Jeremy Clarke Jeremy Clarke

In the soft Cornish air, with the pressure off, I caved in

It was like crawling out of my sleeping bag on a different, quieter continent

[Getty Images/iStockphoto] 
issue 24 May 2014

Just when I was beginning to think I’d had enough, I was offered a free week in a caravan. I took it like a shot, threw a few shirts in the boot of the car, and buggered off down to Cornwall. I arrived in darkness and couldn’t find the electricity switch. But I was so tired I simply climbed into a sleeping bag by the light of my phone and fell asleep.

I was woken by sunshine and the cawing of rooks. At this caravan, there is no internet, no phone signal for miles, no telly, no radio. And the air I swear is soporific. It was like crawling out of my sleeping bag on a different, quieter continent. But being out of my usual element, and released, suddenly, from the continual demands of other people, and their noise, and their terrifying, overpowering wills, and then breathing the different, softer Cornish air, had a peculiar effect on me.

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