Author Topic: Having a chat with a concerned mum in Cotswold Camping.  (Read 1219 times)

gunwharfman

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I popped into Cotswold Camping today, just off the M20, near Maidstone. I was looking at rucksacks when a young woman and her mum also started to look at rucksacks.

We started chatting, the daughter had just finished her degree at Exeter. I asked her what she had 'read', I didn't ask what she had 'studied!' I knew I had said the right word because Mum then warmed to me! I remember being caught out by this small matter when my son was at Edinburgh Uni. On the first night, the students and their parents attended a small soiree and one parent asked me what my son was reading! I later chatted to a lecturer and he told me that's an old trick, a bit of oneupmanship of how some people try to find out if a parent, or a student. is from a lower background, or if they are they 'one of us?'

Anyway Mum was concerned because her daughter was planning to travel the world before she settled down into a job. We ended up having over an hours conversation, about rucksacks, gear, boots, clothing, safety, how to keep warm, the possibility of hostel bedbugs, etc, etc. The young woman was totally naive but had a lovely personality and Mum was just worried sick!

Mum even started to take notes! I felt that I had offered something useful to them, Mum especially was so grateful. She even asked me if I would join them in the adjacent garden centre for coffee. I was tempted but said no because I wanted to be ahead of the rush hour out of London.

Our conversation ended with me giving them tips about how to hitchhike safely! I really enjoyed it.

Innominate Man

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Re: Having a chat with a concerned mum in Cotswold Camping.
« Reply #1 on: 21:55:22, 29/11/18 »
It sounds like you've found a niche there  O0


Next move is to offer your services to Cotswold as a consultant. Probably the parents of such wanderlust offspring would rather hear the words of experience from someone like yourself rather than those of a 'youth'. 
Only a hill but all of life to me, up there between the sunset and the sea. 
Geoffrey Winthrop Young

fernman

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Re: Having a chat with a concerned mum in Cotswold Camping.
« Reply #2 on: 09:11:27, 30/11/18 »
I used to have a favourite green fleece top. Soon learned not to wear it if I was visiting a garden centre, for everyone used to stop me and ask questions.

Classic one though was when I went in a diy store in my work clothes, where I passed a  woman who asked me to get something down for her from a higher shelf. I didn't mind her mistaking me for someone who worked there, and normally I'd be happy to oblige but she asked in a sort of demanding way, like I was her servant, so I ignored her. On my way back, she had found a managerial-looking member of staff to get it down, and she pointed at me and complained to him that I wouldn't help her!

(Absolutely nothing to do with walking, I know, but things are a bit quiet at the moment...)
« Last Edit: 09:23:57, 30/11/18 by fernman »

sunnydale

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Re: Having a chat with a concerned mum in Cotswold Camping.
« Reply #3 on: 09:39:17, 30/11/18 »


(Absolutely nothing to do with walking, I know, but things are a bit quiet at the moment...)


I wonder why.... :D
***Happiness is only a smile away***

barewirewalker

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Re: Having a chat with a concerned mum in Cotswold Camping.
« Reply #4 on: 11:07:31, 30/11/18 »
Anyway Mum was concerned because her daughter was planning to travel the world before she settled down into a job.
Wow, that bought back a flashback of '...anx'! Dad's feel it as well, my daughter did a year off before uni, remember the huge 60litre rucksack, with it's many add ons and 2 tiny feet sticking out below, going off to India to work in a Cheshire home, then on to travel a bit.

Only when she got back did we find out she had 'back packed' from the N to S of the sub continent and back again. The worst part was the ten days we lost contact, how were we going to find her if something had gone wrong.
 And some wonder why I question our access network, so that it might provide more adventure and challenge in our own countryside.
BWW
Their Land is in Our Country.

 

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