Froth and nonsense

From the Echo, first published Thursday 16th Oct 2003.

OH the joys of life on a campsite! No dishwasher in your average motorhome, so the pots and pans, crockery and cutlery from the evening meal have to be hauled over to the toilet block where there are outside sinks with hot water provided.

In early autumn, with a chill breeze blowing off the Atlantic to scour the Cornish countryside near Land's End, and the air thick with the smell of cow-dung from a nearby farmyard, this is not a job over which you want to linger.

But the conversation with fellow ablutionists makes up for it.

I was just down to the greasy grill tray when a couple arrived with their bowlful of bits and pieces to take up station at the next sink.

I'm not good at random conversations with strangers but I risked a tentative "Evening..."

"Good evening," replied the lady, while her husband just nodded. This, I realised later, was not because he was offhand but because he apparently had no front teeth at all.

This dental shortage, coupled with the densest of accents from deepest Dudley and his tendency to talk only in short, sharp bursts or two or three words at a time, made him virtually impossible to understand.

"Lovely beach," I ventured, nodding over my shoulder at the wide open sands below us, which could be reached from the campsite by a long, steep and arduous path that fell a good couple of hundred feet at about 45 degrees.

"Yeah, we went down there this afternoon, didn't we Bert?" said the wife.

I looked at her with new respect. This was not a lady built for cliff descents. She was no more than five feet tall and could be charitably described as plump.

Her bust was enormous, mostly open to the weather and it descended, as far as I could tell without staring too intently, right down into the waistband of her shorts. She also had a heavy gold chain with a medallion that was lost from view in her ample cleavage.

"And I've got high blood pressure and metal plates in both my ankles," she added.

"Really?" I said, lost for a sensible reply.

"Yeah, I fell over on someone's garden path and broke both ankles. And I was collecting for charity."

I left with my bowl of clean crocks, pondering on how very cruel life can be. Two broken ankles on a charity mission. It's just not fair, is it?

The next evening it was my wife's turn to do the washing up at the communal sinks, and the talk turned to parrots.

"I've been ringing my mum back home every night," said the lady at the next sink.

"She drove all the way from Yorkshire to Lancashire to stay at our house and look after our parrot.

"We'd have brought the parrot with us except his cage is a third the size of the living room and it wouldn't fit in our camper van, but I really miss him...he's like a baby to us. We've had him since he was an egg.

"The only trouble is that the parrot doesn't like her going out. As soon as she puts her coat on, he starts throwing his stuff around the cage in a temper and when she comes back he sulks."

My wife doesn't have a lot to offer in parrot conversations but there was the story of our neighbour Lucy, who took some runner beans round to give to a friend who owns a parrot.

"She knocked on the door and said words to the effect of: "I've brought you some runner beans..." and the parrot went spare.

Apparently it loves the tops and tails of the beans which are cut off before slicing and just the mention of the word "bean" is enough to drive the bird into a frenzy.

A has-bean parrot... don't mention the beans... it all rather puts you in mind of John Cleese.

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