Renata sighed with relief. The tent was up, the frame and base pegged along all four edges and roped, the things she needed for her adventure stowed within the dimly lit interior and she now had the time to make sense of her impetuous decision to go camping in November.
She needed a break from her work and had saved up enough holiday time, through working flexi-hours, to make her decision possible. She had her moments of depression and was not always happy in her skin. Being an outgoing and outdoorsy adventurous type made the decision to leave early and take a break easy to reach.
She crouches and spreads out her bedding roll, then a thin blanket before her super-insulated sleeping bag is covered. Her breath hangs in the chilly air as a moment's doubt creeps in and she remembers seeing that few people are on the site and, those that are, stay cozy in their chalets set around a small lake.
"Well, at least I won't have any noisy neighbours," she mutters as she goes to her SUV and gets a snack out of the food box, along with a bottle of water, and stows them in a small lightweight rucksack. A couple of hours of trekking through the forested dunes, and visiting the nature reserve, will bring her day to an early close.
Upon her return, and to her amazement, she sees that someone has decided to park a camper van very close to where she has pitched her tent. With the area empty save for her SUV and tent, when she left and with wide expanses of grass all around, the owner decided to infringe on what she had thought would be her space.
"Wow!" she mutters as a man is seen to step through the door from the softly lit interior of the camper van. He's tall with a mop of hair swept back and he has a lean, bearded, face. His hair's unruly but then so is her cropped blonde mop, mussed after she has taken off a woolen hat.
He steps towards her, and she knows that a moment's irritation is now replaced with engagement as he greets her in a deep but friendly tone. Even in the gathering gloom of a late winter's afternoon, she sees that his face is tanned, and the guy looks like an 'outdoorsy' type just as she is.
"Hi...hello, I'm Thijs...Thijs Jansen." He holds out a hand in greeting even as she begins to walk towards her tent. She takes it briefly but has already felt the strength in it. "I wondered who would be crazy enough, or tough enough, to sleep in a tent at this time of year. And now, I know that it's you."
She's disconcerted by his gaze and wonders what he will make of her. She grins in response to what he has just said. "I'm Renata...Renata Mulder. Some say that I have crazy ideas, but this time I just needed to get away from work...to get out of the house for a few days." She gazed at him. "I guess you get the feeling too?"
"I certainly do," he laughs and fixes his gaze on her. "I've got no partner now, or children, so when the mood takes me, I just take off and won't be answerable to anyone except the people I work for and who pay me."
His obvious interest, the look of his eyes on her as they talk, makes her feel warm inside and she tells herself that she must act normally. You don't know the guy to go feeling the way that you do, so soon.
She will say something in response as they have fallen easily into talking, even out in the cold. "I'm like you in that I have no one, except people at work to answer to and for. So, yes, I take off when the mood takes me, and I need a break."
"And you need a break now, Renata?"
She is seen to shiver, theatrically. "Yes, and I want to get out of this cold."
"If it's not too sone to ask, have a drink with me and I'll lay up a fire..."
It sounded great, too good to be true. "Okay, but I'll supply the wine."
She feels more cheerful already and the news that he has no partner has had a strange effect on her. She did decide to go on a camping adventure to get out of the rut her life had become, didn't she? Oh, where's the harm in what they have each suggested? Being alone doesn't have to last forever and he's a good-enough-looking man.
The bottle of white wine she takes from the boot of her car is nicely chilled.
"I'll get some glasses and two chairs...camping chairs with no frills," he says smiling at her in the weak light that comes from his van.
"And we share the bottle, okay?" she suggests and unscrews the top of the |Chardonnay that she likes and wonders if he's good with his hands in other ways. He's soon set out the chairs and has pulled a bag from a locker under his van that holds all that's needed to make a small, crackling fire that they soon sit around.
"Here's looking at you," he says, clinking his glass against hers as they sit close, and after she has poured out two generous measures of her favourite white wine.
"Proost", she laughs in reply and gazes at the man, Thijs, of whom she knows nothing has had the effect of them simply falling into behaving easily with each other. To have done so has aroused strange fluttery feelings in her belly. She senses that he's feeling horny and she's heading that way too.
They spend the whole evening together, chatting about themselves and their lives -- he works as a freelancer and his camper van is fitted out as an office and living quarters -- and they laugh as the fire sputters some sparks and mixes with the smoke swirling up lazily into a clearing sky.
