An Embarrassment of Caravans

On Saturday, Andrew and I went to a place called The Tender Centre. It's a huge barn where people take goods to sell, or to buy - everything from jewellery, tools, biurdcages, linen, clothes, cars - and caravans!

We thought we'd "just have a look" As you do.

Big Mistake!

There was a caravan there, around 16 and a half ft, blue and white stripes, aircon, hot water system, great fridge, good stove ... pretty good condition actually.

'Shall we put a small bid in and see what it goes for?' I asked,helpfully.

'Yeah, they'll want a fortune for this one. At least $6000-7000. Put $5,200 on it,' says Andrew, lying on his tummy peering underneath to make sure the under-side is okay.

So we did.

Monday morning we find out that the vendors wanted - $15,000???? Whaaaaaaaaat? Oh, okay. Bye bye caravan.

Lunchtime the phone rings.

'You can have it for $5,200.'

Oh. Okay. Panic stations.

'Well, the tender is a legal document so we have to take it,' says Andrew, reasonably.

Off to our financial advisor. Great news! Our investments have perked up a bit so, drawing down the money is not going to make any difference to our current penuary.

We pick up the "new" caravan in two days - or after Easter, depending on when the money arrives in the bank to pay for it.

In the meantime, who would like to buy a small, 12.6ft caravan with all mod-cons - well old mod-cons actually ...

Son might buy it, friend might buy it - but if not, it's onto the side of the road with a huge sign on it.

You'd think at my age I'd know better than to do the equivalent of scratching my nose while the auction's on!

Diana