Rushing headlong into the festival - first post for too long.

It's been a long time since I posted, too long. 

As we sweep into the glorious festival to come, there have been a few minor glitches on the way.

Ever enterprising, the dynamic duo had discovered Jon the shared lives placements secret stache of Coca Cola. With native cunning they procured 6 bottles, took them upstairs and the jollity commenced.

I got a bit suspicious when fits of unstoppable giggles broke out followed closely by some crazed running up the landing, soft furnishings started cascading off the landing onto the kitchen floor.

A rapid  deployment of "oi" ing coupled with a lot of "stop that" ing which was

totally ignored, alerted me that things might not be quite normal.

Words are not the best way to describe what was unfolding, total disinhibition, massive impulsivity and a  tidal wave  of destruction swept through the house driven by power station levels of energy. There was just no stopping them, well actually there was, I did give serious consideration to getting the soft cuffs from my work jacket and restraining them till they calmed down. I was myself restrained though, by thoughts of the type of quiz that would break out is someone in social services got wind of what I was planning. Phrases like "risk of harm" "Best interest" "necessity" and "proportionality" would all  fall on the deaf ears of  the child protection team where guilt would have already have been decid before the referral even came in . 

I had dealt with this sort of thing before, mainly at festivals where adults were using crack cocaine but there you have a 6 person takedown team who regularly train together and have a plan. But in those circumstances you also run the risk of triggering VF and have to have an even better plan around getting hold of medics and an AED if needed. Here it was just me on my own. The prospect of explaining away why a 7 yo was in asystole sounded even less attractive.

  When they found a tyre pump and begun filling it with water from the sink in the bathroom, well I hoped it was the sink, and firing it at tadcu from the landing..... All plans were off, never mind restraint, I was going to nail the little B&&&&&&& to the kitchen door!

There seem to be a never ending supply of impulse driven behaviour with little chance of reduction or control.

Just as it seemed the whole house would be reduced to a pile of broken furniture with the structure collapsed on top of it and my broken body somewhere in the middle. It stopped.

About an 90 minutes in both boys just stopped, got into bed and went to sleep. peace descended, well, for an hour. James woke up running a temperature 39C complaining of severe headache and photosensitivity. Now, we all know what that could be don't we? Down to get a glass and roll it on his arms and legs to check for spots, none found,  reach for the great god Calpol, with a pint of water to go with it. This very quickly achieved the desired result, headache went temp dropped and James was asleep.

Osian meanwhile slumbered on, he had fallen asleep at 8 PM, the house was wrapped in peace and tranquility, well except for the sounds of clearing up the carnage.

Not a peep was heard out of the boys all night, 8 Am arrived and still they slumbered on 8.30 came and went, 9.00 too. At 9.30 both boys groggily woke up.

Just in time to go to their other grandmas, giving me a day of peace.

I was sat there looking at the remaining bottles of coke, wondered if they would like a few more bottles each before they went to Nannys..... In the end I thought better of it.

They had consumed in about an hour 3 days recommended maximum dose of  sugar  with a shed load of caffeine and aspartame added for good measure.

Last night, the school concert, and a great success it was too, well except for James but thats another story.

R

 

Some bright spark.....

Having had a somewhat dry last trip well no it wasn't too bad, the lack of water meant I had to drink beer instead, which was quite OK. 

Back on the ferry for the second trip out, another trip another issue. 

Into house, windows open - check, gas on,- check. power on..... Power on.... 

Now herein lies another saga, like many other parts of the world EDF have been ditching mechanical meters for electronic ones that can be remotly monitored. This is a good thing if you live somewhere far away. Previously we would have to arrange to be there for a meter reader or submit a photo of the meter that showed the reading plus the serial number. 

As covid bit, the letters from EDF got more and more insistent we let them install a Linky electronic meter. Not an easy thing to do when we were in Wales and the house is in Brittany!! On top of this we had been paying  estimated bills, for electricity we had used while the house was empty and the supply switched off. 

So, with us not enabling them to change the meter, someone at EDF had thrown their rattle out of the pram and turned the supply off. 

This was much simpler than the water, straight to the new mobile phones international streaming and find the helpline number. The call handler was incredibly focussed and quickly identified the issue. Apologised that he could turn the service back on instantly because of course, it was not a Linky. 

So anyway, 24h later these two techie sorts turned up in a van and switched the power back on, ripping out the old clockwork  meter and installing a linky, or so we thought. 

Doing a final reading on the old meter revealed, what a suprise that they owed us a deal of money. I told EDF I was cool with this, it would just mean our account was in credit for about forever. 

This was not of course good enough, they said they had to issue me with a cheque to be paid into the French bank account I no longer had, at that point. 

Then bills started arriving based on more estimated bills, the linky they had installed would not actually talk to their computer system! 

With sense of humour failiure approaching, I said I would send them cheques for all the future bills, drawn on my UK account.... 

Watch this space.....

Lets get things back to normal......

A regular feature of our previous life has been regular trips to our little house in Brittany. Our new household additions, the grand children have taken to this with great enthusiasm, in fact I think they would quite happily just travel back and for on the ferry for a week never mind 8 hours. There was of course the one crossing where it all cut up rough, a day crossing too. As the Armorique ploughed it's way through a substantial swell many people turned green, not so the little monsters, no, they thought the strange motion the best thing ever. 

Of course getting there is only half the game, a property you have not used for a couple of years is likely to be a bit neglected. Sure enough we arrived at this huge patch of growth which was where our house used to be. Crawling through the brush I found the front door. The locks were properly siwzed, what I needed was  a can of WD40, just like the one I had left home..... So it was off to Intermarche to get some stocks. Back to the house and a bit of persuasion, we were inside the house. Turn on the lights - all was well. Turn on the taps - nothing. 

Need to  fidn out what was going on there, for now it was time to break out the big stimmer and cord, lots of strimmer cord. Saying the place was overgrowns was a massive understatement. A whole day and all the cord we had did about 2/3 of the garden. A restocking trip to Intermarche, they didn't have the size of cord our strimmer usually takes, they did however have some serious mega heavy duty stuff, with upgraded cord it took about 20 minutes, this was not so much mowing as a massacre!! 

This just left the minor matter of water, I was on this while management did much of the strimology. I went up the Marie who gave me a phone number for the water company, which was wrong. The centre technique in the village gave me another number, another wrong number. Time to get serious, off to Intermarche and as the fount of all knowledge, the receptionist who has worked there for ever. She scrawled down a number, within minutes I had made the phone call, spoken to a very helpful person, got in the van and was on my way to the office to sort it out. 

Turns out, during covid the water company had changed, the new firm had no contact details for us and concluded the house was abandoned. The mains had been switched off, fill out all the contact and contract forms, 12 hours later the taps ran. We were in business, also in the shower for some time after all that strimming.  

So this was us post covid back into our little house in Brittany. We were happy (ish) the boys were loving it, home and time to plan our next disaster errrr holiday I mean. 

 

Back on the write side of history

This is my chance to start anew, to renew my aquaintence with blogger after a huge pause. 

Said pause being due to the contested arrival in our household of two of our granchildren, now aged 5. 

Lots has happened in the meantime, first of all there was the famous Brexshit cock up. 

I must say, way back, when  the selfservaites announces their next PM would be Scamerloon known as  Dai Cameron to his friends, I thought to myself. This was it, the selfservatives could not find any one who would make a worse prime minister. 

Someone in the tory party must have been listening and accepted the challenge, some how all the later prime ministers have suceeded in being worse than the last one. Teresa May who accidentally lost all the records on the investigation into child sex offences by parliamentarians. Borris who was: wrong man, wring place, wrong time diring the pandemic, a stunning combination of incompetence and sleaze. Liz Truss, well where would you start with that one. Now of course it's Sunak who has been great so far, a fantastic advocate for his wifes tax affairs, aka as Dr Death by the governments scientific advisors during covid. 

Where on earth will we go next. 

Life here though has not been short of the odd excitement, and I await the next with bated breath. 

 

 

Back to what we are used to....

As former foster carers we are quite used to dealing with the scrapings of the bottom of the pond of stupidity that turn up proudly wearing the badge fostering support worker. Sometimes though they come up with something that suprises even us. To be fair to Llamau, the mob that currently take money from the local authority to manage us, they have, after a few initial experiences decided to hide under the nearest stone. This last week though, they appointed a new support worker who decided he was going to take his job seriously. The management and I concluded, after out initial phone consultation that phrases like "out of his depth" and "not the brightest button on the shirt" were appropriate. Things went a little downhill when he sent me a series of increasingly irate texts about my failiure to turn up for a meeting about a young person who wasn't actually placed with us. Puzzled? Yes I was. Still, to recover from that, he said he is going to call a placement meeting about the many issues we are facing with L. He said, he had phoned her several times but she would not answer the phone. I thought I would be helpful, I asked if he had read the case notes, he assured me he had, was there anything in there which might explain why she would not SPEAK to him? He assured me there was not. I did have a moment and ask about the quality of their record keeping. Being kind, I asked if he could recall the lenghty converstion we had but a few days ago, he could, there is hope, thinks I, had I mentioned anything that might indicate that she would not answer the phone, he could not remember anything. I thought it best to politely terminate the call at this point, after all, shouting "she is an elective mute you fucking cretin" down the phone might cause offence. I did actually save him much trauma, I got to the phone before the management who would have had none of my legendary diplomatic skills.... L's SW who is really good is back in work this week and we will have quite a conversation. And thats before we start talking about the CAMHS trainee psychologist who has been doing "counselling" with L She is much more academically inteligent so she is even more clever at being stupid. She was tasked with producing a health passport, this is a document that someone with Mental Health issues takes with them everytime they go into hospital, to explain their special needs. I have not seen it yet, management rolled her eyes when she was reading it this morning.

Changing times.

So into the chemist and the new reality.

Screens everywhere to shield the staff and contact less preferred cash no longer king...ó

On the top shelf behind the counter a dazzling array of hand washes, masks and gloves, at least there are some to buy now. All there right next to the Viagra, there has to be an irony in there somewhere....

R

Things that are mislabled

Forgive me for seeming knowledgeable, self confident perhaps even  arrogant but I sort of thought I had nailed this parenting thing and knew what it was all about.

It would seem I was mistaken.

The babies though have extended my education

Lets take your day to day stroll through the supermarket.

Misplaced in the aisle marked "cereal" you may well find Weetabix, far from being a food, this is actually, probably the strongest adhesive ever invented.

Similarly, you might  find  butter not with the putty, or the grease or the body paint   but somewhere where it's suggested you might eat it (that's also possible, but only in large lumps obviously) it  can also be fed  to the dog as an astonishingly effective canine laxative.

Flora, or margarine totally belongs in the paint section.

Tomato sauce is a hair treatment, make up  and clothes dye to  rival everything, well apart from chocolate. Actually chocolate does all of the things listed above at least as well.

Then  there are  nappies, they should really go under artists materials, serving rather too well as a palette where "artistic materials" are stored till they are needed as, adhesive, putty or paint. With the added advantage that there is no need to raid the kitchen, to get the necessary resources, these replenish themselves periodically with no need to give tadcu the slip to get to the kitchen.

This . of course brings us to the final educational point, people of my age will have studied the theory of relativity at school. Einstein the genius postulated that time is not a universal, rather it passes at different rates dependent on the position and velocity of the observer. A nanosecond is an impossible short interval, now relativity gives us the nanysecond,  this shows how time really is relative, this is that minute moment of time while tadcu blinks after getting both boys suited and booted immaculate to go out, for James to get the Flora (1 litre catering pack) out of the fridge and paint the kitchen, himself, the dog and the cat, hmmm, add effective animal laxative to  Flora's uses...

R

 

Days of peace.....

So grandparentness has turned into one day at a time lockdown survival. The boys are a delight but goodness me do they have some energy and my are they naughty.

Today was a good start, a lie in, 7 AM call.....

Out of kip and a serious mission, the lads have had 12 weeks where many shops were covid closed shoe shops included. The dynamic duo are therefore in urgent need of properly fitted footwear.

Off up the road, to the shoe shop, fully loaded with trepidation at how to manage two incredibly lively toddlers at a time of social distancing.

They were of course totally angelic, well behaved, lulling us into complacency.

So we drove home with the crew, who fell asleep as you would.   

"You go and do the food shopping, I can cope with the kids"    Says the management, and off I went into town.

What could possibly go wrong?

I wasn't away that long, but long enough.

With me  out of the way, management took up ingredients and started some serious cake making.

James, left for nano seconds decided to investigate the cooking oil. Fortunately this was not our usual gallon cater pack special, it was a mere litre pack. Having tried drinking it, and finding it wanting, he poured the rest over himself and over the floor.

This produced an impressive pool, which the management  attacked with the steam cleaner.

Meanwhile, the  boys were amusing themselves elsewhere.

At this point I arrived, noted the hissing steam cleaner and lack of children.

They had retired upstairs.

So, not long afterwards, I was upstairs.

"Right, so which one of you has been drawing all over the walls that nanny painted last week".

Silence.

"I dunno" said Osian his voice and demenour a picture of innocence.

A pencil clattered to the floor just  behind him.

I was raised in South Wales, in a town where kids first phrases are things like "weren't me officer" and "I'm keeping schtum till my mouthpiece get's here".

Thats usually a 5 year old.

Osian is 2....


Goodness me - what have we let ourselves in for....

R  

 

 

Armageddon out of here.....

We've had it!! Covid that is, now I've said that, since UK Plc has no ability to test, it's hard to be sure, but it does look like, lockdown house on the hill, Penole might have been visited by the virus.

Of course the babies, being babies have had so many sniffs sneezes and assorted snot events it'shard to say what or when they had anything.

Gwion eldest son came home from work and announced he was ill and self isolating. This was very helpful since otherwise we would not have realized that staying in his room for 23 hours of the day was unusual.

He has though taken sensible precautions, stockpiling has been him, he locked himself in with a box of 48 Cadburys Cream Eggs to sustain him.

Management has been ill, no doubt about it, she had a pretty crap flu type thing which ended with a day of  very nasty coughing and much time in bed with whisky. This last day or so, she has been tetchy, grumpy, snapping and shouting at everyone, so the conclusion has to be, she is better.

Myself, well, the big event touched me, I had what would barely register as a slight cold, no elevated temperature at all, some aches pains and a slight cough.

Of course it could all just be a slight winter cough, a normal cold that has affected us all.

We can't know as there is no testing out there.

We have, of course, gone into strict lockdown, only absolutely essential trips out to get supplies. Thankfully the brewery is only a mile away so we have not had to go far. Hmmm maybe I could walk there and count that as my daily exercise...

Serenities swansong.

Now it's been a fair old time since I wrote anything and in reality I think todays post is made out of  guilt.

It does not help though that suitable events to record have been in short supply. Serenity, my step daughter, usually a reliable source of mayhem has become seriously infected with sense and is living a normal and fairly sane life. She does however have children who seem to have picked up the torch and accepted the challenge.....

A quiet weekend afternoon, in so far as it's possible for any afternoon in a household of 2 infants to be quiet, and the phone rang:

Grampy

Yes

My car won't start.

OK

Can you come and help

What about the AA?

I'm not a member (some while back, after a previous event it had been suggested that 7.50 a month might be a wise investment but hey ho)

OK, where are you?

Carmarthen (Oh joy, 35 miles to drive)

Where in Carmarthen?

The garage (sort of narrows it down, there can't be more than 12 garages in Carmarthen, thinks I)

Anyway a little more discourse, the van packed with tools, a solo tow, trailer board and gear away I went. Away I went into the weather biblical,  wind howled, rain hammered into the windscreen, exactly not the day to be trying to start cars.  Less than an hours driving and I rolled up at the offending vehicle. Where to  start?

As the rain hammered down I got out of the cab and approached the stricken voiture. What appeared to be the problem, asked I, Serenity junior,  a master of the motor car was able to offer a comprehensive answer - it would not start. Had she misfueled the vehicle? No, she had, simply loaded the car with unleaded and then it would not start.  What had she spotted when she checked under the bonnet? I was greeted with a look of bewilderment that she might step out of the car into the howling rainstorm to do any investigating, it was wet out there. This was something I was becoming more and more aware of and needed no help from Serenity Jnr to tell.

Through the little gap of window which was open, I suggested she try and start the car now. The starter stirred sluggishly but there were no brum brum type noises.

Hmmm, sluggish stirring might indicate a battery gone a bit flat. Try the simple things first, drive Newton the Transporter into position, bonnets open connect booster leads. I noted, as I finally connected the batteries there was some healthy sparking from the leads, indicating there was a significant potential difference between the VW which would have been taking 14V with the engine running and the little Fiesta which should have been at around 12 V, but clearly wasn't. Sure enough, on being powered by the VW the little car burst into life, simple fix, or was it?

Disconnecting the jump leads, there was still a level of sparky sparky, sooooo the little Fester was getting a bit of charge, but the alternator was obviously not delivering the full 14v. What could this mean? A little noise gave a hint at an answer, a sort of a slipping squeaking suggesting the alternator drive belt might be slack. This would fit in, Serenity Jnr leaves home, it's a tempest, so lights wipers heaters and everything are on, taking a fraction more than the altenator is delivering, gets to Carmarthen 35 miles away and there's not enough to restart the engine.

A relatively simple fix too, all Serenity Jnr would need to do would be slacken the tensioner, adjust the belt, tighten the tensioner, might even be possible without getting under the car. I could foresee an issue already, Serenity Jnr had made not the slightest move out of the cab so far, so she would probably suggest I stand there in the biblical storm and do the job instead. This had limited appeal so I diplomatically suggested  that, since the car was now running, she should make for home forthwith.

I did follow her at a discreet distance, in case the thing expired again, eventually our ways parted and I headed the trusty Newton up the last ten miles through biblical deluge to Penole, with the heater running full blast to dry me out while keeping the windscreen free of the ensuing condensation.

It was now time to involve the real deal, Serenity herself. Turns out the potential for problem was well known, indeed Serenity had been urging Jr to involve the garage for some weeks, the car is up and down the M4 regularly and Serenity had urged Jr to get it serviced some time ago. She had also forcefully suggested Jr take out AA membership some considerable time since in anticipation of this sort of an event. Subsequent enquiry revealed that  this very same problem had been dealt with on two previous occasions by a phone call to Tally (my son) sadly, on this occasion his car was off the road, so of course she had  grandpa on speed dial instead. 

I think I might be busy next time...

Life inside the dark cloud.

We came home from holiday, happy and refreshed. Everything was starting to look good, Money coming back in and, life was looking good.The van was running fine and would meet our needs for a few more years. Meanwhile, miles away events were unfolding that would change our lives forever.

Back home, and within a week our world was upside down. New Grandson  was taken mysteriously unwell in the middle of the night, his father, rushed him into hospital.

Next day a full child protection investigation. And two babies were taken into care.

Wales has a a very forward thinking new act that requires that children are only taken into care when all family options have been eliminated and it was ignored.

And it was game on for the former foster carers, except this time the children were our own grandchildren, I would like to think no less energy was deployed than we had as foster carers, only the stakes were higher.

Grandparent life

So it's out of bed of a lovely morning, no one grandson Osian running wild, does a poo on the bedroom carpet, no two grandson James sits in it.

Whisk James downstairs remove soiled clothing then light the fire.

James amuses himself by doing a wee in the kitchen.

Clean up

Meanwhile James does a poo on the living room carpet.

Clean up.

Get James breakfast, discover James also did a poo by the fridge.

Change socks.

Clean up.

It's all action being a grandad....

Into the wild grey yonder.

Now it came to pass that, undaunted by last years mis adventure we set off on another one....

So Newton the transporter was all prepped up and away we went. Sensibly, I had up graded by fitting cruise control which made it far easier not to annoy the speed camera sorts and had a massive effect on fuel economy. For the first part of the trip we were averaging 41 mpg which is frankly ridiculous in something with the aerodynamics of a block of flats!

But anyway we flopped ashore in Roscoff, drove down to Guemene and did nothing for a couple of days. The onward trip was a real education. There is so much industry in France and so active after Doldrum Britain.   Convoys of trucks on the motorway as goods move through France to Spain and then back again.

We are seaside people so we moved along the coast, stopping a few nights in small coastal hamlets in Aires. The first of which had a broken pay meter, so we got the hell out of there before any council workers turned up at 9 am, as did everyone  else.

There are people out there who love the Vendee, we are not among them,  finding its flat interminable plain just boring.

We drove on South eventually reaching the spectacular medieval town of Pons with it's truly spectacular donjon. I thought €20 for a steak a bit steep till I saw the portion, half a cow on a plate. I would not need to eat again for several days!!

Lets remember now this was October. So it was onwards and Southwards one night in a closed community by the sea. Then Spain.

Ah yes Spain, and an exciting driving style, that's a polite description. Motorways sort of perched on the side of a hill with real drops offs snaking corners and long tunels. Really, whoever set the speed limit on these roads at 130km was being very optimistic, Spain is full of optimistic people, insanely optimistic people. The management made herself comfortable, curled up in a comfortable ball in the footwell from whence came an occasional distressed whimper.

Santander is a simply fabulous city to spend a night in a 4 star hotel.

Santander is a lovely sea side city, the management had spent a night here before with a friend and therfore knew her way round. Well no, she thought she knew her way round. She did find the natural history museum she had desperately wanted to visit last time but sadly her little mate had declined to enter prefering to head off in search of bars and booze. Being a different person I readily agreed to go and visit. Unbenknown to us, the museum had closed some years back and the building was now given over to, errr bars and booze actually.

More hopeless wandering round town and we eventually made it back to the hotel. Management took a long bath and I devoted my self to my kindle and catching up on a few weeks interweb.

Soo anyway next morning it was historic, or Altameira stone caves to be more exact. To save the original caves, the whole edifice has been rebuilt above ground. This does not massively detract from the experience which is quite an interesting foray into not so primitive art.

In the afternoon, following another suicidal adventure on the motorways we rolled into Bilbao and very much more modern art. If you have not done the Guggenheim then you really should. Such a selection of art from the classical to the downright wacky. It made an amazing contrast, between images made on stone with whatever was about to highly sophisticated images made with materials developed over centuries. There was also a deep similarity between the two, both represented the work of highly skilled individuals.

It was a fitting thing to do on  what would have been my fathers 92nd birthday. He would have loved the idea of distant travel.

It was now time to head north and north we went.

We had originally planned a day in the Loire  but sadly our luck gave out, the couple of camp sites we found we closed as was the only aire we could see. It's just a few hours blast back to the house so thats what we chose - headed the VW up the peyage and landed in Guemene late evening.

So came to an end a magical holiday - almost a year ago now.

Little did we know as we made our way back to Wales that events were unfolding that would change our lives forever. When things seem  to be going well Fate has a nasty habit of biteing you in the bum.

R

Super fast broad banned....

Some readers may know that I live a little bit out in the sticks. The back of beyond in fact, internet has always been an issue even in the days of dial up.

The Welsh Assembly has been quite proactive in this - putting aside a pot of money to connect most of Wales to fast broadband. Sadly the issue has become Open Reach the company that owns the physical network.

A fairly substantial sum of money was thrown at the problem and the website said the work on our exchange would be done by May, about 2 years ago.  In fact there was a deal of digging and laying of fibre from the exchange right across the mountain. What there was not was a rush to connect. So when the Assembly money had been used up laying the main core hardware, all Open Reach needed to do was use their own money to connect properties to the line. Something they declined to do.

So we have teetered along with our old copper line, old  being the operative  phrase. It has snapped completely twice in the last 18 months. There are dodgy connections along the line and every time there is rain or wind the connection speeds drop. Since September we have had in total nearly a week of down time as a connection block somewhere between here and the top of the mountain has intermittently failed. Every time the engineers turn up, by a miracle we are getting great connection speeds. As soon as they leave it drops again.

But maybe not, today an engineer is due and the interweb is barely connected. Maybe this time the errant connector will be found. Or maybe not.

This is better now we resolved the total outage of yesterday. The net went down fully, no connection at all. Gwion meanwhile was saying nothing, normally he will get out of his room to investigate if the net fails. But of course his ADSL lead was connected and the web working. Investigations and it turned out the wifi was down, all on it's own with no help. No amount of button prodding and re starts would persuade it to come back on  so eventually hard wire the lap top to the modem, get inside it's operating system and make it work again. Very weird, how did that happen? Much much later out the kitchen again, Mau Mau the cat has found a nice new warm place to sit......

And now for the update, Open Reach have found that a section of overhead cable is faulty and a line crew will have to turn out to replace about 5 sections of line. Hmmmm did I say something like that when one section of the line snapped in September, not this September of course the September before that.  Mau Mau might as well make the router her permanent seat, then at least someone will be getting some use out of it.

the holiday of a lifetime part the last...

Came the morning and we were off again. Out of bed into the chilly October air, quick fry up, and ready to go. It was as well we got a proper start to the day.

 Le Patron and his henchman were taking us to the VW dealer, for the money, I had assumed a recovery truck or maybe a suspended tow going to happen. Silly mistake, a small peugeot van and a bit of rope arrived. Fortunately, the trip was short, otherwise the terror,knowing that there was no power assistance on the steering or brakes, might have caused a bathroom moment.

 So by the time we got to the VW agent we were looking a little wild and windswept. Hardly the sorts you might have wanted at a very posh upmarket mainly Audi dealership. Their service manager was immaculate and consummately professional, looking disdainfully at Newton the transporter he regretted that none of his technicians (no mechanics here) would be able to look at the vehicle that day but they "might" have a slot on Monday. A "might" Monday had all the utility of a chocolate fireguard so, with the going getting tough, the tough had to get going.

We had, in reality explored a number of contingency plans in the event of us being unable to repair the van. These had included things like herself taking the TGV, abandoning me in the South of France to sort the situation or hiring a car and running for the coast. The idea of traveling the length of France alone appealed to the management not one little bit so option b won out. With a lift provided from Audi Hilton (presumably to get us off the premises) we were soon at the airport where all the car hire people lived. Next a comparative trip from company to company to determine which was offering the best deal. Cheapest was Budget who offered an amazing deal but could not offer us a car, not much use then. A major issue was the distance we wished to cover, taking a car to Roscoff and leaving it there. Most companies included 250km a day, we were proposing 1000 over 2 days. It turned out Avis would do us a package deal with unlimited mileage, that made them the next cheapest they also had a Clio available (which is almost a car) so the deal was done. A set fee, unlimited mileage, away we went heading to the North coast.

 First of course it was back to empty Newton the van. I had, at the back of my mind a bad feeling that I might end up abandoning the van altogether, that it might just be impossible to get the it back. Everything we could remove from the T4 came out. The little Clio was filled, out onto the peyage and away we went. It was mid morning and we set out to make our little house in Brittany by night fall.

This was my first time driving a left hand drive car on the right. Something which would ideally be approached as a little try out run when you are fresh and refreshed. So a 1000 km run with a driver already running on empty, ending in a night drive along narrow lanes was less than ideal. Time has drawn a merciful veil over this trip, but it was with a certain amount of relief that we rolled up outside our little Breton house, opened the doors lit the fire and put the water heater on so we could have a piping hot shower to wash away a couple of days accumulated grime. Surprisingly we woke late next day and had a positively leisurely day.

Setting off mid afternoon for Morlaix to drop the car and catch the train to Roscoff. A hotel in town booked on the recommendation of the lovely staff in the ferry terminal who helped us reschedule our crossing and reserve a cabin. A pleasant evening in Roscoff, some nice beers, being in Brittany we went for a Vietnamese meal, then a quick early morning walk the ferry terminal. A choppy ferry trip home then a lift from Plymouth to Penole from my youngest daughter. Home and time to reflect on the errors of the last fortnight and decide where to go from here.

Leaving the van in a VW main agent could well have been a recipe for a huge bill. Actually, the fault on the van was not serious and a competent mechanic could have sorted it in a few hours. So even at VW rates it should not have been silly money. This of course assumed someone was about to get some spanners out. Days turned to weeks and still nothing from the VW agent. A contact in France agreed to mediate, being more likely to get sense out of the garage. Repeated phone calls produced a whole variety of explanations. None of which made sense.

While all this was going on, there came a surprise, a huge additional bill from Avis. Had I not returned the car or something?? No, Avis, despite having said otherwise had hit us with a huge bill for mileage. First step try to reverse the payment, the bank said no. Next step complain. This is obviously a standing scam for Avis, they had a slick set of prepared emails which ended up with one that included the "contract" we had signed at the car hire place. This contract was in English, unlike the one I had a copy of, it also didn't have a signature on it!! Requests for copies of the signed contract fell on deaf years. This is obviously a company to steer clear of, or to hire a car off then cancel all transactions the moment the car has left their garage. All in all we got stiffed over by Avis for several hundred pounds, a salutary warning.

While this was all going on, the very future of the van itself was being decided. In many ways it would have been simpler to just walk away, who takes the simplest course every time? With no assistance from the insurance company (complaints procedure ongoing) VW agency busy doing precisely not a lot, and the clock ticking on it was time to look at options. Getting a haulier to remove the truck back to the UK was an option (an expensive option). Repairs in the VW garage were looking less and less likely. There is of course a back story here, the problem with the VW was a failure in the tensioner pulley for the fuel pump drive. It needed a new pulley which would then allow you to set the timing on the fuel pump and the engine would run. Hey ho, a couple of hours work tops. Now, pretty much everyone gets their pulleys made by a big American firm, Gates. So there is someone paid to walk down the production line sticking pulleys in a box with VW written on it. Yet more go out in boxes with Gates written on them. Now, it had come to pass, some months previously that VW had sold the last of their pulleys in boxes with VW written on them and had yet to get round to ordering some more. A VW main agent is not allowed to open boxes with "Gates" written on it, everything they fit must come from a box with "VW" written on it. Anyone who popped their head under Newton's bonnet would immediately spot the problem, causing me to suspect that the myriad tales explaining why the VW garage had done nothing owed a lot to not being able to get the part.

So, it was time to do some serious thinking, by this stage Xmas had been and gone, it was a new year and February was the month. Heading to Merthyr I cadged a lift in a mates VW van which was loaded with tools and spares. Portsmouth was the destination and, at 9 PM one Sunday evening we came ashore in Ouistrheim near Caen. 9 AM next morning, VW Carcasonne opened it's doors and we were there. Out the back, exactly where I had left it stood Newton the T4. Bonnet open and Gerwyn was soon waving spanners at the world. Meanwhile I was inside discussing things with Mr Supersuit the garage manager. He was quite happy for me to take the vehicle, but there was the small matter of a parking fee, 40€ a week parking fee. I responded that, the reason the vehicle was in his parking lot exactly where I had left it owed it's all to inaction on his part and that I was not parting with a bean for parking, but I might charge him vehicle hire. More jolly discussions, supersuit relented, we could have the van with no bill to pay.

Dragging Gerwyn from under the bonnet I suggested we get off the premises before Supersuit changed his mind. Parked on the street outside, a whole 25 minutes spanner waving time later, see if it would start, said Gerwyn, on the button it started. Gerwyn was all for taking it back to the garage to show them it was working, through the showroom window would be ideal... Resisting temptation we set off for Guemene with the chance of a decent nights sleep. Such optimism...

To be fair, the van ran like a rolex, the miles floated by and it was astonishingly frugal too. Something to do with Gerwyns preferred cruising speed being around 60 MPH. Still, the day passed tolerably and by night fall we were in Brittany. Of course if something is going to happen it will happen at night when you are cold, sure enough, we had come off the motorway to find fuel and, the van gave a little splutter then died.

When it comes to breaking down there are places and places. This was smack next to an itinerant camping place, they had clocked the van failing and were on to it like terriers on a rat. People started emerging from all over, the van would probably have been a bare bodyshell in half an hour. Never has a tow rope been attached so quickly, we were out of there in under 4 minutes. Fortunately, I had bought a device called a solo tow which allows you to tow a broken down car like it's a trailer. We stopped up the road an attached that in record time.

A late night nightmare drive up narrow lanes and we were at Guemene for some sleep. Morning dawned and time to investigate, bonnet up and, sure enough yet another tensioner pulley had let go. This was getting tedious... Best get the vehicle back to Wales for serious investigations then. First off a tow up to St Malo, quicker and simpler than calling in the recovery firm. The van had already been booked on as a "large trailer" which was a lot cheaper than booking on as two vans, that's something to note for the future. A quick call was made to the RAC letting them know I would be on the early morning ferry. A quiet night, a decent meal, and a recovery truck waiting in the morning. Vehicle back in Wales and investigations could commence.

The overall issue came all the way back to the mechanic who originally changed the pump belt. For some reason he decided to fit the new camshaft without any oil seals. This had allowed oil to weep out of the cam and on to the nylon adjuster pulley which had broken up causing the problem. Might be an idea to check the rest of his work then. The cam belt was barely hanging on, the water pump,which he assured me was fine,was showing signs of leaking and failure. That was two things that would have potentially destroyed the whole engine. I had a lucky escape,time to take everything off and sort the whole job again from scratch.

I said early on, trying to save money is often a very expensive way of doing a job, how right I was.

Still at least, it's all done now, nearly a year has passed since we set off on that fateful holiday of a lifetime. We have already planned how to mark the anniversary, we are loading the van up, heading for the ferry and going to do it all again. Hopefully it will take less than a year to write that up.

Don't call me grampy....

So yesterday there was a major event in the town next door. Errant builders managed to put a trench through the main power lead supplying half the town. This meant a sudden outbreak of darkness and powerlessness in a household where the step grandchild,  child of Serenity does not go to bed with the light off.

This of course required a night at nanny's, herself being most pleased to come home from uni to find a child just arrived and delighted to see her.

As far as I can see this child knows only one word "Nanny" and has limitless energy which is usually devoted to something she should not really be doing.

The only way we eventually got her to bed was by turning the lights off everywhere else.

She takes up over half the bed, and at least when she fell asleep she stopped talking. Yes she stopped talking and started snoring.

Pity the poor step grandfather, shoved into a miniscule part of the bed, perched trying not to fall out whilst being deafened by snoring at a volume that would have a ZZtop fan complaining at the din.

It was like sleeping in a concrete mixer, that was still running.

Don't call me grampy, grumpy is a far better description.

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)

Plus ca change - or something like that.

Nothing much makes it to these pages these days which is itself a very sad thing. This is not to say that life does not throw up challenges and things of interest. Just that life is not motivating me to write.

Maybe I am getting old, I am into my 6th decade - I still can't really buy that. Last week, on my way to a busy day in university I picked up  this radio 4 piece by someone my age talking about the limitations he faced and about aging. Perhaps it's a mind set, I was feeling a little below par myself I will admit. Leading a security team at a festival, up till  3.30 am chasing drunks round a field takes it out of you a bit, at any age. This age thing is a funny one, I was chasing people round a festival last year, noting that I seemed to have to wait for some of the younger ones to catch up.

Maybe that's just the healthy country lifestyle I lead, seems to conspire to keep me young.

Of course we have considered ending all that, Bethan has finally moved out, gone away with her current boyfriend. This was not a minor project, incredible quantities of gear emerged from her bedroom, it was like emptying the tardis.

But now she's gone and I think it's time we moved too. 

Into the gypsy lifestyle

I suppose it was all my fault. I should never have told Beth about the cheap caravan for sale locally.

We had a caravan years back and it was a jolly little base to use when doing festivals and such like so when I saw a cheapie on facebook I told Beth who went and looked (on Facebook) and pretty much decided to buy without seeing.

So it was that Newton the trusty T4 VW and I set off for a town an hour away. The caravan itself was up a narrow back line and, despite being for sale was surrounded by piles of junk. Climbing over this a cursory glance suggested stuff might be in order, cash changed hands and the fun commenced.

Task one was move the huge piles of junk, task two get the beast out into the lane, now, this should have been the stage where I began to wonder at the wisdom of any of this. 

The caravan was a touch massive and took 3 of us to drag into the lane. Hooked to the van it was a bit of a struggle down what suddenly seemed a lot narrower lane. The 90 degree bend seemed a lot tighter going out too. Just as things were getting really interesting 2 cars arrived, well, got to the top of the lane, saw it was blocked and decided to turn in anyway. 20 minutes of fluent profanity unhitching, heaving, reversing even more profanity and the show was back on the road.

I have driven Newton with over a ton in the back and, it drives pretty well. So about two miles later i knew the brakes on the caravan must be sticking. Pull over and check. Nope, the hand brake was off and the hubs were cool. Must be something else then. Looking at the van properly "something else" struck me, this caravan was positively huge, bigger than the T4 towing it, the brake was  massive size of the van!!

This was reinforced,if such a thing was needed, by my return to the dual carriageway. Eventually the van was coaxed to a speed approaching the national speed limit, then came  a small gust of side wind which normally would hardly cause the VW to flutter. The effect on the wheeled block of flats behind though was pretty spectacular  and set in train a series of lurches and slides that did what hordes of speed cameras have failed to do - reduced my speed below 50 and made pretty sure it stayed  there.

Pengawse hill should have been a real chance to test the stamina of the van, being both very long and very steep. Being stuck behind a tractor helped reduce the possible embarrassment, second gear it was all the way. The back road home was a chance to experience how wide and long the bungalow was and the drive a series of challenges of the getting large vehicles round tight corners and through narrow gaps type.

They say that first impressions count, having been parked for an extended time under a tree at some stage, the bungalow was finished in what might best be described as green slime. Something which  did not endeer itself to the management who was overall less than totally impressed with the new addition. There was a very strong suggestion that the bungalow should be immediately removed to somewhere far away and that management for one had no intentions of sleeping in it - ever.

With that endorsment ringing in my ears it was time to make a detailed examination. So far so good it had things like cookers and fridges and lights and a battery. A washroom and space for a toilet.

It was time to summon the daughter and set her to work. Armed with a bucket of bleach and a pressure washer, she was soon very pleased at the transformation. Serious reversing skills were deployed to get the van, through, what would be a decent gap if the object concerned was not bigger than the house is adjoined. So, the van is now safely parked out of the way down the side of the house, the management is slightly less annoyed and the hard work of sorting the van out can commence.

The festival gypsy lifestyle beckons.

R