Loving The Moment
Matis called out to his wife and asked her to let their son and daughter know that the motorhome, which he had spent so much time renovating and cleaning, was finally ready for inspection.
The silver-grey bodywork gleamed, the windows were all polished, and along with that, its streamlined shape remained a wonder to him to behold. He had bought the German-made vehicle on the cheap following a Limoges dealership going bankrupt. The motorhome was second-hand and had been in a poor state at the time and, as the months passed, the vehicle had become an obsession for him to restore and add a few of his personal touches and improvements.
"Katrine, you have a look around it first. I'll go hurry up Natalie and Dion!"
"Okay, darling," she laughs in response to his obvious enthusiasm, "I'll do as you ask of me, although I have been helping you make a few design changes and clean it all up."
What she called the master bedroom, at the back of the vehicle, now had a raised double bed with storage drawers installed underneath and discreet lighting to make it feel like a love nest. If she was to travel, sleep in it, and also meet her husband's frequent claims upon her, then she wanted to do so in comfort and privacy.
"Sorry, I know that I couldn't have gotten this far without you," he replied and drew close before putting an arm around her and nuzzling a kiss to her cheek. His Katrine had indulged him over the time of the vehicle's restoration and she had been glad that their home, on the edge of the city, had room for it to be stored out of sight, and under cover, as he worked on it. "I'm just glad that it's ready in time for the summer break. We can go exploring and spend three weeks in any place that we choose to stop at and have familiar things around us. I'm leaving it to you to make it feel like a 'home from home'."
He was intent on exploring the Dordogne and beyond at a restful pace, enjoying walks through the forests, seeing the lakes and cliffs that lined the rivers, going swimming, and exploring the chateaus. He hoped that his country's architectural history night yet register with his teenage son and daughter. Natalie was getting on for nineteen and would go to college in the autumn; Dion would do the same in a year or so. Then he and Katrine would have more time for themselves and he would ease up on his work.
"Off you go and get Natalie and Dion," Katrine commanded, with a smile, as she stepped onto the bottom tread of the access steps and tugged on the door latch. "You know that they'll need some persuading to come with us on the trip you're planning, don't you?"
"Yes, I do, and as you keep on reminding me."
Katrine saw his lips stiffen in annoyance with what she had suggested, his craggy features aging him. She reached out to brush back his mop of greying hair, the fringe on his forehead poking up rebelliously.
"I'm sure that they will come with us, chéri. They need some persuading, that's all, and I've always known how good you are at that."
♥
They had been driving for hours, stopping en route for a coffee at a lakeside restaurant. The motorhome purred along sweetly, the air-con moderating the temperature inside the spacious cabin.
"Where are you going?" Katrine asked as Natalie was heard to unhook her seat belt.
"To the toilet, mother!"
"Just be careful. The road is twisty and we'll soon be at our stop for the night."
Natalie sighed. She had agreed to go on this jaunt, she who was a young woman past her eighteenth birthday and still going on a 'family' holiday. She was glad to have brought some books along for her to read. There was only so much swimming, playing games, and hiking or mountain biking for her to take. Her brother, Dion, smiled up at her as she passed him before he returned to looking at his iPhone, his fingers tapping out texts to whoever was his latest girl, or girls. He never could stay true to just one.
Trees were to be seen rushing past as she gazed up, through the large skylight her father had fitted and was placed between the solar panels that provided much of the motorhome's electricity.
She knew that her father had worked his magic on their motorhome, the small seating area behind the driver and passenger seats also part of a dining space and kitchen with all mod-cons. Close by were bunk beds that folded down from behind the wipe-down walls that lined much of the subtle but bright interior. Go past the cramped shower room with its toilet and basin and you come to the door that leads into her parent's room with its large bed.
She had found it impossible to say 'no' to travelling with them, just as Dion had done, but she had dreaded being cooped up in this wheeled 'home from home' for so long as they explored a vast area of the countryside all around where they lived, and where she and Dion had their friends. She had already endured having to hear her parents making out, as they had done on their first night out on the road, and you never quite knew what to expect at the next stop-over, whether it was a track off the main road or the holiday sites that were so well-run and had every amenity; swimming pools, water parks but scaled down versions of them, chalets, sanitaire blocks with washrooms and shower cubicles for both sexes, a bar and restaurant where those who were staying could meet and make new friends.
Natalie clung to whatever she could hold as her father manouevred the motorhome over the narrow lanes, the overhanging branches sometimes brushing the roof.
"Is it far now?" she asked and heard her parents laugh. "Okay...okay, so I've reminded you of what I said when I was a kid!"
She laughed too.
All of them had to get along, even if there would be limited privacy, something she found frustrating and had told her mother about. The bathroom was too small to get dressed in so you were bound to be seen doing so by the others, although her parents had their nest.
"Don't worry so and enjoy the days away, Natalie. We're family and whatever we do and see is nothing to be ashamed of.'
"Yeah, sure," she sighed in reply, knowing from her father's look, or occasional touch to his wife's arm or leg as he drove them, what awaited her once more during their night at the next stop. She would have to close her eyes, cover her ears, somehow, and blot out the sounds of them grunting and groaning, the creaking of their mattress as they again had noisy sex. And if that weren't enough, Dion seemed to be working his length as his parents were heard to fuck in their bedroom.
Just where was she to get any peace when all of this was going on around her?
♥
At the end of their second day of travelling, with stops to enjoy a water park, swim, and get soaked in some of the flume rides that broke down remaining doubts about what they had set out on, they arrived at their first proper camping and caravanning site. The sun was setting way out to the west and the wooded hills surrounding their pitch did not block the views of the evening sky and the first sighting of a planet. The manager showed them their pitch on the site map and Matis bought some tokens for the hot water meters that they would find in the shower block, 'separate ones for men and women' he chose to inform them.
"We've not let go of every one of the old ways, just yet, although we try to keep up," he told them.
"That's a relief," Matis joked when the manager left them and after showing them all how to hook up to the pitch's power supply, if they needed or wanted it.
