Out of the frying pan and into the freezer
Sunday, February 24
Terraced house, Knowle, Bristol Well, so much for our bid to be the next great explorers. A sharp blast of air has damaged us irreparably and we currently find ourselves stranded in Bristol, too terrified to move in case the ‘Beast from the East’ bites us on the bum. By rights, we should be celebrating with our grand-daughter about now, singing happy birthday, blowing out the six candles on her cake and romping on a bouncy castle in the bright sunshine. After all, it is Spring isn’t it? Instead, the van is frozen solid and any hopes of moving anywhere while the Met Office’s ominous warnings are in force have disappeared. And, with the blizzard raging outside, it was hard not to recall poor Captain Oates’ famous words as he wandered off into the Antarctic wilderness. “We may be some time,” we told Grace over the internet, as we broke the news we probably wouldn’t make her much-anticipated party. Still, there is a delicious upside to this sorry situation. Our youngest son’s new house was always intended to be our first stop after returning to the UK. “But you’re only staying a couple of nights, aren’t you?” he pleaded, clearly anxious we didn’t cramp the slightly ‘boho’ style he and his partner have created there. “Oh yes,” we said. “Just a couple of nights and we’ll be on our way.” Eight nights later, we’re still here... eating OUR way through HIS fridge, dropping MY dirty underwear on HIS spare bedroom carpet, leaving MY wet towels on HIS bathroom floor and dumping OUR grubby crockery by HIS sink. So far, he’s been too polite to complain but I know it’s only a matter of time before he draws himself up to his full height, sits me down and reads me the riot act: “You can’t treat this place like a doss-house,” he’ll say. “You’ve got to stick to our rules while you’re under our roof. And do you really need the heating on all day while you’re sat around doing nothing and we’re hard at work?” To be fair, we haven’t been sitting around doing nothing. There’s a very useful little shopping centre just around the corner and we’ve been doing the usual parenting thing – popping in there every five minutes to Wilko to buy them some of the essentials of new home ownership, like a set of Allen keys, a radiator bleeder, new toilet seats and extension leads, while Jane has been busy frantically taking up three pairs of curtains. We’ve cooked meals for them, cleaned their windows and even bought him a week’s worth of white work shirts from Primark after we did a load of their washing and found his collars an unsavoury shade of yellow! All this upheaval in our lives – and theirs, of course – have come about because of two things: our decision to go travelling but, more pertinently, rendering ourselves effectively homeless by renting out our house. While the weather is fine, the van is perfectly suitable (until we can get back to the sunnier climes of Europe in early April). But while it’s bitterly cold and we’re snowbound all we can do is foist ourselves on our lovely friends and family. But we wouldn’t dream of staying longer than a couple of days in normal circumstances. Any longer than that and I tend to make myself too comfortable... wandering around the place in my underwear and ordering a new TV package. Now, more than ever, we want the comfort and security of four walls and a roof around us; we want control of the thermostat; we want to look at a bottle of wine in the fridge and not wonder if they’ll notice if we have a little glass while they’re out. Above all, we want to get to one little girl’s sixth birthday party! Mercifully, as the snow finally abated, we braved the elements and borrowed our car from Joseph and Georgia, and headed over the bridge to Wales for an impromptu party for our Grace. Seeing the smile on her face as we walked in was worth all the waiting and effort. As a bonus, we managed to squeeze in enough time to see Marianne – last seen in Tossa de Mar – and Kathy and Jeff, our camping buddies we last met on the Ile de Re. Monday, March 5 Stapleford, Nottinghamshire It was always our intention to have a week visiting friends and family in Derby and – slightly delayed – we eventually got back 'home' after eight days and nights with Joseph. First stop was Jane's dad Tony and his wife Kath in Stapleford. Getting there meant an easy drive up the M5 and the M42/M1 before we reached them early afternoon. After that, we spent Tuesday shopping and exploring Derby, including a lovely tapas-style lunch at the former Royal Standard pub on Exeter Bridge, before we moved on to our next 'home' at our good friends Dave and Celia, in Allestree. By now, we were getting used to being pampered and repeating our stories of Europe and the characters we'd met on the road. After two nights in Allestree, we moved up the A6 to two more good friends, Mandy and Chris in Belper. The first night, Thursday, was spent catching up with Jane's old work friends from Derby, at a great Chinese restaurant in Belper. On Friday, after a walk around this fine old mill town, we hit the bars proper, enjoying an early evening meal at the Lion hotel before heading across the road to the George and Dragon where we caught local band Weathered Eye in action. The lead singer, a cross between Arthur Brown and Iggy Pop, may never see 60 again but he was quite magnificent and their closing number, AC-DC's Highway to Hell, brought the house down. On Saturday, the boozing down memory lane continued as Jane enjoyed a family reunion in Derby and I caught up with three old friends for a pub crawl in Duffield. Rather belatedly, we realised it was the first night we'd slept apart in more than a year. Sunday, March 11 Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan Now we were home… almost. The Muses, Kathy and Jeff (see above), had kindly offered to put us up for the night and feed us, too. And, as they also have a drive that can accommodate the van, we had somewhere off-road to park it. On the Sunday, while Jane and Kathy gossiped freely without the blokes, we joined Marianne at the Barry quiz, the one I’m now setting the questions for. It was odd to be sat on the side, watching my old team-mates answering questions that I’d put together, questions that I’d tried to make as tough and impenetrable as the former setter. Funny, they seemed to be a lot easier than I remember! Monday, March 12 Sully, Vale of Glamorgan Thanks to the boundless kindness of a very good friend in Sully, we had a base from which to do what seemed like mountains of admin. She was heading to India for a fortnight and had offered her house for us to live in while she was away. This enabled us to complete all our necessary end-of-year tasks in a lot of comfort. So, in the weeks leading up to Easter, we had medical and dental check-ups, saw the optician and the bank, liaised with our lettings agency regarding the house – all the more important as our tenant gave notice just as we arrived back in South Wales. We also had the van MoT’d and, with some trepidation, took it to our favourite caravan mechanic Byron in Pontyclun for its annual habitation service. It went in on Wednesday, March 21 with a whole raft of problems, the most serious being the water and space heater which was refusing to work on the electric hook-up. By the following Monday, it still wasn’t ready and the heater’s issues had multiplied from what we hoped was a problem with the fuse to its eventual diagnosis of it needing new elements. All this meant that our plan to collect the van on Maundy Thursday and for us to give our friend her space back after her return from India the previous day looked precarious… at least from our perspective. Wednesday, March 28 Sully, Vale of Glamorgan We now find ourselves in a bit of a pickle. The van is back with us, while Byron waits for the critical part. This has allowed us to have the van itself (as opposed to the habitation) serviced and MoT’d. Fingers crossed this all goes well! The quandary now is that if the part arrives before Friday – Easter chaos permitting – Byron can have the van in then and get it back to us on Sunday, allowing us to get back on the road and see a bit of Britain. If the part doesn’t arrive, the van can’t be fixed until the week after Easter, after Byron gets back from his post-Easter break in Benidorm! In some ways, that’s the better option because the van is perfectly habitable now (everything works on gas) and we can plan a repair that suits us and Byron, who can do it when he’s not so busy. But if he does it over the Easter weekend, where do we live in the meantime? Will our friend – currently in the air on the way back from India – let us continue to squat under her roof? All of a sudden, the reasoning of people who continue to keep a property in the UK while they’re gallivanting around Europe looks eminently sensible. To keep our mind off the van’s worries, and our own predicament, we’ve been living a life that’s as close to our normal Sully existence as possible… catching up with friends, playing a bit of tennis, going to the local weekly pub quiz and hauling ourselves around M&S. While fun and fulfilling, it has had one unintended consequence – scratching the friends and family itch while, at the same time, getting us ready for another year back on the road. |
Top, the motorhome stranded in the snow in Bristol and, above, Jane taking up curtains at Joseph and Georgia's house in Knowle. Below, the party for Grace that we were finally able to make
Mmmm, delicious: our beer tasting platter, plus cheese and ploughman's pie, at the Derby Tap (formerly the Royal Standard) in Derby
Jane and her pals enjoying the atmosphere during a night at a Chinese restaurant in Belper. Below, the van stranded in the snow again, this time in Sully which was badly hit twice by the 'Beast from the East'
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