There are certain
unsaid conventions that seem to relate to travelling in a motorhome
and most of them make good sense and for good community. Keep the
noise down after dark for example, or don't rinse your cassette
toilet using the drinking water tap (which isn't that well observed
based on what we have seen!).
It also makes
sense that if you're staying on a motorhome aire, especially the free
ones, that if you have to drive away 'your' space becomes available
for someone else just like on any car park. At least that is what we
thought that until a few days ago while staying on the very busy,
popular and cramped aire in Annecy when a German camper asked his
British neighbour if she would be willing to look after 'his' space
while he “popped out for half an hour”. Sensibly not wanting to
get involved in breaking the unwritten rule the Brit' decline and so he instead enlisted the
help of a fellow German who said he would hold the space. Swiftly
switching places with the British van the helpful German promptly set up shop
in the now empty space to wait for his new friend's return. To make
the point that the apparently empty space was not in fact empty at all he
even put his cassette toilet and a crate of food on the floor.
It took less than
10 minutes for the first new motorhome, a large French A-class, to
arrive and try to enter the barricaded space. Taking exception
to being told it was reserved the disgruntled Frenchman chose to remain half
in the space with his engine running while the German defended the
space by standing in it with his arms folded, neither willing to
budge.
The ensuing
stand-off ran for a full 45 minutes (as we looked on in amusement)
until the police arrived to resolve the issue. Certainly, we
expected, the toilet would be removed and the French motorhome would
claim the empty space as it should have done almost an hour earlier.
So you can imagine our surprise when after another half an hour of
arguing with the police the French van was sent away and the German
emerged victorious. You can see his triumph in the picture above!
His happiness must
have been short-lived however as the absent German who had “popped out”
for half an hour was still gone 3 hours later and the now exhausted
parking space monitor had endured the same argument with another 4 French motorhomes, each arriving and being sent away very unhappy before he
finally gave in and removed his toilet allowing the space to be
taken.
Ironically the
absent German finally returned 10 minutes afterwards to find he had
nowhere to park after all.
p.s. We would have
liked to have taken more pictures as the 'crisis' unfolded, but
didn't think it would go down very well and so only managed one
sneaky snap as the police were leaving.
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