R.S.P.C.A.

Following the previous post, I have received a few concerned e mails suggesting that I condone the drowning of children from a certain class.

I must clarify this by saying in no way whatsoever did I intend to conjour up any images of drowning children and any mention of Pike's or Pikey's purely had a fishing reference, and was not intended on as a slur to dwellers from housing estates.

I have made the relevant edits and again sincerely apologise to anyone who has been upset. I was merely suggesting how nature can be cruel and kind at the same time, and when one creature survives another can die.

Anyway, I'm off to watch the news, there's been a human foot and mouth outbreak in Oldham.

Tales from the bank

I'm off fishing for a few hours.
In one of the earlier blogs I mentioned how fishing has this power to make you keep trying, to keep returning to the water, just in the vain hope that today may be your day.

Since I caught that little fish way back in early March I have been fishing about another 6 times, and I'm ashamed to say, I'm yet to add to my tally.

The nearest I got was last week, when whilst on the bank staring at my float with raw eyes, a young lad came up to me with a fair size fish in his hand. He had picked it out of the water!

Here I am with some of the latest fishing methods on the circuit, tooled up with the fanciest baits, fleece lined and ready to catch, and some Tarzan wannabee from an estate in Oldham hand picks the biggest fish from the margins and brings it over to me.

There is something quite intimidating about wild 11 year olds.

'Do you want this fish mate?' he enquires whilst holding a rather miserable blood covered fish
.
'Er no thank you, don't you think that fish should be in the water?' I replied trying my hardest to be an adult.

'Dunt matter mate, its dead now' he told me whilst hurling the dead fish straight into the area where I was fishing.

He legged it.

I sat on my fishing box, watching the said fish on the surface of the water next to my float. It wasn't dead, there were still a few shallow breaths, a few gasps of life left to be had. I looked at the culprit who was now doing a live autopsy on a rather aroused male frog, and I wondered if nature had just tipped upside down, and that it had got it all wrong.

Well after feeding my fishing area with a delectable variety of offerings including sweetcorn, powdered bread, pork luncheon meat, Pepperami (fishing mag tip), boilies, two types of pellets (one heavily flavoured) and bird seed, all without producing a single fish, I could hardly imagine the fish would be heading for my area, just waiting to dine in luxury with one of their own suffocating on its last fins, floating around them in the clutches of death whilst they eat off my menu.

I packed up in disgust, a weird mixture of sadness and frustration for not catching a fish, the emotion of watching a fish dying in front of me, and also, whilst I'm enjoying all other personal connections with nature and wildlife I'm having here, the inner turmoil and guilt knowing that one day, I'm hopefully going to tow a fish across a pond with a lump of very sharp metal hooked in its lip, the perfect way to look nature in the eye!

Fishing is a hunting tool, yet we have turned in to leisure and pleasure, a sport!
I go again, to sit by the pond, and ponder.

If the vans a rocking, don't come knocking

Its that time of year. Everything around us, for want of a better phrase are' bang at it' Its spring, and the hormones of all nature are waking from their slumber and doing the most animalistic of all things, mating. Birds, rabbits, fish, ducks, and presently frogs are risking their lives in pursuit of a few moments of pleasure and the continuing evolution of their species.

Nature can be kind, but it can be cruel. Its time for the frogs. You know Frogspawn? You can go to the pond and see literally hundreds of frogs all looking for action, they are hell bent, and will go to extreme lengths to do their stuff. Unfortunately as the darkness falls on the day, and caravans and cars are coming and going, the frogs are putting their lives at stake in order to do what they need to do. Alas there are numerous squashed froggies around the place with a little glint frozen in their little eyes. You can barely walk ten yards in the dark without treading on them.

The ducks are also going crazy, competition for the female is fierce, and often there will be 3 or 4 male ducks chasing the females around, fighting each other for her attention. It serves an interesting reminder of where all natural life evolved from and where males, and not just humans, keep their brains.

Even I have been seduced. My beautiful girlfriend asked me to get her something from town to put her in the mood!

I came back with some WD40. The back legs on the van are terribly squeaky!

8/10 readers prefer it

From the feedback from family and friends it seems our little cat Luke Skywalker has got quite a fanclub, here's a little update.

Luke could have a blog of his own, every day is eventful for him.

There are four cats in total on site. Mutthead, it seems, is the boss, he is totally fearless, I've caught him our van on a few occasions just casually eating our Luke's food without a care for any humans. He has had numerous scraps with Luke, however he is too big and old to even get close to Luke in a chase and hides and springs out on Luke catching him unawares, a few whacks with the paw before Luke runs off.

Its all about territories it seems, every cat has their own 'space' and other cats can't go there or else there is trouble, then they have neutral spaces where they can hang out peacefully.

There is a tabby cat Tabby Vader, it appears that he is also from the dark side and has probably had Mutthead as a big influence on his life. He is equally violent, but seems to have struck some sort of deal with Luke following an incident outside our van last week.

Luke and Tabby V were head to head making the most unnatural squeel quite similar to a babies cry but more demonic and scary. It went on for about ten minutes, some form of bizzarre cat communication, it ended with a few whacks, but it seems, that in his own territory Luke has won the battle.

Then the last cat is pure Ginger a sort of a rusty Anakin Skywalker, he seems to be of a similar age and until Luke arrived was more than likely the regular victim of Mutthead and Tabby Vader. Now that Luke is the new kit on the block his status has been elevated and he takes great delight in annoying Luke. I think they'll end up friends.

He has brought home two mice, one dead and with its head removed, the other which Luke kindly kept alive for an hour so he could chase it around the awning before death. Luke is very proud of himself, I on the other hand am ashamed. I am scared of mice and cannot deal with them. Dead or alive!

We see him at all parts of the site, he really has stretched his legs and has settled in well. He holds his own with the other cats, he's found a tree to scratch and a wall to stretch himself out on a sunny day. He is currently asleep inside the van.

Sweet dreams Lukey

We're all Jippies now

Moving from tent, to converted camper van, and now to caravan, you get to experience the different forms of camping and the campers that go with it.

Despite the common denominator of enjoying life close to the outdoors and near nature, and the basic simplicities of camping /caravanning, there are also a lot of differences.

There seems to be a scale ranging from Gypsies, to new age travellers, to weekend campers, and to the more well off people in expensive motorhomes and caravans. A motorhome pulled onto the site the other day with a Smart Car being towed on the back! I mean whats going on now? The caravans are towing cars, yet the caravan is a car as well?!

I overheard a conversation with one of the full time residents, bemoaning the sudden influx of new campers due to arrive for the Easter break, they were genuinely appalled that all these people would want to come here, and pitch up for the weekend, wrecking their peace, rather than be excited that a whole load of like minded people were due to arrive.

Anyway............


So it got me thinking about Gypsies, travellers etc, the persecution, harassment they have faced over the years and us, and the people staying here, how we are one and the same, but also very different, how we would rather divide ourselves into our little groups of acceptability rather than unite and live under one big canvas roof.

So who am I? Who are we?

We are Jippies, a cross between a Gypsy and a Hippie, we're not travellers, old age or new, we don't go anywhere. We have electric, gas, Internet access, hot water etc, but hopefully have one love for all fellow campers and people who desire a way of life like this, to be at one with our environment and surroundings, to remove the complications of modern living, and get down to a more basic, simplistic connection with life.

Its all getting a bit deep eh?

I don't want to politicise in anyway, and I don't want to talk much about things I don't know a great deal about. Gypsies and travellers generally get a lot of bad press, and there is certainly a negative social view towards them, but in many ways, they just want a way of life that is suited to them.

A motorhome has just pulled on, its got a Satellite dish, and mountain bikes clipped to the back, a family has just poured out, eager for a nights camping.

Although not wholly relevant, but certainly thought provoking I insert a video.

This has happened in recent history in our own country

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3YtmBD_thM

Holmfirth Scouser Caravan

If you tap those three words into Google you come up with this blog!

The whole purpose of starting the blog was to put some relevant info out for there for other people thinking of possibly moving into a caravan and having it as a way of life.

So anyone who does find this site, may or may not find it too relevant me venting my spleen about Scousers bothering me whilst I was fishing, but probably find it more useful if the blog resumed its intended purpose of living in a caravan. So, I am pleased to say, that I will hopefully be updating more often now.

I must use this space to apologise to the hundreds of offended Scousers who have e mailed their complaints.

Why dont you just calm down eh?