Caravan

For my fiftieth birthday my husband bought me an old caravan. It's a Europa, built in about 1980, and equipped with five beds, a small compartment for a portaloo, a tiny kitchen, lockers, wardobe, carpet, and period lighting. I fell in love with its charming interior with bouclé curtains and styling designed in the seventies.

For the last seven years or so it has lived in France and for the last seven months in a 'new' campsite, Camping des Trolls, not far from Boulogne. Nicolas, the owner of the site, used to manage a different site further up the hill (where we'd been very happily based) but didn't manage to buy it so he moved to this one instead and as he is now the owner of it, he's renamed it and painted his favourite design of fairies, imps, pixies and trolls on the office wall.

The Accueil (Reception) and Café is all inside an old single-decker bus, which his girlfriend has done out in brilliant lime green inside. Actually it looks wonderful, typically French, as none of the rest of the colour-scheme matches. Nick is creating a catering kitchen and cooks simple meals for the evenings for late July and August. Outside, Nick and his friends have done an amazing job cutting back the undergrowth, creating 'emplacements' for each caravan or tent. The site is sloping so he used a tractor and digger during the winter to do some levelling. We weren't sure quite how well our old caravan would be placed - he did it for us during the spring - but we found it tucked up against a huge old ash tree and a field-maple, with plenty of space around it, and enough shade and sunlight to make it a very pleasant pitch.

We put the awning up, laid down a groundsheet, cleaned the windows with some sort of patent carwindow cleaner, hoovered out the spiders from the curtains, set it all up for the summer. Our daughter is going to stay there next week for a few days with her friends, and we have various people booked in to stay during the summer holidays. WE don't charge much as it isn't luxurious and lots of people don't have much of a budget anyway. But all the contributions help to pay the rent - which is €1250 a year.

It's possible to walk to a supermarket from this new site, along a quiet lane, past the local chateau, over the motorway on a bridge, then into Marquise. You can also walk to various fishing lakes, or (in the other direction) drive about 6km to the amazing beach at Wissant, with its miles of safe white sands. I am sure that is the origin of the name - white sand = wissant, perhaps in some sort of Anglo-Saxon. The church in the marketplace in Wissant has a formidably interesting statue of a local saint, Wilgeforth, a bearded lady. Born in Portugal, she declared herself a bride of Christ, and even sprouted a beard to show she could not marry a mortal man. Her father nonetheless insisted and had her martyred for refusing to obey his wishes. In this case, she was crucified by being tied to a cross and that is how her statue portrays her. The carving is probably early 19th century, with a pretty floral dress and under-petticoat, her dainty wrists and ankles tied to a cross. Her face is exactly like Noel Edmunds.

There is also a statue of St Nicholas (always found near the sea or by rivers, as he is patron saint of sailors as well as being Father Christmas). You can always recognise him as he is shown with a barrel containing some small boys - these he saved from being boiled and eaten alive during a seige. The many stories told about him make him one of my all-time favourites, even though I am not a Christian.

It is ancient old legends like these which give me hope - stories with such extravagant twists and turns kept going from pagan times, through the Roman period, into Christianity and the modern age, and tremendous pieces of art scattered round the churches and elsewhere to keep them alive. Northern France is rich with them and it makes even short holidays a real pleasure, as each village, town or hamlet seems to have something of the sort to discover.

So, Nick's Camping des Trolls will be full of children again this year, and families of all nationalities who seek out his slightly hippy way of doing things - not at all like the severe municipal campsites which are the norm in France. There will be music and wine and sunshine and trips to the beach, and boules and table tennis and so much more. Vive la France!