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

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