A vandal and tinned food

Things have been very difficult of late. On top of all the stress of juggling money problems to pay for parts for the truck, I have recently had a massive falling out with my son, Shannon. I will come to that at a later date. Then I became the victim of a little toe-rag vandal.

I was just pouring a cup of tea ready to settle down to what is usually a lengthy chat with a mate, Dave, when there was an almighty thud on the side of my caravan. I immediately threw open the door to confront a lad who had just thumped the window that is next to the door. He was about to have another go when he was startled by me. He scarpered, sharpish! I got a good look at him, but am in no fit condition to chase him. I logged the incident with the ‘Old Bill‘. I had checked the damage and found that the window is surprisingly tough. The outer skin is knocked most of the way in and a small piece broke off. There is a crack on the inner skin. Fortunately, I had some waterproof mastic, so was quickly and easily able to patch the damage before the rain returned.

A couple of nights ago, there was a strange occurrence. All of a sudden there was a loud bang. I jumped up to see that the plastic cover on the trunking had come off and the mirror on the wall had cracked. My immediate thought was that some-one had thrown something at the caravan. I went outside to have a look. There was no sign of any damage or an object that could have been the missile. I was aware of the fact that no traffic had passed by for a while and there didn’t appear to be anyone lurking around. In the end, I could only put it down to the disparity between the hot and cold temperatures. Odd.

Due to the fall out with Shannon, Barry, who to make it simple, is a friend of my children, who has taken over topping up my water and taking in any post, appeared unexpectedly with bags full of groceries. Judging by the array of tinned food and the diversity in general, I would say that he’d been to the food bank. I am grateful to him. He’s a good lad; always willing to help. He likes to keep busy and is a grafter. It took me hours to sort through it. I emptied and rearranged my cupboards so that everything made sense, storage-wise. All the duplicate stuff, I separated into a sturdy bag that could fit in the wardrobe as I had nowhere else to store the excess. There was some things that will have to be binned, sadly. Pot noodles and Smash are not even food. Their ingredients are a dictionary of chemicals! It amazes me that they’re even allowed to be sold as food. Especially Smash! I thought that stuff had been banned years ago! Evidently not.

It’s just as well that Barry gifted me all of those tins and things. Things are very tight right now.

The good thing about tinned food is that it lasts a long time and so makes for an emergency supply. I’ll not go hungry, that’s for sure!