Plot Forty-Seven, by Gareth Penhaligon

An original short story extract set in the twentieth century.

Dad had booked the caravan from an advert in the back of the evening paper, and when we found it in August 1983, on plot forty-seven at the far end of a field near Borth, it was smaller than our kitchen at home. It was cream and brown, with a dent in one side shaped like somebody’s knee. Inside, the table folded down to become my parents’ bed, so we could not have breakfast until they were up, and my sister and I slept on two benches at the other end with our feet nearly touching. The water came from a tap in the middle of the field, and it was my job to fetch it in a plastic container that slopped down my legs. It rained for five of the seven days. The rain on the roof was so loud that we had to shout to play cards, and a drip landed in the same saucepan every few seconds, keeping time all night. Mum stuck a postcard of the sunny beach on the window, facing in, so that we could see what we were missing.

List five things you learn about the caravan in this extract.