Nature loving

I have taken this rural lark to a new level - the Somerset Levels to be precise. Call me and old hippie if you will, but I would prefer sleeping in the great outdoors to negotiating some floral patterned, air-freshenered, greasy mealed bed-and-breakfast any day. It also saved me 90 quid. So I slept in my car for a couple of nights in two different fields, overlooked by Glastonbury Tor, and have returned home to Kernow.

The purpose of my visit was to minister to a broken heart (young love) and as said individual has ADHD and plays Xbox until the early hours, I thought it best to deliver my healing coffee and walnut cake and then sleep soundly in the Somerset countryside instead of in his flat amidst a cyber war-zoned nightmare.

My first night was in a gateway with a handy ditch (please don't ask for details but a lady needs to do what a lady needs to do). A full moon meant I could change into my 'jammys' and bed-socks without a torch and then snuggle down on a foam mattress, on goose down pillows in a caterpillar-style mountaineering sleeping bag. I awoke at 4am, needing to visit the ditch, with ice on all my car windows. At this moment I realised that nasty bed and breakfasts, with plastic-framed prints on the wall, and custard creams by the kettle exist for a reason.

On returning to my bag I consider dying of hypothermia: "A heart of gold who died of cold". I put on my Scottish cashmere cardi' and cover myself with the National Trust picnic rug, with plasticated bottom, in an attempt to survive and then breathe my own doggy, sleepy breath into the bag (how I've stayed married so long is a mystery).

I awake to a frosty start, have a light shower near the ditch, and outbreaks of sunshine which makes washing in cold water mildly bearable (I used to read the weather on Bath FM).

The second night is wet and drizzly and has the added bonus of me seeing a Tawny Owl catching its prey. In the morning, the farmers tractor chugging up and down, in the next field but one, makes my lady's toilette slightly 'nervy', but my Celtic ancestors would be proud of my techniques.

Of course in Glastonbury loadsa people are doing it - sleeping in vehicles. However, most of them need to take mind-altering substances before such an idea seems sensible, which is a bit troubling really as I am on Yorkshire Tea.

Well I have pampered my nurturing nature, and soothed a troubled soul with some hearty cooking and a prayer or two. Tonight I shall retire in relative luxury, underneath the thatch, to the sound of a developing Cornish sea storm.

PS. I shall get to the bottom of the village abandoned car asap (see previous post for details).