Friday 25 May 2007

Camping with yer Pensioners

Bob says: As most of our trip so far is in the off season, the majority of the other campsite guests are pensioners with campervans and caravans. These are what is known as Yer Grey Nomads. Typically yer Grey Nomad is very wary of young campers. They assume you will disturb their peace, raving all night. Over the last few weeks I have attempted to make contact with yer Grey Nomads and have picked up a few tips on carrying out conversations. Upon approaching you will have to make the first move due to yer Grey Nomads apprehension of youth. A good opening line should involve a comment about the weather. The weather is yer Grey Nomads top topic, and a simple comment about it may result in up to half an hours´ conversation. Should the conversation start to wane comments involving food in particular English food e.g ."you can´t get a good cup of tea round here." "You can´t get bacon/sliced bread/baked beans(or other heinz products) like you do at home." Comments involving foreign food should follow along the lines of, "Why do they have to put so much garlic/ sauce/ spice on everything?" "They" being Jonny foreigner.
When talking about foriegners on the campsite, express some surprise at how friendly and helpful they can be (yer Grey Nomads are not just apprehensive of youth, foreigners provoke a lot of suspicion, in particular Germans).
Following this easy guide will lead to many a friendly conversation.

Yer grey nomad is also fond of pets. This is due to children leaving the nest and needing a replacement. This sometimes manifests itself in some strange behaviour towards their pets. Strange behaviour noted so far: a couple walking their two little dogs in a pram, yes a dog pram! a dog pram designed for dogs!! I cannot believe there is such a thing, but i saw it with my own eyes. Also a frenchman walking his cat on a lead around the campsite, waiting for it to do its business.

2 comments:

Helen said...

Are most of the people on the campsites English?
I once encountered a group of french canadians who were touring the world on a campsite, there was about 40 of them and they were all post retirement. The sang round the campfire into the early hours, we were more worried about them keeping us up! I think the English pensionners need to lighten up!

Anonymous said...

As one of yer Grey Nomads, but hopefully not like one that fits your description, we are amazed at dogs in trailers, cats on leads and on one occasion a pet rat.
Got to this blog because of the Toyota. We bought a large caravan and our volvo struggled to tow it our local friendly garage reccomended a Toyota Surf. We bought a 3rd Gen. one and it goes like a dream, poor fuel consumption, maybe the speed and weight cause this.