I’ve just had a holiday in one lounge/kitchen with 5 cupboards each cupboard door requiring a different technique to open it. They weren’t actually cupboards but rooms. For this was ‘caravan land’ …or ‘static caravan land’ to be accurate. I’m sure Bilbo Baggins, Frodo and friends from the Shire would have luxuriated in the space. However after a week with my husband, our two fully-grown friends and their 9-month-old Springer spaniel Jack, lets just say there was very little we didn’t know about each other. To add to the treat we’d chosen a week in which the West Country saw some of the heaviest storms it has seen this year, which meant we were confined to quarters for much of the time. I was a little on edge before the holiday anyway as it was with the very same friends I have written about before in this column. Yes that’s right the couple who we joined on their minimoon (pre honeymoon) in which the husband suffered a heart attack. Then the following year there was the ill feted barge holiday in France, once more in storms, in which an out of control barge, supposedly being steered by an Eastern European family, henceforth known as ‘Bouncing Checks’, careened into us whilst we were static in the lock breaking off a piece of the our bow. Oh and the over excitable klargester toilet meant that none of us got a good night’s sleep as it erupted every time someone attempted a sneaky midnight tinkle…and then decided to back up ALARMINGLY! We got a group discount therapy session after that incident. Then…oh yes there’s more…last year we took our first static caravan holiday together in deepest Cornwall and on arrival the husband with the heart condition discovered he had left his medication at home. We’re not talking a couple of packs of Nurofen and Paracetamol. We’re talking heavy-duty stuff that goes into double figures!!! Now you might be thinking there is no joy to be got from the second kick of a mule so whatever possessed up to consider a holiday with these same friends again? Well I like to be positive. Glass half full and all that. Lightening doesn’t strike twice in the same place. Although I suspect Roy Sullivan the United States park ranger in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia would have something to say about that. He was hit by lightening on seven occasions and lived to tell the tale. Anyway we were offered the caravan a few months ago and all said, “ Yes lets do it what could possibly go wrong this time?” Well I’ll tell you what. Whilst walking with Jack on Woodbury Common the week before the holiday ….he was bitten on the back leg by an adder! Now snakebites are an emergency. With treatment most dogs recover, but some bites are very serious, cause severe illness and in some cases death. I’m pleased to say Jack was kept calm and taken straight to the vets anti venom and pain killers administered with a warning to keep and eye on the wound to make sure no infection started up. Thankfully being young and strong with boundless energy he recovered quickly and the holiday was able to go ahead all of us convinced that things would be plain sailing from then on. Sailing being the operative word as the rain and winds were so strong we more or less sailed down the A30 to the campsite! There has been no mention of another holiday together yet. But if there is I’m telling you …there wont are any flights involved.

Read all about it: Western Morning News