Back in Britain; a Fidose of Reality – Part 1

Dorset. A county boasting one of the lowest crime rates in the UK.

A quiet country walk with the dogs ended with a statement given to the police.

Mark and I have both slithered over the hill into our mid-50s without ever being involved in a fight. “That’s nothing!” my friend told me, putting it into context. “I’ve never rented a video!”

Nevertheless, in a quiet, sleepy area frequented by dog walkers, someone started throwing punches and kicks before pulling a weapon on Mark because our trained therapy dog, Rosie, went near him.

Rosie didn’t get too close; she certainly didn’t jump up. She did go towards him to say hello because she is friendly, but she is also very smart. We called her but she had already got the message that she was not welcome from the heavily booted foot that lashed out repeatedly towards her head.

I do completely understand that some people are scared of dogs. Having been bitten by a Scottie as a child, my Dad has an almost pathological fear of dogs. This necessitates taking the caravan ‘up north’ with us as accommodation and The Fab Four staying round the corner with Ant Kath to be spoiled rotten each day when we visit Dad. However, we did feel that an escalation to immediate, armed violence towards the owner of a dog who had effectively just hesitated slightly while walking past was a bit of an over reaction. And if you don’t like dogs, why choose to go to a dog-walkers’ paradise?!

The incident was not without an air of comedy. Mark is 6’6” tall, so there was a cartoon-like quality to the way Mark simply put his hands on the guy’s shoulders while an almost epileptic rain of ineffectual punches and kicks met nothing but mid-air. Thankfully, the metallic-looking pointy weapon thing had been dropped somewhere amid the confusion.

Mark is a gentle man, but even had he not been, he still knew better than to do anything by way of retaliation. We have seen too many examples in the news of self-defence being no defence – and hefty prison sentences being handed out to those who fall slightly to the wrong side of ‘reasonable force’ in the confusion of a sudden and violent, armed attack.

Never one to over react, I was completely calm in the crisis and helped to get things back under control by screaming, flapping, helping to restrain the assailant by throwing myself over his legs when Mark wrestled him to the ground and shouting “Help!” to two walkers who arrived on the scene at that point – and thought that Mark was the bad guy.

I gabbled an explanation and then phoned the police. The walkers took a photo of our attacker, who, after finally managing to punch Mark in the mouth, accepted that he was outnumbered and went on his merry way, shouting obscenities.

It is fair to say that our homecomings are never straightforward! Usually, we just get fined because of our Master Criminal tendencies towards highway crime (speeding) and inadvertent tax evasion. (Our latest dastardly speeding offence was for doing 70mph in a 70mph zone. Swiftly relieved of a £100 fine and supplied with 3 penalty points, we can pass on to you that 70mph is illegal in a panel van – unless it has windows, which make a ‘people carrier’ from exactly the same body and chassis!)

This time, by way of variety, we rode the rollercoaster of being the victim in several different scenarios; namely car trouble, tenant trouble, a boundary dispute, wild weather, a robbery – and, of course, the assault.

Welcome home!

The Boundary Dispute

Our base was a seasonal pitch at Hunter’s Moon near Wareham. We had gone there because we couldn’t stay the site that we had pre-booked near Mark’s Mum. That was flooded!

The 90-mile commute to visit was made all the more pleasing as we walked into her lounge for the first time in a couple of months.  It was hard to miss the blank wall of the neighbour’s new extension. Erected while we had been away, it was only the two feet over the boundary of Mark’s Mum’s property!

In between “How was your trip?” and “Are you glad to be home?” Mark nipped out quietly with a tape measure and a camera to take photos of where the builders had cut away two feet of his Mum’s patio and removed part of a raised flower bed.

The Council Planning Office was not sure that the extension was over the boundary. We explained how the patio had been cut away and told them that if the extension had been at the front of the house, it would obscure half of the window. “The boundary could have been in the wrong place!” they told us, but they did send several planning officers to take a look.

They um’d and ah’d as they rubbed their chins and marveled at the huge dormer window on the extension that hadn’t been on the plan – and had been absent when Council carried out their final inspection! They noted that, apart from tunneling underground, the extension exceeded the plans in every dimension. They conceded the possibility that boundary may have been violated – and that if it had, the mutilation of the patio amounted to criminal damage. “We shall take enforcement action!” they assured us. Stupidly, we believed them.

Up until now, relations with the neighbour had been very good. We spoke to him and, all teeth and smiles, he regaled us with the joyful news that he had done nothing wrong. He had built on the party wall line, which was a great benefit to Mark’s Mum. With equal delight and equanimity, he informed us we could not only look forward to him installing a brand new fence – but he was going to pay for it!

We asked him about the written permission from Mark’s Mum that he required by law to build on the party wall line. We knew that he did not have it. Then, even when Mark drew him a diagram, he was unable (or unwilling!) to grasp that the boundary was the boundary and the party wall line was over the boundary. We suspected that our assertion that his wonderful new fence should definitely NOT be in line with the extension fell on stony ground. We suspected even more strongly that the stony ground where it fell was two feet over the boundary of my mother-in-law’s garden.

On one side, we had the help and support of The Local Authority, which we found out later is like having the hapless progeny of the Keystone Kops and a Muppet fighting your cause. On the other, a neighbor deliberately deaf to reason; perhaps because he lives in an area of burgeoning property prices. Clearly, there was never going to be a simple solution.

However, we left it in the capable hands of the Local Planning Office. After all, they are our elected representatives and that’s their job. Isn’t it?

Wild Weather #1 – Wareham

Dorset in November certainly helped towards our acclimatization to another winter in the Alps. On a walk to Corfe Castle, my face actually went numb!

If the caravan’s rockin’, best get chockin’…! We had a couple of nights in Wareham where we thought that we were all heading for Kansas, but like Elton John, the awning remained resolutely upright.

We can’t say that the windsurfing was quite as successful. Where is the wind when you decide to ride the storm? The howling maelstrom suddenly dropped, leaving Mark struggling with a sinker in no wind. (A sinker is a small board for sailing in high winds. It can’t support your weight unless it is moving very quickly, ie planing, like a speed boat on top of the water. Without wind, a windsurfer is like a boat with no motor or rudder – and is completely at the mercy of the sea!)

I was dog-sitting on the beach, chatting to some friends when a windsurfing buddy rushed over to tell me “Someone’s been washed out of The Run. I think it’s Mark!” I was incredulous. Mark is an experienced windsurfer. Only idiots get washed out of The Run! (And me. Nearly. Once!)

However, with no wind to power him and a board too small to stand on, the tide had indeed flushed him out of Christchurch Harbour, down the narrow, fast-flowing ‘Run’ and into the open sea. Once he managed to land, he was forced to do the walk of shame back to the car park from Avon Beach.

For the second time in a month, I maintained my icy calm in a crisis. Flapping around on the beach with the dogs I once again watched, helpless and impotent, while Mark did battle. This time swimming hard and towing his board and sail, which act like a sea anchor, as he made a painfully slow return to shore.

Fortunately, Avon beach was replete with professional windsurfers, all of whom were able to demonstrate impeccably to us how to do it. We all know that windsurfers do it standing up. (Although not when they are riding a sinker in no wind!)

A Caravan Christmas

We spent Christmas in exotic Lancashire, visiting my Dad and having lots of very muddy walks with the puppies. “It’s rained non-stop since May!” said Mrs D, our lovely hostess at the little CL campsite in Abbey Village by way of explanation for the mud.

We walked to the top of Rivington Pike and it was snowing! Again, good practice for Italy in a couple of weeks. We had booked the same apartment as last year in Monte Rosa from January to March, so we would be escaping the winter chill – by going somewhere that is really cold!

We put winter tyres on our van, Big Blue, in readiness for our trip to Italy, although we had a sneaking suspicion that they might come in useful before then.

Then our tenants decided to move out and delayed our departure!

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune were not done with us yet. Join us next time as our Fidose of Reality continues into the New Year!