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30.6.21

PINK PIG

 

PINK PIG

She was rusty and filthy from her life as a chicken shed, but she was only £200. They got her engine going, fitted a small cooker, storage, and a mattress, and painted her bright pink.

 Pink Pig took them through France, picking grapes, down into Spain, then a ferry across to Tenerife. Thirty years of printing tee-shirts, selling ice-cream, building houses, before the lure of his native Ireland was too strong to resist.

 What became of Pink Pig? They sold her to an Italian couple they met on the beach – for all they know, she may still be travelling.

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My daughter and her husband did just as described above - Pink Pig even had eyelashes! After visiting them in Tenerife many times, we went to join them, though we flew rather than driving down in a pink van. Fifteen years later we returned to England, a year before they moved to Ireland.

So I can't see a battered old van without thinking of the adventures they had in Pink Pig - the people they met, the places they've been, their solar-powered showers (a plastic water container left on the roof while they picked grapes, and a gravity-fed hose with shower head attached!) their meals shared with passing tramps.

Thanks to Russell Gayer for the trip down memory lane, and to Rochelle for hosting Friday Fictioneers, which starts when the image comes out on Wednesdays, and if you leave writing your story till Friday, you've pretty much missed the boat and not many people read it!

30 comments:

  1. I think the van ended up ditches and forgotten at least it seems. Good story about going for it!

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  2. Real life adventures for all. Great color and name for her, sounds like she served them well.

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    1. My daughter tells me the Italian drove Pink Pig to Italy!

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  3. If only the van could speak. The adventures!

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  4. Sounds idyllic. Not to everyone's taste but then what is?

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  5. I love this. I was never brave enough to live like this, only for short holiday trips, but it certainly would create great memories. I hope pink pig is well. Maybe someone in the future gives her solar panels and an electric engine, or 'antigrav' and she'll be pink flying pig. :D

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  6. A lovely tale, especially as it was based on something truly wonderful that actually happened. I envy them!

    Here's mine!

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  7. What a fabulous adventure then went on! Oh to have had the guts to do something like this when I was younger...

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    Replies
    1. My thoughts exactly - I had babies instead, which was a whole different adventure!

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    2. ain't that the truth!

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  8. what a lovely story. enjoyed it very much. thanks for sharing. :)

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  9. Dear Liz,

    What an adventure. Lovely story.

    Shalom,

    Rochelle

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  10. What a delightful story, especially knowing that it is based on truth.

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  11. What a fun story! I can picture it and all the adventures they must have had.

    Anne from annehiga.com

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    1. They were travelling for the best part of a year, and we rarely heard from them, but they had some adventures to relate when they finally stopped moving!

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  12. I love the story AND the afterword! How cool!!

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