Living the dream?

The trailer, which miraculously survived last week's gales, is almost ready to move into. When I say move, what I mean is sleep in – for it is to be our dormitory.

This, I am hoping, will free up time and make life much easier. No longer will I have to put away and take out beds every night. A boring process that requires much moaning and carrying on for my part. The trouble is that nothing can be achieved in the morning until the beds are put away. The kitchen area is the size of half a small tablecloth and the table needs to be put up before dishes can be cleaned and breakfast made – multi-tasking is just not possible in a small space. A procedure must be followed in strict order which very often means we get to late morning and all we've managed to achieve is to get up.

So, I see the trailer as a solution to many problems – with an unexpected bonus. The man has given much thought to its insulation over the past months and many plans have fallen by the wayside in the process. At one point it was going to have pallet boards filled with straw nailed on to it and layers of papier mâché glued in to it. I can't remember why he dropped the pallet board idea – but I had something to say about the papier mâché – given the work involved and the sheer volume of paper needed. Working in the newspaper industry means I have more access than most to unwanted newsprint, but there's a limit to how much I can comfortably carry home on the train.

We finally settled on an external double layer of slater's underfelt, and bubble wrap inside. This latter did not go quite to plan – first, an exclamation mark instead of a 1 in a text caused us to order four times what we actually needed. Second, it was found to be too prone to tearing. Then, after Sam had been ominously quiet and absent for a long time one day, I went into the trailer to find him thoughtfully popping all the air out of the bubbles, thus rendering our insulation pointless.

So it was that we decided to layer the bubble wrap with loft insulation and gardening fleece – all stapled to the walls of the trailer. The effect is not unlike a padded cell. In fact, it's very like a padded cell. This, serendipitously, falls into line with permaculture, one of the tenets of which is for everything to fulfil more than one function. So, not only will our trailer be warm and cosy – but I can throw myself at the walls as madness takes hold, which it is surely doing already.

I was awoken from a most pleasant dream earlier this week that I was in New York staying, improbably, with a non-existent friend who was managing the development of the most glorious and sophisticated shopping mall on Earth. I detest shopping – not from an anti-consumer point of view – I just hate shops – but in my dream I was captivated by the trees and gardens and vistas within the mall and especially by the lifts, which contained holographic buttons giving instant access to Facebook and all the information one could hope for. Meanwhile, the children were on a museum trail and I and my friends that don't exist were idly discussing which avant-garde ballet to attend.

Back at work, and waiting to email Chris in the Guardian's New York office who was at lunch, I regaled colleagues with my dream. I realised in the telling – and by the aghast looks on my colleague's faces – that what I was describing was the antithesis of my life in rural Devon.

'So, let me get this straight, you're dreaming of Brent Cross,' said one, a tad unfairly – my mall was Much Better than that. 'I think I'd have to be chained to a radiator for a month before I dreamed of Brent Cross,' he added in wonder.

'Or living in a caravan in a muddy field for several months,' supplied another.

Yes, that could be it …

They laughed like a drain

The thing I knew would surely happen, surely happened this week. I and my wheelbarrow fell victim to the mud slick at the gate.

This, of course, happened on Sunday while I still had the vestiges of decent clothes on having arrived home from work. We turned up and unloaded the usual bags of shopping and water containers out of the car and into the wheelbarrow (see, Like Glastonbury, but without the fun). This I started to push up the small slope leading to the field – however, a weekend of heavy rain meant that the wheelbarrow remained stationary while the force I was exerting upon it propelled me downwards. Very slowly, with comedic grace and timing, my boots gave up the fight for a grip and I slid to the floor until I was lying prone in the mud, arms outstretched still clutching the handles of the barrow, while assorted items of shopping fell gently around my head.

Witnessing their mother in such a position the boys, of course, doubled over with laughter then sauntered off empty-handed leaving me in situ. Zena, my eight-year-old daughter and main ally in the family, started busying herself picking up shopping and asking anxiously if I was alright. And I wasn't alright – I wanted to cry; I had hurt my knees, the french stick I had just bought was covered in mud, my only decent trousers were caked in slime, and I was tired after the habitual two hours' sleep I generally manage to get on a Sunday morning.

Back in the caravan, with the kettle on, I cheered up a tad. 'You've got to admit, Mum,' said Zena. 'You did look funny.' And I did admit that, yes indeed, I must have looked funny – but I still felt a bit weepy.

That is until I noticed the Thing that has revolutionised my life this week. For Gully has installed drainage from the kitchen sink. This takes the form of a short pipe that leads to the pitiful vegetable patch – like that needs watering – but it's a very permaculture thing to do. Hitherto, drainage from the sink has been achieved by picking up the washing-up bowl, negotiating a steep step down from the caravan, balancing precariously while trying to put on welly clogs, then sliding through the quagmire outside the tent before depositing the bowl's contents in the field. This was often done in driving rain.

Now, all I have to do is tip the contents down the sink. This is a small convenience, but one that has given me great reason to be cheerful – but only, if I'm honest, when I've finished washing up. It doesn't help with the bruises on my knees or my damaged trousers.

Still, it has made the chances of the other mishap-waiting-to-happen less likely, namely falling over while holding a heavy washing-up bowl full of dirty water while small boys point and jeer.