like the one we spent half our lives in, but a seventeen feet long one. I have begrudged paying each instalment, being as we are as good as bankrupt, but realise the importance of it. We hope to have Jamie coming home soon even though nothing has been finalised. He’ll need his own space to escape to when the mood takes him. We hope to collect it next week.

The husband has another abscess in his mouth, a painful and regular occurrence for him. Our teeth and gums are in a worse state than China. We simply can’t afford to go to the dentist when you have to pay around eighty Euros for them to take a look in your mouth, and around another eighty for an X-ray, and that’s before you even get any treatment done. I’ve made a pledge to book us both an appointment in a month if we have any money.

Aside from the expense, there’s also the embarrassment factor. When you go to the dentist these days you have to wear these huge black goggles. As if you don’t feel ugly and vulnerable enough already with your gob stretched wide open and drool pouring down the sides of your chin. Tom said the last time he went they actually stretched his mouth wide open with clamps, puffed it open with air and took photo. All this combined with the goggles must have had them pissing themselves laughing as they posted the pictures onto You Tube.

But deteriorating teeth just serve as a reminder that you’re getting older and more decrepit all the time. Even today on taking the bag of grated cheese out the fridge, written on the bag was ‘best before 15th October’. I couldn’t help wondering in some spooky kind of way if that message was really meant for the cheese or meant for me, since I will be forty four on that very date.

Monday 31st August 2009

Today, on a scale of 1-10, my stress level is 20. Today is the day before Robin goes back to school. Yesterday we went into town to finish buying the rest of his school stuff, which consisted of three quarters of his uniform, half of his school books, and his trainers. I would normally have everything bought early into the school holidays, but due to poverty, this year it’s been a last minute dash with the credit card. We achieved all the books except one. We got the trainers after traipsing round every sports shop and finding very little choice for boys and loads of stuff for girls. I managed two pairs of trousers and two shirts a couple of weeks ago, and the only sweatshirts left were massive or tiny.

Even before school starts the shops are sold out of most things, so if you have to leave shopping till the last minute or if your child grows out of stuff throughout the year, you’ve had it. So now we’ll have to choose between last year’s tiny sweatshirts or the new massive ones.

So today I have been trying to salvage last year’s uniform to use as spares. I’ve named all his clothes and sorted and named his books and other items. As well as all that, I have changed beds, done washing and ironing, swept and washed floors, cleaned toilets, washed the cooker and went shopping for packed lunch stuff.

And by the way, who was it that actually invented the day off. It must have been a total eejit. All that the day off consists of is housework, housework and more housework. So by the time you start your first day