September in Cumbria – return to the Lakes

A day in which I meet one of the most obnoxious people I’ve ever come across…

The middle Sunday of September saw me leaving home in drizzly rain and grey cloud for my second holiday at the Cumbrian farm site I love so much, though I hadn’t gone too far up the M6 before the rain stopped. By the time I’d got past the turn off for Lancaster and Morecambe the sun was shining, staying with me all the way to the camp site, and with just two caravans and two campervans across from the tent pitches it looked like it would be a quiet week.

Dotted about round the site are several picnic benches available for anyone to take onto their pitch and use while they are there so with the tent up and everything organised inside I’d dragged the nearest one, which was sitting in the middle of the grass at the end of the site, onto my pitch so I could fasten the dogs’ tie-out cables to the legs. There had been no-one around at the time but I was just about to make a brew later on when the guy from the caravan on the pitch diagonally opposite came across – and you’ll just have to imagine his tone of voice, which wasn’t very nice at all.

Pointing to the picnic bench he said “I was going to use that!!” Now to suddenly be spoken to like that by someone I’d never met before rather surprised and shocked me but before I could say anything he pointed to a bench further down the site and said “I suppose I’ll have to go and get that one now!!” and off he went, back into his caravan. I saw him a while later carrying another bench along the track through the site but he dumped it on the next-but-one pitch to mine and when I looked later I saw it was more of a child sized one so obviously not big enough for him.

Now I could ~ maybe ~ have understood this guy’s attitude if ‘my’ bench had been on or very close to his pitch, in which case I wouldn’t have taken it anyway, but it had been nowhere near his caravan so I didn’t know why he should decide to claim ownership of it and come over and verbally accost me. Needless to say, although I did speak to several other people on site over the course of the next ten days I kept well away from him and didn’t let the encounter spoil my holiday.