KIDSin tow
Is caravanning out of this world? Nathan Pittam certainly thinks so!
Ifeel that before I start writing this month’s column I should provide a geek warning. My good friend, Charlotte, from work, universally known as ‘Biffer’ (she will thank me for getting that published) enjoys nothing more than sending me the geek emoji at random intervals in order to keep me aware of my geekiness. However, for this column, Biffer is entirely correct. Go ahead, send those emojis, for today I get to talk about SPACE!
For as long as I can remember I have been obsessed with space. I blame my dad. He had a collection of coins that he collected from Esso or some other garage, plotting the early pioneers of space flight and I loved it. I also remember Halley’s Comet going by in the mid 1980s and I loved it all. Apparently, I was mildly traumatised by the Challenger disaster but I was the weird kid at school who could name Yuri Gagarin, Valentina Tereshkova,
Neil Armstrong and Alexei Leonov ahead of Ronald McDonald. I was obsessed. I was bought a little Tasco Telescope one Christmas (please note this fact, it’s about to come full circle), and would love to look at the moon and stars. In my teens my parents bought me a sixinch Dobsonian reflector telescope (remember, you did have the geek warning at the start) and I saw Comet Hale-Bopp and was mesmerised. Did you know that the Saturn V lunar module was smaller than a modern two-berth caravan?
I realise that my love of space has started to rub off on Margot. She could spot the ‘poster boy’ planets from books from a very early age. When we drive to nursery we do so in a Rocket Car and pass by all of the planets – in the correct order obviously. I have a key ally in all this, Aunty Jo. Aunty Jo – not a biological aunty but as good as. Aunty Jo is also obsessed with space, we routinely exchange the same space books at Christmas. For her first Christmas, Margot was presented, at three months old, with a signed, personally to her, Chris Hadfield book – envious isn’t the word.
So what has this to do with caravanning? It has everything to do with caravanning. Fast-forward to Christmas 2020, Father Christmas bought me a very small, compact, almost perfectly designed for caravanning, little 3.5in telescope. The telescope and the caravan are a perfect combination as invariably you can get out into the darker areas – we don’t live near to any designated dark sky reserves but with the help of one of the maps online we soon find that our nearest dark skies are in north Norfolk – our go-to caravanning patch. So off we shall go this year. If I’m honest, I’m a bit rusty with my ability to navigate the night sky but no need to worry as there are a range of apps available for your phone – I personally use Night Sky which is a free app.
One thing I am absolutely looking forward to seeing this year is the ever-expanding SpaceX venture called Starlink. SpaceX are putting up thousands of satellites in the next couple of years to provide universal high-speed internet coverage to the world – possibly even ensuring 4G to some caravan sites.
This is probably the most Kids in Tow of all my columns for it shows that there are actually three kids in our caravan. I’m the 40-year-old kid that still has his obsession with space, his NASA duvet in the caravan, his colour-changing
NASA mug on the desk. Sometimes, as I drift off to sleep in my caravan I can almost imagine it’s a starship.
Did you know that the Saturn V lunar module was smaller than a two-berth caravan?