Where the Caravan Isn't

Just below the office window in our house is the place known as Where the Caravan Isn't.

For many, many years it was Where the Caravan Is.

"Nothing wrong with that caravan," said the Communist. "Just needs a bit of cleaning up."

We bought the house from my parents in 1999 and their house was built in its large garden. From time to time we'd have good-humoured discussions about the ownership of the caravan.

"It's yours!" said the Communist. "You bought it with the house! We included it in the price! You got a bargain!"

"No, no," I'd say. "I think you'll find no mention of any old wreck of a caravan in our deeds. It's yours. Take it away."

My mother, meanwhile, did what she always does which was to put some plants in front of it - see above - and hope that this would make it invisible.

It didn't.

Finally, a man knocked on our door and asked if we wanted it. We tied him to a chair and made him sign a form promising to take it away at once. And he did, towing it behind a van and ignoring the fact that the caravan had no wheels. Well, no round wheels, anyway. And certainly no tyres. Lots of sparks on the road as he drove off. We didn't care. We cheered.

And, when my mother had cleared it all up a bit, here is Where the Caravan Isn't, soon afterwards.

But my mother wanted to make Where the Caravan Isn't into a proper sitting-out place, and she decided that this would be a present for me.

So first of all she cleared it of this Spring's weeds. Then she got some spare sand from the patio Gareth's been making outside Emily and Gareth's house, and she spread it all over, as a base. Then she drove to the garden centre and found some gravel. Then she came home and measured it all. Then she returned to the garden centre and got them to deliver the gravel a few days later - a Very Helpful Man put the bags all round the outside for her, whilst telling her his life story, which she greatly enjoyed.

Then she marked it all out with canes so it would be even, and she set about heaving the bags to the right places and spreading it out.

She doesn't really abide by the Union of Gardeners time rules, so she just kept on working and I couldn't take a photograph of the finished result, because by the time she came to say that she'd finished, it was only visible to owls.

But it looks great: there's a bench on it and it's a lovely place to sit and look at the garden. And also to look at the semi-derelict greenhouse.

"Nothing wrong with that greenhouse," says Mum, "it just needs a bit of cleaning up and a few new panes of glass." Really, those who survived Hitler can carry make-do-and-mend to a new level.

Still, I feel I should remind you here that my mother was born on 20th April 1924 which makes her eighty-four, so she's not doing too badly with her patio-making exploits. And if you need a hand with the pigs, Malc, I'm sure she'd be interested.