THE DRIVE OF HIS LIFE THE DRIVE OF HIS LIFE

We’ve bought a campervan. It’s a VW, equipped with all the mod-cons necessary to keep us comfortable. It isn’t the old 1960s classic, we aren’t going to decorate it with flowers or psychedelic artwork. Yes, the summer’s here, but it’s 2023, not the summer of Woodstock and Sgt Pepper and ‘all you need is love’.

Décor aside, the burning question is where to go? I was daydreaming about Pamplona, in the north-west of Spain. What about heading there for the festival and running with the bulls? A jug of the local sangria, a bit too much sun on the top my thinning pate, and I’ll be ready to join the foolhardy youths who dodge the horns and hooves of the bulls in the narrow winding streets of the old town.

Maybe not. After all, we’re here in North Wales and spoiled for choice. So we start up the van, here in Caernarfon, and only fifteen minutes later we’re parking at the marina in historic Y Felinheli.

Strolling for a while and ogling the ocean-going yachts and floating gin palaces... enjoying a wonderful concert of birdsong from the overhanging woodland .. and then squeezing into the tiny, always busy restaurant called The Swellies next door to the harbour office. It’s a little gem, and we go there for the cheerful service and warm company, always a few wellbehaved dogs inside, and the most deliciously rich homemade mushroom soup you’ve ever tasted. No risk of sunburn or hangover. No danger of being gored by a bad-tempered bull. A mushroom soup at Felinheli marina beats Pamplona any day.

What about heading south to the sunshine of France? Tootling through the lush countryside of the Dordogne and onwards to Provence... where the vineyards blur into a smoky-blue haze of lavender... more southerly and warmer still, until the glamour of Cannes and Monaco is beckoning, and the toplessness of St Tropez is strangely alluring...

Maybe not. Who needs ‘la belle France’ when you can potter along the seashore of the Foryd estuary and feel the warmth of the breeze off the Menai Strait... and then turn inland towards the picturesque village of Llandwrog and arrive at Dinas Dinlle only half an hour later?

Dinas Dinlle isn’t at all a Mediterranean beach resort. No, there’s an Iron Age fort, and cliffs slipping to the boulders and shingle of the shore. Run the van along the shoreline towards Caernarfon’s airport and you’ll find a teashop serving homemade cakes, and there’s the air museum too. Or else turn back to Dinas itself and sit in the brisk summer sunshine with the best and freshest fish ’n’ chips you’ll find anywhere. Turn your face upwards to a clear blue sky and enjoy the gulls and the jackdaws and a soaring buzzard – just watch out in case one of those pesky seagulls is swooping for your chips or that last bit of batter you were saving for yourself. Oh to be in Wales, now that summer’s here!

But then, the other evening, I was dreaming about Marrakesh.

I think I caught something about Morocco on a TV travel show, or a 60s pop song set my head spinning like the needle of a compass. So what about pointing the van into the dusty hinterland of Spain and then onto the ferry across the narrow strait of Gibraltar... to Africa? Up and over the Atlas mountains until the Sahara stretches endlessly in front us? Onwards to Marrakesh, for a weekend of haggling in the souk and big bowls of couscous with a fragrant goat stew?

Or else... we head east of Caernarfon, swish gently along the A55 and turn off the highway into Conwy. We squeeze the van through the 13th Century archway and onto the harbour, just by the smallest house in Britain. The walls of the medieval town and the great rounded towers of the castle lean over us, as we stretch our legs on the seashore.

The estuary of the river Conwy swirls powerfully past, between us and the mound of the Iron Age fort at Deganwy, against the bulky mass of the Orme at Llandudno. Indeed, after we’ve eased the van through the narrow streets of old Conwy and rejoined the highway, it’s a half-hour drive to Llandudno and parking on the seafront.

Ice cream by the pier? The timeless spectacle of Punch and Judy, as typical of a British seaside as anything you could imagine? And then we stroll onto the pier itself, for mussels or whelks or cockles or the delicious subtlety of fresh crab – a bit less challenging than staring into the eyeballs of a goat’s head in a Moroccan market.

Yes, the goats on the Orme are a lot more appealing. For one thing, they’re alive, nibbling on the grass around thickets of golden gorse and the pink blush of thrift. It’s one of the most exhilarating places on Earth... to be on top of Llandudno’s iconic Great Orme on a blustery afternoon, breathing the salt air of the Irish Sea, sharing the sky with ravens and larks. It’s splendid to be alive, in summer, in Wales!

But hang on… what about Greece, island-hopping around the deep-blue Adriatic?

Maybe we could drive across Europe and then the van will be bobbing on the azure swell, on a ferry here and a ferry there... we’ll be sipping ouzo and the local dark-ruby wine, savouring the moussaka and freshly-caught octopus.

No, never mind moussaka, and the poor little octopus swimming in its own black ink. There’s no better swimming than at Criccieth. So we park at the further end of Criccieth promenade, and our footsteps crunch across the shingle beach, until we find the perfect spot for our deckchairs. A few minutes later we’re deep in the cool green bosom of the waves – yes, you can wax just as poetic in the Irish Sea as the Adriatic... enjoying the taste of the salt on our lips and the views back to the castle and along the Llŷn Peninsula.

It isn’t as warm as Greece, when you emerge from the water and waddle back to your deckchair. But the goosebumps feel great, the electric buzzing of being alive and newly scrubbed by salt and sand and drying in the North Wales sun.

Ah, the open road... Spain, France, Morocco, Greece. The campervan has had us daydreaming of faraway places and long, hot, dusty, rather tiring and bewildering journeys. Daydreaming is great. But in real life it’s all about seizing the day right here, where we live right now. n

Stephen Gregory’s first novel, The Cormorant, which he wrote in Snowdonia 35 years ago, has been published several times in both the UK and the USA, and translated into German, Polish and Italian. The new edition, which is available from Parthian Books, is its tenth publication.