Nearly seventy years old, but still as punchy and concise as the day it was first displayed. I’m feeling rather punchy after the concise message from the garage that all is not well with the Love Bus. Apparently they’ve never before found a fault with the steering caused by someone not driving it. You may be shaking your heads in the time-honoured warranty fashion on hearing “I was just riding along and my frame snapped in four places“. But I tell you, Friday fine, undriven till yesterday, last night: broken.

This is distracting me from two other rather pressing issues. The first being a tent being handed over by a friend of mine with the mischievous narrative “Oh it’s really easy to put together, just follow the instructions“. NOTHING is easy to put together if it has instructions. I can quote at length from flat pack furniture through children’s toys to mountain bike components accompanied by a manual translated from Chinese to English, via Urdu by a man who only knew enough of both languages to sell a camel.

But erect* it we must, because the second Elephant In The Room is holding an umbrella and scouting about for a very large dingy. Yes I know camping at the Autumn end of August isn’t very bright, but neither is attempting such lunacy with four members of the family who’ve never done it before. One of them which smells and snores even worse than I do. Hard to believe, but sadly the ear perforating, nasal hair shrivelling truth when one considers the aural stinky disaster that is Murphy the Labrador.

Our camping experience is a light one. Well not really as we have nothing more than ten quids worth of dim electric candle and some head torches of similar, dubious quality. And a very small – yet potentially lethal – stove. And a kettle. And that’s it. So if it** rains, that’ll be four people and a mad dog confined in a small canvas dome wondering if “I Spy” can be classified as mental torture under UN rules.

Still assuming the car gets fixed before we’re meant to leave, then at least I can sleep in it. The last two occasions I’ve created a tentage experience, someone else has had the pleasure of sleeping in it, while I shoe-horned myself into the back of the truck. Unlikely to get five of us in it – primarily because the doors will be locked and I shall have ear plugs in. So deaf to the entreaties of my family who may well be shouting “WHOSE BLOODY STUPID IDEA WAS THIS?”

Ah. Well. H’mm. And on that salutatory note, I shall bid you farewell, only to return in a few days with tales of trenchfoot and emergency B&B’s no doubt.

* I’m too fraught to offer up my normal stable of giant erection “nobody thinks they are funny but you” missives. Be thankful.

** When