Three Pairs of Knickers and a Tin of Soap

By Angela Almond

The story of a middle aged woman's holiday in France with a motorbike and a tent.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 5, 2011
• ISBN: 9781447596769

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Chapter One – Cold Feet

I guess it began back about five years ago. We had agreed to be the Responsible Adults accompanying a group of teenagers to a youth festival organised by the Boys’ Brigade over the May Bank Holiday weekend. The youngsters had gone in previous years and all the camping equipment was in the BB Cupboard at Church. My husband Bob assured me it would be Great Fun. Furthermore, as our own daughters were planning to be away in New York that week, we had no family responsibilities, and as Brigade Officers it was our duty to go. Round about mid April, I began to get Cold Feet. Seriously Cold Feet. Having followed my annual practice of turning the mattress and removing the electric blanket at Easter, I suddenly realised my toes were quite frozen at night. If they were cold in a warm bed in a warm house, the prospect of being in a tent was quite chilling.

Bob was going to the bank – so I asked him to pop into the camping shop and buy me some really thick socks. He came back with the socks – and a tent. We don’t need a tent! I exploded The BB have tents, why do we need to buy our own? Furthermore, finances are Fairly Tight at the minute, we can’t afford such profligacy! (For nearly thirty years, I have managed the family budget by vetoing most spending on the grounds that finances are Fairly Tight or Very Tight. This family does not go in for Loose Change) Bob argued that it was a bargain – half price – and furthermore we had already decided we would struggle to afford a holiday in the summer, so this way we could take a tent and have a really cheap time up in Scotland. Had I not always wanted to have a holiday in Scotland? This way we could afford it.

The weekend with the teenagers was fantastic. The sun shone, the food and music were good, and reluctantly I had to admit that I had enjoyed myself. The thick socks had done their job and my feet had been toasty warm. I reasoned that having bought That Tent, we now had to Get Our Money’s Worth out of it, so maybe Scotland was a possibility. Over the next two months we worked out our itinerary, borrowed a few things, and got ready for the trip.

Being a very thrifty soul (this is not the adjective my family use) and also being convinced that there was a dearth of decent supermarkets north of the border, I insisted we took plenty of food with us. That way I was in control of spending and could make sure we avoided expensive Scotch Eateries by declaring There’s no point in buying a meal – we have plenty of food in the boot of the car. In retrospect, this was a Serious Mistake. We had one pan, and a camping kettle – so I bought packets of dehydrated soup and cereal, and absurd foil pouches of egg, bacon and potato mush, as well as cans of beans and rice pudding. I should have realised that when things are not just BOGOF but Buy One Get TWO Free that’s because the food is so disgusting that the supermarket wants to clear it quickly from its shelves.

Our Scottish trip was unspeakably dreadful. I think we might have coped with the appalling food – but coupled with incessant rain, midge bites (Bob had 63 by the fourth night – I counted them) and an air bed which burst, it was not exactly the pleasant experience we had hoped for. I could not manage to hold a torch and a book whilst cocooned in a sleeping bag, and the tent was so small that lying down was the only half-way comfortable pose. By the time we got to Oban the rain was incredibly heavy – we took shelter in the whisky distillery, and went on The Tour. A lifelong teetotaller, I found myself drinking the free sample at the end in the hopes it would make me feel better (it didn’t – and to the disgust of the men present, I left my glass only half drunk.) By the end of the week we gave in, and found a motel for the last two nights. Mrs Lowe, the owner, was wonderful and took pity on us, feeding us huge breakfasts, and giving us jugs of real milk for the bedroom tea tray, not little pots of UHT.

But when we got home, I declared I was NEVER camping again. That was it, forever. An annual holiday is what you have at the end of a year of hard work. Therefore it is not unreasonable to want certain things like decent toilets, comfortable beds, and vaguely recognisable food. I like rest, and recuperation and the chance to laze around reading a good book. These things did not happen during the Scottish Camping Holiday. I felt damp and miserable and hungry for most of the week (although my feet remained toasty warm throughout – I did not remove my thick socks AT ALL, until I was able to have a hot shower at Mrs Lowe’s place)

The Camping Holiday passed into legend – to be brought out and laughed over at family gatherings. Whenever the subject of going camping again came up, I thundered Never! in Churchillian tones. The tent was put in the loft, and used as a prop in a drama, and as an illustration in a school assembly, and lent to friends (along with Dire Warnings about their foolhardiness) – but I was adamant that This Woman would not be using it again.

What happened next is something of a blur. In the space of a few months, we celebrated our Silver Wedding, we both hit 50, and Bob inherited some money. I was lost a romantic haze, having been given an anniversary gift of a diamond pendant, in the moonlight in Vermont! (so utterly unexpected that I totally forgot to do my usual speech about We Can’t Afford This and Finances are Tight) Somehow I agreed that HIS birthday/anniversary/Christmas gift should be combined and that he could buy another motorbike. He was forced to sell his previous bike when he was 30, for reasons you can probably guess by now, and for twenty years had yearned to be on two wheels again.

During the summer of 2005, Bob purchased a second-hand silver Honda Pan European – a huge beast, popular as a police bike – its engine bigger than that of my little Daewoo. At my insistence he had some refresher riding lessons, and was generally a very happy little bunny with his new toy (if you can describe someone six foot four tall as ‘little’) One slightly mad day in August, when I was down in London with the daughters, he decided to see if he could ride from Leicester to Anglesey and back in a day. He did it – and enjoyed it – but was quite stiff next day, and got little sympathy from me! I realised fairly quickly that if I was not going to resent the bike, I would have to learn to love it too, so I got some leathers and climbed on the back. Fortunately I found I enjoyed pillion riding and was much less nervous that I had been in my youth. Being only four foot eleven tall, there was no chance of my learning to ride the thing – I couldn’t reach the pedals!

That autumn, Liz (our eldest daughter) gave Bob a copy of Euan McGregor’s book, describing his mammoth ride with Charlie Boorman. Bob began talking about touring on the bike. The Open Road. Freedom. He said he fancied riding down through France, across the Pyrenees and through Spain to Madrid. OK, I said, we will work out Euan’s average mileage per day, and then if 12 days at that rate would get us to Madrid and back, we’ll do it for our next summer holiday. Calculators flashed. Why, oh why, didn’t I do the maths before I’d said it? Bob’s eyes lit up and he immediately began planning the Grand Tour.

A small amount of sanity crept in – perhaps Spain was rather ambitious, and it would mean a lot of riding and no time to stop and take in the sights. The revised itinerary was France – along the northern coastline, then south a little, and eastwards to Paris, and back up to Calais. This would be more relaxed, and we could spend