16 sept

A dripping sound is never a good sign. For some time last night I made myself believe it was the camper next door that this sound was coming from. It was too good to be true. The dripping sound was in our camper. It was raining outside and that steady stream of water was transformed into a steady drip inside.

I am not very good in dealing with these kind of things. I consider them an insult, I do not know to what. I got up, making sure that I made enough sounds that my wife and daughter would also wake up. They do not really consider this drip a problem, at least not in the middle of the night. They see it as a nuisance that interferes in some well deserved sleep.
Like I said, I don’t deal well with things that are outside my control or better said: competence. There is quite a lot of that around, I realize that more and more while I am getting older and comparatively less wise.
Back to water dripping. I curse at the fact that the campervan isnt perfect i curse at the seller of this campervan, Paul – he will burn in hell – for not being honest atselling this camper. I curse at myself – may I burn in hell – for being so naive in buying an old campervan from ebay. I curse at Julie for being asleep. I curse at my own cluelessness and look for some towels to deal with the biggest problems. I do not think of the obvious bowl to catch the drips. It will take several more curses from me for Julie to crawl out of her bed and deal with that problem.
This incompetence reminds me of a very fun evening last week with some tennis friends. I have enjoyed tennis again the last few years, mainly because in Forest Row there was a group of similar skilled and minded players. Although similar minded?
One tennis friend asked me to adress one area of improvement for each single one of them. I thaught it was a fun question and came up with some answers. In all the hilarious conversations that were going on I forgot the obvious question where I could improve, probably because I just dreaded the answer. Two days later I saw one of the guys again and adressed the issue with him. I don’t want to go to a psychiatrist, I added when there was no immediate reply. Well he said, maybe no psychiatrist, but you might want to ask yourself the question what it is you think you control on a tenniscourt.
Tenniscourt or campervan, the question is relevant. I promised him I would think about the question, but it will take more than two days of travelling to come up with an answer.
Back to the leaking campervan. It took me three times to empty the quite large bowls, while my girls were snoozing. The cursing had disappeared and made place for the realization that an experience is worth nothing without a challenge. This was made easier because of dreams, in little snaps of sleep, where I saw water poring in from every possible angle. Reality becomes very bearable compared to the horrible scenarios of nightmares.
Julie woke up and said: we need a tarp. She said this before she had t wo coffees, for me the normal barrier to start conversations, so it meant she also considered the situation serious.
In the afternoon Julie and Claire went to buy the tarp, they put it up between some showers and since then, for now, we have been dry. The combination of thin plastic and duct tape is far from permanent, but we (not the pluralis modeastiae as should be clear) were dealing wit h the first discomfort reasonably well.