I have won a Silverline Nova Princess caravan

Dear J

I have just won a caravan.

Not just any caravan, but Jols and my ‘winning’ song has bagged a Princess Nova that has been pimped, with retro wallpaper on the outside, and a mini-bar and a chemical toilet.

I know what you’re thinking: ‘But you hate caravans’.

Mm.

So what this leaves is a series of questions to which I don’t know the answer. I’m now going to try to answer those questions, for my own sake.

1) Where are you going to put it? You haven’t even got a driveway or a guaranteed parking space. Yeah… I suppose if Jols and I really thought about this, we wouldn’t have entered the competition. Perhaps it’s best we didn’t, eh?

2) Why did you enter the competition? The whole point of entering the competition was to create something really good that was going to make the people at White Stuff laugh. So literally: for a laugh. But we did want to win (without ever really entertaining the idea that we actually would).

3) Won’t the wallpaper come off in the rain? I have absolutely no idea if they’ve accounted for this at all. We’ll find out when we see it…

4) Are you going to keep the caravan? Now, I thought Jols and I had agreed between ourselves that if we won it we’d sell it. But winning seemed so unlikely we didn’t really have to firm that agreement up. When we did win, it became apparent we had agreed no such thing.

Believe it or not, I do actually enjoy (read: have grown accustomed to) being plunged into such things. Like, say, finding out I’m suddenly and unexpectedly a cat owner. That was a great opportunity to tackle my chronic cat allergy. This is merely the opportunity to figure out what it is that makes caravan lovers… well… love caravans.

After all, what else am I going to do with my time? Watch DVD box-sets? Become a high-class alcoholic?

On 29 September we’re due to go to Worcester to pick up the caravan. We’re going to meet the White Stuff people who organised the competition, who seem very nice, and very fond of the Princess, and we’re going to be photographed.

I know what you’re thinking.

‘But you hate going to places you’ve never been to, meeting people you’ve never met and, more than anything, having your photograph taken in an official capacity.’

Mm.

It’s an existential quandary, all right. Better meet it head-on or I might disappear all together. The only constructive thing I can think to do is grow a beard. For the photoshoot, like.

Watch this space.

jx