Thursday 27 September 2018

Must be the state of the moon....

Not having posted for a long time, I'm on a bit of a roll so lets write a bit more. 
 
I had a propeprly strange Saturday night a few weeks ago but to learn of that read on. 
 
Just a normal Saturday night in town but no there was something in the water, the town was infected with something.

The proto pensioner which is me was  working security at a private function in town.  It was a  60th birthday, what could possibly go wrong?

Well mid evening some guy  drunk and falling over and upsetting people (not me or one of my mates)  I was just debating going in and grabbing this fella to chuck him out and the likely shouty shouty fighty fighty repercussions of engaging with that.  when another drunk tried to barge in past me on the door,  a bit of a scuffle ensued and  out he went. 

One of our actual regulars, was  inside being a total nob and getting quite aggressive .
 
Another who has serious MH issues was in the grip of something dark and sinister and needed to be watched all the time. With his meds, he should not  be drinking and he was  errr drinking like they were about to reintroduce prohibition. Not good.

Meanwhile Dylan the local Romeo, (names changed to protect the guilty) was  trying to get off with everything, up to and including the pool table and since there is no pool table that was quite impressive.

By now  the idiot who had a tussle with me was at the back door where the owner, had popped outside for a fag. Glad I went out there when i did as I had  to separate them, the quiet and unflapable owner was  looking like he was about to smash him one.

While I was dealing with that:  I was concerned at whats happening at the front  door, because of course I was lone working. 

Thinks, Rhys it's time to be realistic, Am I getting to old for this?

Eventually, the evening ends and a couple of people were getting quite bellicose about leaving, the  fact there is no beer left, the bar now being dry  not being an adequate  reason not to have another. A normally quiet bloke was saying very loudly that he would  be  the last to leave with a kind of aggressive edge to it.

I really beginning  to wonder if was time I retired...
 
Place empty doors closed,   escape to my local, (One of),  where the barman was having  a bad  night, in a vile mood find  People have  gone there having left the venue. More of the same....
 
Did I need this? I'm over 60 FFS.

Leave there and there was something major going down on the square. Wander up for an eyeball. Take a bit of heart that the far younger door staff in the both the pubs  closed the doors and locked themselves in.  There  was  a crowd of belligerent people attempting to kick both front doors through.  Noted there was another large party of males in one of the pubs  most of whom were naked.
'
It seems what this the tail end of a rolling battle. Combat was joined not long after we emptied the birthday party  when, a  group of 50 somethings (hmm, not your average local lout then) descended on a bar. The door staff declined admission as they were somewhat inebriated. The situation escalated into fisticuffs and a lady got pushed off the kerb and fell heavily causing an injury.   After  some serious fighting the group decided to retire to the pub next door but one. This pub has a welcoming land lord who very quickly soothed matters to the point where another fight broke out.

Then followed  the final stage on the square where I walked in. The little crowd could not decide where to have a fight next so they solved the quandary by kicking off in two pubs at the same time.
 
I really have to ask myself whether I am too old for this sort of excitement. 
 
Most of the time our little town is a quiet little place - this is quite out of character. 
 
It  must have been the state of the moon.

But it's all right nooooooooooooooooooooooowwwwww
.

The holiday of a lifetime.....

For many many years the management had yearned for holidays further afield, Newton, our trusty T4 van had indeed been bought for that very purpose. To go wandering around Europe. Things had not worked out like that and the most it had done in 5 years was a bit of pottering around Brittany and Britain. Against this background planning began for the big trip. Big it was going to be by our standards too. A trip to Santander then 10 days driving back up to Roscoff, covering the whole length of France from North Spain. Almost immediately things went wrong.

As detailed previously, things have not been going well for Newton of late. With money being tight almost everything has gone to the bottom of the to do list. A slow puncture dealt with by putting a tyre pump in the cab an oil leak ignored, everything deferred. Playing mechanical catch up, lists of jobs got done, tyres were replaced, the back of the van reconfigured, this was frantic stuff with money still in short supply.

Key to all this was changing the cam belt, a key component and needing change every 80 thousand miles or so it's a measure of how long we have had the van that this is the second cambelt it has had in it's time with us. To save money (often a very expensive course of action) a local mechanic who advertises as being mobile was selected for the job. This was the beginning of a tale of real misery, VW's are not massively complex but they are not simple either, herin began a tale of incompetence and woe. The Mobile Mechanic increasingly lost till - having started the job in April, our departure date in October was upon us and the van was still running like a sack of shovels.

With just hours to go before the ferry sailed it was time to re think, en route to the ferry lived a guy who reckoned he had access to all the toys for setting up a VW and sure enough he did. The van was running like a Rolex and off we set on adventure bent.

Of course the original plan had had to be rewritten and now we started the trip coming ashore in St Malo Brittany, Spain was going to be a leisurely drive down the West Atlantic Coast away. Being tight, I had elected to avoid the roads with tolls. This meant you got to see the real France, lovely drive through tiny towns and villages with many things to see and buildings to look at. With the Loire behind us, our first proper stop off was La Rochelle. This proved a bit of a disappointment, I had forgotten the place had been knocked about a bit during the war, it just felt very touristy and a bit 50's. That said, the twin towers that guard the harbour entrance are pretty spectacular.


With night drawing on we made our way South and out of town down to La Royan. The coastline is truly spectacular with lovely beaches that almost smell of the wealth of those who live there. We paupers in our scruffy old VW traveled on till we lost the light then pulled over in a layby for the night. France has this amazing system of aires, places where truckers and people with a camper van can pull in and rest up any hour of the day or night. Completely free they are a product of a country with miles of roads and big distances. This one was pretty basic and, actually I strongly suspect it was a dogging site. But hell we cannot get it right every time. Getting it right occasionally would be good....

 It was a mild morning when we woke, well mild for us mountain folk, I suspect the locals thought it was pretty Brrrrrrrr. Back on the road we headed South, still staying off the peyage we took our time over the day. Driving through France is an interesting experience watching the architecture slowly transform as you drive south into something more recognizably Mediterranean. Being tight (as I already said) we were driving through villages and towns on the perfectly decent A roads, avoiding the motorways (and paying) whilst seeing far more of the countryside than we might otherwise do.

By mid afternoon we were still a long way from the destination Carcasonne. So, taking the map in hand I decided it was time to find the motorway, the bank card and cover some kilometers. Light had gone when we rolled into Carcasonne and spectacular it was too, a floodlight fortress on a hill. We rolled into a desolate paid for aire for camping cars, should have stuck to the free ones. We were paying for less facilities than the free site on the motorway!! But anyway it was a nice night in our little mobile bedroom.


 If you have never been to Carcasonne, you have missed out, the place is truly spectacular it was an easy days worth and worth every penny. A truly unforgettable medieval city all within it's own walls. Not have been the subject of WW2 it has not been knocked to hell either. A bigger contrast with La Rochelle was not possible - I loved it. A little aside, the events described here happened nearly a year ago, it has taken that long to write this. The reasons are about to unfold.

 As we drove down the hill from the medieval town things, if I was honest were going swimmingly well, too well. Rolling up at a set of traffic lights the van developed a curious rattle then the engine died. I knew immediately what was wrong, having pushed the van up the street slightly, around the corner into a side street it was time to review the situation. Break out the tools, What tools? Using the one 13mm spanner, which was all we had, I managed to get some covers off and sure enough, the fuel pump drive belt was slopping around uselessly, the tensioner had snapped. Still things could be worse I could be broken down in the South of France with no breakdown cover. Quickly phoning my insurer, before they went home, would set wheels in motion as it were. Or not, they claimed I had cancelled all my insurances for the van and it was currently uninsured. So I had been driving round for 6 months confident that I had insurance but I hadn't. That was pretty much it... Quickly re instating my insurance, been with this firm since forever, I said I had called because I was broken down, I needed recovery. Well, they said, they were happy to accept the mistake, take my money and re instate road cover, because that gave them money, they would not however renew the breakdown cover as that involved their money. Quite a discussion ensued and, eventually we were abandoned by the side of the road.

Time to take in some situational thoughts, South of France is a lovely place with some islands of deep economic deprivation. We had found one. This was a very poor community and full of people who did not look too friendly. The van was going no further so our only option was to stay put and camp on the street overnight. A cool morning after a night spent snoozing with the maglite in my hand.

Next day take stock of situation, over the road was a garage, not a VW specialist but it had to be a start. Le Patron was a welcoming chap and assured me I was seriously in luck, his head fitter had much experience of VW diesel engines and would take but a little time to discover the root of the problem and rectify it. Very soon the transporter was pushed the short distance into his garage, the bonnet was opened and investigations commenced. I'm not sure when my suspensions got aroused, but, this guy when knew all about VW diesels started with a few problems like opening the bonnet. This was followed by some wandering round the engine room, then lots of covers came off, with some hammering and banging and puzzled looks. So the next thing was an announcement, there was a serious issue, the timing marks on the cam pulley had been obliterated. I was getting suspicious, did this guy really know what he was doing? In my best french I explained the the patron, the reason why he could not find the camshaft timing marks was because there wern't any. The marks he was looking for were on the crankshaft and the fuel pump. There were no marks on the cam. This prompted some serious researching on the internet, and much head scratching. A laptop and code reader were produced, maybe we were getting somewhere now. The master mechanic began dismantling the glove box, hmmm maybe I could help? He was connecting the computer, he said, right, I said, but why was he looking in the glove box for the terminal which on VW's is on the steering column (tough question I admit). Had he really "done lots of these before" I wondered under my breath. The computer was connected, numbers came up on the screen and finally a pronouncement was made, the fuel pump timing was out. It had taken the master mechanic and his computer all morning to conclude what I had concluded in 20 minutes by the side of the road aided by my one 13 mm spanner. Still, best shut up, don't annoy him Rhys.

 With, at last the fault identified, proper work could commence, well, after dinner it might. The management and I retired to a local Italian where, a few glasses of wine and a decent meal might improve my humour. After lunch things seemed a lot more purposeful, timing marks were found, things aligned with other things a French technical website with many photographs was studied intently. Eventually things were all in alignment and, with a triumphant look the starter was engaged and....... Nothing, lots of cranking there were no brum brum engine running noises. Much head scratching and, head disappeared under the bonnet again. Waiting till the master mechanic was on his laptop again, I went to have a look. I suggested to him that the issue was belt tension, it was all very well aligning the pump to the engine but unless the drive belt was tight, the moment the starter turned the engine the pump would drop out of alignment and the engine would not start. This prompted further head scratching and another attempt to align the pump with the engine. This in turn produced another attempt to start the engine and still the engine declined to function. Several more attempts at this and the battery was flat.

This prompted a major crisis, his computer screen was now crammed with error codes. Time for some serious research, while he was away i thought I might as well take a look myself. Removing his computer connection I produced my little generic code reader, plugged it in and had a look. He was right of course, there was a mass of engine fault codes, nearly every sensor on the vehicle was reporting low voltage, almost as if the battery was flat. This had now entered the stage of farce. So, with the battery charging away, I said nothing, but used my little machine to clear all the fault codes, checked again, with the battery now delivering 12 V none of the sensors were reporting any issues. Say nothing reconnect his terminal and lets wait and see.

After a decent pause the master mechanic went to le patron and they both advanced on me. The situation was grave, there were a massive range of serious problems with the vehicle, it was highly likely the engine management computer itself had failed. That sounded serious, I said, could they show me? Of course they could, I was invited over to the bench to look at the laptop and see the plethora of faults that were being reported. Keeping a straight face but trying to look concerned I went to look, the machine was switched on, the fault finding programme was run the screen beeped and bopped and then came back with - no fault codes. There was consternation, a few minutes before the screen had been filled with faults and now, by some miracle they had gone!

The issue now was how to get the vehicle out of there, it was anyway late afternoon and getting close to time to close the garage. The local VW main agent was contacted, it was agreed the vehicle could be taken over there in the morning, having paid the garage quite a lot of money for doing nothing, management and I settled for the night by the side of the road again. It was time for some contingency planning.

Today was Thursday, if the VW agent could not repair the vehicle the next day, things would be grave, management needed to be back in the UK for work, Monday morning. A trip to Macdonalds was needed, over coffee we used their free internet connection to review our options. How could we get out of this impasse?

The most likely outcome was that the VW garage would know what they were doing, quickly identify the fault get the right part and we would be on our way in the morning. That would be the story for tomorrow.

Or maybe something else. (to be continued)