Camping Dad

The granite sky weeps on commuter belt towns
As middle aged men with grey temple tufts
Have sweaty dreams the length of commercial breaks
In which they put petrol into their diesel cars
And it unlocks some forgotten, buried pain
It’s like Rousseau said, man is born free
but everywhere he is on trains

and it wears you down, when you can count the decades
on most of one hand. Generation games:
How many landmarks can you remember?
The M25, a sewage plant, the M25, factories at Witham
A row of shops, the M25, the M25, the M25, the M25
Until you start to think: I’m trapped in a matrix
I’m not really alive.

But come Easter weekend, the crows feet are stretched
A glorious Thursday afternoon logging-out
He begins to taste the rapturous peace
from before the dreadful daylight began
cynics take heed, if you think hobbies are sad
cos who’s that pulling his house behind him?
Fuck me! it’s Camping Dad!

So …

Ta ta mobile, au revoir
to touching in his Oyster Card
There’s The Great outdoors! Regard!
Here comes Camping Dad

Nice to meet you, how do you do?
Are you a fan of the botanical gardens at Kew
A bike ride is nice, that’s a fact, it’s true
Phew! I’m Camping Dad

Never were a chap in such fine fettle
When making tea in a camping kettle
I used a glove to pick it up because it’s made of mettle
Oh Camping Dad

Camping dad got solar panels
Camping dad got style
Camping dad owns range of flannels
Camping dad got piles

At night he cooks and sips his Bass
Organic lamb splash of Shiraz
Now we’re cooking with camping gas
He says that every night

and what about the design of the tetra-pak
a damn fine piece of engineering that
he deserved his money, that Rausing chap
Camping Dad thinks this

He doesn’t care if his hands get dirty
He’s recaptured youth, he feels about thirty
He’s out in the wild, well a campsite in Chertsey,
Curtsey Camping Dad

Camping Dad appreciates
Driving at forty nine
Camping Dad appreciates
A gently warmed glass of wine
Camping Dad appreciates
Organised games and fun
Camping Dad appreciates
An occasional cheesy pun
And mum!
Camping Dad appreciates
Wearing Pringle sweaters
Camping Dad appreciates
A time when we still sent letters
Camping Dad appreciates
Things that neatly stack
Camping Dad appreciates
A lovely pipe of crack

No he doesn’t - that was a joke
Camping dad does not condone drug use in any way–
he’s not that kind of bloke

I mean what’s the point
When you can roll down a hill
And smell fresh cut grass
Who’d want a silly joint
Take your bloody ecstacy
And shove it up your …

And whilst we’re on the subject
Camping Dad does not appreciate
Sulky teen
It’s a nice holiday
Must he always ruin it?
Take that ridiculous fringe out of your eyes
What is this ‘My Chemical Romance’

But then at night he still looks so sweet
And Camping Dad recalls
when he could fit sulky teen in one hand
when the world still felt so small

Because it’s a shame you know
How things change
If only life would fold away
Like a kitchen in a motorhome
If only a pocket full of fifty pees
Were the answer to all our woes

Camping Dad feels uneasy
About fun pubs, credit cards, shopping malls
And the Sunday Times Magazine
Camping Dad doesn’t like
The glitz of Formula One
It gets in the way, he muses
Of the excellent engineering

John Gray PHD
Told me that men like to retreat into their caves
And with a world of endless macadam out there
the indicator’s tick-tock-tick and the perpetual tow
I ask you fellas, what you do
If you had a cave
on wheels
With it’s own chemical loo?