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And that's when it starts to dawn on you that this really is a clubby thing. Like Doreen and Bob, or their friends Eileen and Frank who are just down the coast and have popped over for a barbecue, they're all quite normal, likeable people. Allow them to form a critical mass, however and the chain reaction kicks in. The whole thing gets out of control and it's like attending a non-stop Rotary meeting.

There's an endless round of ritual, from admiring the latest gizmos and gadgets that have been acquired yourfriends' caravan since last year, to the compulsory barbecue. The caravanners' barbecue, it to be said, is usually a triumph optimism over the laws of physics as they set about cooking a family meal on foil trays of charcoal that wouldn't give a decent send-off to a single sardine.

It is, says Bob, as their caravan shifts alarmingly in a sudden gust, the freedom you get when you caravanning. Nobody telling when to get up, when to eat, when to check out. Free to come and go you please.

But what, I said, what about the driving, what about the traffic problems you create - which is, after all, why I'm here.

No problem any more, says Bob. Most cars are more powerful these days, well up to the job, roads better too. Not many complaints really.

I advance the alternative proposition, that towed caravans really do add to congestion on top of all the freight traffic that has been shifted off the railways.

But when I start making my case for a separate road tax on caravans - they occupy as much space as a car, after all - and travelling times restricted to between midnight and six, I can sense a blossoming friendship withering on the vine.

Someone is obviously trying to put a positive spin on the caravanners' image as the holiday season approaches.

Figures released last week claimed they spend £36m a year in the South-west. So perhaps that buys them the right to clog the roads.

But as I negotiated the West Country's holiday routes at a plodding speed, obligingly pulling into let faster travellers pass whenever I could (and when was the last time you saw a real caravan jockey do that?) I couldn't help feeling that it takes a certain amount of bloody-minded determination to enjoy the experience. To pack everything into a wheeled box that will become your home for a week or a fortnight, to haul it across the country, find the site, unhitch, connect up water and power, unpack, cook a meal and eat it at a table which will soon become your bed.

When a gypsy elder died they traditionally burned his caravan and after a bank holiday weekend on WestCountry roads I have to say I was tempted.

But the caravan did have to be returned to Bailey's of Bristol who had kindly loaned it to me.

Anyway, I thought Doreen and Bob would be upset if they ever found out. And they were very nice people.

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