After leaving Mini Hollywood (see previous blog), we head off towards our next destinations – Barcelona and Figueres, mainly because I want to do some arty stuff, and see lots of Gaudi and Dali. About halfway there, we find an Aire on the spectacular Delta de l’Ebre, near Amposta. This sweet little nature reserve contains a spit of sandy beach cradling a lagoon, and a series of wild fowl breeding lakes surrounded by reclaimed land that was used for growing rice. The reed beds, paddy fields, duck population, and river estuary produced a unique and sustainable way of life that had flourished for centuries.
But now it is mostly home to thousands of flamingos. Oh yes.
I love it because I’ve only ever seen them in zoos, and a flamingo in flight is a glorious thing. For starters, they have the most vibrant salmon pink armpits, and you see stripes of white, black and rich pink as they soar above you. Plus, they make an almost perfect X shape. Don’t know why that’s cool; it just is. And lastly, they can’t always be bothered to straighten their long necks, so they flap along looking like they’ve swallowed a bent coat hanger. Great big pink comedy birds. Brilliant.
We see Marsh Harriers, Kingfishers, Purple Herons and loads more that we can’t identify because they are chased away by the Marsh Harriers. And if it isn’t perfect enough, the view out of our front window was of a small pond called El Clot. I’m not making this up.
But, in the middle of this idyll, we get the news that our lovely brother-in-law, Nigel, has been rushed to hospital, and it is serious. Very serious. Within a few days it becomes clear that there is little-to-no hope for a positive outcome, so we pack up and start driving home as fast as we can. Heart-breaking.
The Mistral
We rush around Barcelona, chug through The Pyrenees, shoot off up into France, and end up at another Aire – this time not so picturesque. It is located in the car park of a run-down looking café, and run by a smiley, smelly, old, drunk gentleman, who lives in a caravan in the corner. He only lets us have ten minutes worth of water, and then invites himself to coffee with us when we go to breakfast in the caff.
The next day we make an early start for Toulouse. Although the wind has been picking up, and the land is very flat, the forecast has said that it will become tornado-strength if we stay where we are, whilst Toulouse is predicted to be calmer.
Now, I remember learning about the Mistral in Geography, when I was at school a million years ago. I vaguely recall something about a devil of a wind that hurtles up through France every spring, but I paid scant attention.
At the time, it honestly never crossed my mind that anything I learnt then had any relevance to my life, devoid as it was of subjects such as: How to date Donny Osmond.
But we’ve hardly gone ten miles when, simultaneously, Steve hears a banging noise, and I – driving behind in Nibbles – see something swinging out from Georgie’s left side. It appears that the awning that tops the slide-out has become loose, so we pull in as quickly as possible…
…and jump out into 100kph winds…
…to find the awning has broken free of it’s fixings at the front and is flailing around like an octopus in a horror film.
It slams up onto the roof, and back out into the traffic as we try to grab it, and we see that it has already started to tear. The fixings are broken and scattered across the road: we have no choice but to try to rip it off in one piece, and stow it in the van.
I spend the rest of the journey tripping over the damn thing, as it is bungeed to the table leg to stop it rolling around when we drive.
The slam on the roof has also dislodged the grill from the air-conditioner, but that is a problem for later. Right now, the difficulty is staying on the road and in one piece. We put everything heavy we can find into Nibbles’ boot to give me more stability, but nothing can stop the wind from opening the front outside locker on the RV every half a mile or so. This journey takes a long time. A really, really long time.
But we get to Toulouse in one piece and the wind lessens enough for the rain to start tipping down and pouring through the broken air-conditioning unit. That slam on the roof has smashed the plastic cover to pieces. It is not safe for anyone to go up there (even if we aren’t both really bad with heights, which, obviously, we are), so we put out a bucket and go to bed.
For the following days we just drive up towards Calais to the Eurotunnel, which is a brilliant way to travel quickly, and is cheaper than the ferries. The queues are quite small, so I end up shunted onto an earlier one in Nibbles, then have to hang around and wait for Steve to show up in Georgie. I get a bit panicky, thinking I’ve missed him. Plus, this driving on the left-hand side of the road thing suddenly feels a bit weird.
DIY
Sadly, by then, our brother-in-law has passed away, painlessly at least. So we go back to the site we’ve stayed at previously, in Sevenoaks, and visit Steve’s sister, to see if we can help.
Awnings
We still have the problem of the broken awning, and there happens to be a Caravan and Camping Show over the weekend. What better place to go for help and advice about getting a new one? But the advice is that you can’t, really. Have to get them sent in from the States.
So plan B is this – Steve thinks that we may have enough material left in the original to re-attach it if we are careful. And buy the right glue. Or tape. Or both.
If there’s one thing that we can rely in in this life, it’s that as soon as Steve starts messing around with tools, blokes start gathering. There are always blokes on campsites with little else to do. Blokes who no longer have a garage, or a garden shed. Blokes who like being useful.
And in the caravan next door to us are Andy and Jo, and their little daughter, Caleesie. Not surprisingly, it takes no time at all before Andy is happily roped in to help us fix the awnings.
Notice I said ‘awnings’, plural. Because of course, our other awning has a broken piece too – it nearly took out our friend, Phil’s, shoulder when it snapped in Seville. But now we have a predictable address, and so the postman keeps turning up with replacement grommets of metal, and new, unbroken and un-leaky bathroom sink taps, and pneumatic bed struts.
I glue and tape the old awning over the rubber ‘piping’ while the guys fill holes, re-drill them and reconnect the holdings for the awning. Steve has found a place in Seal that sells us new metal rods with freshly drilled holes, at a charge of only £28. If you add in the cost of the tape, glue, and the pop-riveter, then the whole lot comes to under £60, which is fantastic when compared to the £800 it would have cost us to get a replacement.
Then Andy and Jo have to up sticks and move to another pitch on site, so it is left to me to help Steve put the awning back in place. This means spending a whole day on the roof, half of it hanging over the side supporting the weight of a very heavy pole and awning. I am so effing proud of myself – I even do pop-riveting (new skill)! Then we have to re-tension the other awning, and I’m making this sound much easier than it is.
Solar Panels
By now we’ve said goodbye to our lovely Nigel at one of the most moving funerals I have ever been to (I’m not going to talk about it), caught up with the grandkids, and moved on to a site near Henley on Thames.
It is a beautiful site, right by the river, and we are a given a fully serviced pitch. This means that we have electricity, and a constant water supply, PLUS we don’t have to move the van to empty our tanks – we can just drop a hose down the hole and let it drain out, as and when. Luxury.
I spend another day on the roof, this time with Steve, sticking down our swanky solar panels. So when my brother in law comes to visit, there is Steve with his tool box out again. Adam (being a bloke, and therefore strongly magnetised towards Steve’s toolbox) has a lovely day helping him sort out all the wiring.
We meet a delightful couple called Les and Christine, who tell us stories about meeting their dads, for pretty much the first time, after the war.
Les hadn’t seen his for seven years, and was not best pleased when this stranger appeared and ousted him from his place in the double bed with his mum. On a crowded bus he loudly demanded to know, ‘Mum, is that soldier gonna be sleeping in your bed again tonight?’ To which his mother, much to the disbelief of all the other passengers, hissed, ‘He is not a soldier: he is an Airman, and he is your father.’
Christine said she hadn’t seen her father since she was a toddler, with a gap between her two front teeth. One day, she saw a guy with a limp and a stick walking past her on her way to school, but she didn’t like the look of him so she gave him a wide berth. As the family had recently been re-housed, the man took one look at the young girl, recognised her tooth-gap and called after her, ‘Oi, Christine – where does your mammy live?’ Terrified, she yelled, ‘Down there’, and scarpered. Later, she said, ‘Mammy was nowhere to be seen and the bedroom door was locked.’
Bed struts
However, not all our DIY has been quite so successful. For instance, before we left the UK the first time, we bought a newish mattress on Ebay. It is slightly longer, and certainly heavier, than the old one, so the gas-filled bed struts that raise the bed base have slowly given up the ghost. Steve orders new ones, but when they arrive the fixings are different.
So, we buy wood. Cut and glue it. Drill holes. Buy bolts. Eventually fit new struts. Then find out that Steve appears to have had a brain-fart and bought ones that would lift Georgie, let alone our bed. After several hours spent sweating away in a confined space (and not in a good way), we realise we don’t have the combined weight or strength to push the bed base down. An elephant sitting on our bed might‘ve just about managed it, but it would’ve needed to be a real porker.
So, we start again. Undo the lot. Order the correct ones. Search for the pieces that belonged to the first struts. Panic because Steve thinks he’s thrown them away.
And this time I leave Steve to fit the new ones. I’ve had enough.
There then ensues a lot of huffing and puffing and swearing, so I go to investigate. Steve has decided to save time fitting the new parts by holding up the entire weight of the bed and base …. on his head.
He is starting to complain about his back hurting, so I ask him why he hasn’t removed the heavy mattress first? He says, and I quote, ‘You don’t really understand men, do you?’
Windows
And on to Stafford, where there is Kevin: the only chap in the UK who can sort out the condensation in our double-glazed windows. Not a big problem, except in the driver and passenger door windows, where this will stop us getting the new MOT.
We park on his driveway, and spent four hours learning how to get the damn things out (saving ourselves £150 per window, but hastening our divorce). And, a few days later, it only takes two and a half hours to learn how to put them back in.
And now we discover that all that time at Henley has caused a toilet blockage. Because, while the ‘water’ was constantly draining, the tissue just sat there and dried out. Consequently, we have a smelly old papier-mâché tissue mountain. Fuck, fucketty fuck.
We fill up the waste tank with water, so that it can slosh around for the whole drive down to Bath, loosening … things, but leaving the most God-awful smell (words can’t describe). And that’s when the family come to visit.
. . . . . . . . . .
When people ask me, ‘Are you having wonderful adventures?’ (which they do, by the way – quite a lot), I say, ‘Yes’. Despite the certain knowledge that what they mean by ‘adventure’ and what I am discovering it means are poles apart.
Have I ticked any of the great wonders of the world off my bucket list? No.
Have I been to truly awesome, and unexplored, places? No.
But can I pop-rivet, conquer my fear of heights, re-fit an RV window and take dodgy toilets in my stride? Hell, yes.
Life skills, baby, life skills. Just not necessarily aspirational ones.
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