Pinch and a punch, the first of the month. White rabbits, and other nonsensical phrases.
We didn’t get to use Guillaume last year. I did have to tow him up to the midlands for his first annual service but that was the extent of his travels and my practice. It went well and then he sat in his field under cover until this week.
With Covid-19 restrictions relaxed enough for campsites to reopen, we’d managed to get 10 days booked in one of my favourite sites on the Norfolk Broads. With some trepidation, I uncovered Guillaume and dragged him out of his field and round to our place for spring clean. This went without a hitch. Well, there was one hitch – I had to hitch Guillaume up to the car, of course. 😀
Having been covered up for the better part of 18 months, Guillaume was in pretty good shape. I amused a few neighbours by driving him into his parking bay solo on the electric mover. The young lad next door missed the performance but was told. He didn’t understand the concept of a mover. I was expecting an audience when the time came to hitch up and move off.
We’ve had this van for two years; used it for one and mothballed it for another. We weren’t experts anyway but trying to remember how it functioned was now something of a struggle. I finally figured out the switches which, incidentally, are unilluminated push buttons, so modern that you can’t tell if they’re on of off. A good old fashioned rocker switch with an on position and an off position is much more obvious. As to driving the heating system, which, given this incessant freezing northerly wind we were bound to need, is another issue. We’ll figure it out.
D-Day: Departure Day. We can’t get into the campsite before 13:00 so I wanted to set sail at 10:00. We were ready way before 10:00 and dangled around thumb-twiddling, waiting to wait, until time moved on.
At 09:45 I went out and began readying Guillaume for travel. My audience appeared so, somewhat unnecessarily, I used the mover to hitch him up to the car. Test lights, adjust towing mirrors, and set sail at 10:00.
At 10:10, for some unaccountable reason, I realized that I’d left my wallet in the house. “Bother”, said Pooh, very crossly. What a complete and utter plonker – all that time in hand and I didn’t even think of my wallet. With a caravan in tow, this is a major cock-up; ya don’t just pop back easily. I spun around a roundabout and returned – not to our road, ‘cos it’s a dead end and I couldn’t drop a U-turn with the van on the back. No, I got somewhere close, parked and kicked Francine out of the car to retrieve the naughty wallet.
At 10:30, complete with retrieved wallet, we hit the road to try again.
I told you this was straining the poor old memory.
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