We drive. We are on, hmm, a short camping trip. Staying in a yurt. In the border country. But did I actually shut the freezer door properly? I only ask because we’ve been woken by the alarm twice before now; and also because we’re now approaching the Second Severn Crossing and it’s too late to do anything about it. Once over the bridge, the motorway traffic stalls and crawls. Flashing signals urge us to keep our speed down to 40, just as the speedometer limps up to 15. Heat. Are my legs swelling as they seemed to the other day? Heat-related oedema, the Librarian explained then, helpfully. I am feeling claustrophobic even in dense traffic these days.
But then, I say (as three army lorries in succession pass us in the slow lane), what’s the worst that can happen if the freezer door isn’t shut? Water all over the kitchen floor and some food ruined? Unless the fridge overheats and explodes, the Librarian suggests. Yes, I agree, unless that.
Still, when we turn off at Junction 24, things ease. Past Abergavenny and heading for Hereford. Along narrow lanes, up agonising tracks. The directions are ambiguous and, once parked, we carefully head off to the wrong corner of the field, staggering under the weight of several bags. We stare at the directions again, peer into dazzling distances, up and down slopes, plunge into clumps of trees and we’re finally there.
It would suit some people very well. It clearly has done: some posted reviews are fulsome, verging on ecstatic. We walk up the field again to get some icepacks from a communal fridge. Back at the yurt, we walk around, go outside, locate the view. Our last holiday deluged us with light and space and air. Here, I feel hemmed in, short of both light and space. There’s a view but it’s round the corner, so to speak.
This was to be a mini-break for reading and relaxation, simply that: and to exorcize the Librarian’s long-established yurt yearnings. We walk around again, look outside, look at each other. Three questions, I say, four really, if we count the possible freezer door problem. One, could you relax here? Two, could you settle down to read here? Three, would any of the food that we’ve carefully transported here last even until tomorrow morning without turning into something else? The Librarian considers this carefully for almost a second. No. No. And no.
No need to repack bags that were not disturbed. Two trips back up to the car, staggering even more obviously now, as muscles sag and the heat takes its toll. We drive. Only a single navigational hiccup finds us on an unintended road to Chepstow. One signpost mentions fourteen miles but that’s a clearly a joke or local legend. But we do finally emerge at a junction where the caption BRISTOL 17 MILES eases away all tensions and dark suspicions. We drive.
At home, we return the food and drink to fridge and freezer. The plants are already watered, tomorrow’s recycling already outside on the pavement. There is little to do but raise our glasses: ‘Chepstow!’
The freezer door was, of course, firmly closed.
Reconstructionary Tales 