Over the past week, a lot of people in my part of the world (Brisbane, Queensland, Australia that is) have been heard to say, "I wish it would just b****y well rain!" Two things I've learnt about Queenslanders since moving here last year that are summed up in this sentence: 1. they don't mince their words and 2. they take a very keen interest in the weather. If you live here and don't know what the BOM is, well, you'd just better go and find out before you're sent back to New South Wales or wherever it is you came from. (It's the Bureau of Meteorology website, by the way. It's first with storm warnings, so kinda important round these parts).
So now we have what we wished for - it's pouring! And has been all day. Just in time for a 4-hour drive up to Fraser Island tomorrow for a very welcome break. I was feeling a little uninspired to blog today, what with it being so grey and wet outside, and a wee bit cool (I really need to toughen up). Until, that is, I started listening to the rain on the tin (deck) roof. How I love that sound ....
And why do I love that sound so much? Simply because, when I was a littlie, every year our family packed up the car and the trusty Thompson Traveller - our caravan - and headed south for our very own European vacation. I was a happy and a very lucky little camper to have spent holidays in France, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain, Italy and Andorra (it's a tiny country between France and Spain), and all before I was even a teen.
On these holidays, my brothers and I made friends and played with kids without being able to speak each other's language.
We learnt how to pack light, because somehow you had to squeeze 3 weeks' worth of clothes into a cubby hole about the size of a shoe box.
We got to swim in the sea, get a suntan (and burn), wear nothing but flip flops and swimsuits for 3 whole weeks, and of course we got to sample exotic 'foreign food' - I still have a vivid memory of eating my first pizza!
But one of the strongest sensory memories I have is lying in bed listening to the pitter-patter of summer rain on the roof of our home-away-from-home. Mum and Dad would still be up, talking in hushed voices (we were only separated by a curtain, after all) and maybe playing cards on the table that would later be folded away to form the base of their bed (design genius!).
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| Check out this little wagon somewhere in a forest in Denmark at Boboho |
I loved caravanning as a child, it holds many happy memories for me, so much so that I now have a dream of one day having a very special type of caravan to call my own ....
But you'll just have to wait until next week to find out what that is, if you haven't guessed already!
Til then, Nx
