Spontaneousness and serendipity have been a constant in my life. Which is odd because I am also quite risk averse. If spontaneous action has a good result I almost forget that it was spontaneous and consider it a good decision or plan even, forgetting that there was no planning involved. If spontaniety turns out not so well I will judge it as a poor decision. A long winded was of saying my spontaneous acts are not judged and graded.

This current holiday was planned to only have spontaneous decisions. To travel on a whim and the hunt for a week or so enjoying a French Indian summer. Camp site owners however had their own ideas of enjoying Indian Summer without guests. Many of them closing on the 20th of September. Like a massive and motorised game of musical chairs, huge numbers of campervanners are chasing down less and less camping spots.

Booking is off line and in person. Luck has been on our side for three nights of glorious camping by a beach. But last night we failed epically and could only manage a dull roadside Aire. This morning we put on our competive heads and have again scored 3 nights by a beach. Not much ‘entente cordiale’ it must be said, wiry old Frenchmen sending out their ferocious female companions to bang on any part of our van to point out the perceived error of our ways in the queuing system. Believing, as some men do, that size matters and if that fails to impress then knuckles can reiterate the message. Our little brown van knew she was not doing anything wrong and the men, their womens knuckles and their behemoth vehicles just had to remain behind us. We are, after all, from the nation that knows how to queue and even in difficult unruly gatherings know the exactly who we are behind and who should follow us.

So most spontaneous of the day, join a queue, know our rightful place and stick with it.

Not so much me as an individual but my birth family as a whole. I wish I had had holidays with my grandparents and foreign holidays with my parents. I am just being whimsical really, but this morning’s dawn picture is from a campsite founded in 1963. It is obvious that people have been coming here for many years. Some of them from the day it opened. The small beach bar buzzes with conversations that bounce from table to table. Not pretentious Bar Fly type boasts and swaggers. Just people catching up with people they have known in this particular holiday spot for many years. We are here on the last week of the holiday season but nothing feels like it is winding down. A fishmonger arrived last night selling freshly harvested oysters, there was no announcement and yet there were queues of people, both campers and locals excitedly buying oysters for their supper. Maybe that has always happened on a Friday night.

The toilet and shower block is very modern and high tech. A tree has been preserved in the atrium entrance and there is recorded birdsong. Presumably the new building replaces a smaller one that was more open to the elements. Birdsong whilst abluting is curiously relaxing. I think having this location as a regular holiday destination would be fabulous.

This was our second choice of camp site. Our original choice had excellent on-line reviews. But just driving into the reception area made us reconsider. It was very busy, full of people bustling about and doing performative activities, bikes, kayaks and alpine walking sticks were everywhere. Strangely and worrisomely like a cartoon version of a camp site. A lot of Lycra. I don’t need lycra to do not very much, although for the good of other peoples holidays and nostalgia, I am not skinny dipping near the convivial beach bar. A little lycra was a good thing in that instance.

I am not someone who habitually hands out unsolicited advice. I don’t always like to receive advice or instruction that I neither need nor desire, so out of respect to others I limit my offerings to those who ask. That is not to say that unsolicited advice is always a bad thing, but too much, too often is just patronising.

However, the question has been asked and I would say to younger people,try to develop a positive outlook on life. Wear rose tinted spectacles when you can. Try to find the sunspots in a field of gloom.

Constantly negative people are not my tribe, now I am semi-retired I like a life topped up with positive energy. Not everything in life needs to be polarised or adversarial. We do not always have to agree with someone to find some common ground that is relatable

Practice makes perfect. Pink lenses can help you focus on the one good thing, the beautiful thing, a small kindness, an act of love, the inappropriate giggle even in the darkest of places. Pink lenses are a metaphor for finding something good in every day and the more you do it the better you become at it. In my humble opinion, if anyone is interested.