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Published: February 27th 2017
Ok - let's do the maths. 63 days and counting . Counting to what - a long four week holiday to Greece. 9 weeks today we will be getting up early. The butterflies and the thumping great elephants charging round our stomachs will have kept us up all night as we lie there waiting for morning knowing we would be on our way in a few hours. By 7 we would have taken Suzy off the drive and would be on our way to our first stop of the day - breakfast , bacon butties and a pot of tea in a motorway service station. 9 weeks easy to count off on your fingers. 8 weekends. 8 Saturdays and 8 Sundays . 14 more working days. Still a lot to do though before we head off for Kent and the Eurotunnel. First task Suzy needed her habitation check completed . This was booked a year ago. The tester would visit us on his way home and do the job. Great idea meaning we don't have a pick a day I am off work., We dont have to drive all the way down to Derby and wait . We don't have to
drive all the way home. He came, he arrived , he opened her up and spent an hour going over her electrics , her Gaslow system, checking for damp leaks and generally giving her a little TLC. We parted with £160 but now with the reassurance that everything inside her was fine , hunky dorey and ready for action. Her damp levels of 14 were well within what he expected for this time of year. It has been a little damp over Winter to say the least. The weather still varying between fine and cold to damp and misty. He offered a full check of her electric circuits but that cost another £200 and to be honest he said very few folks took up the offer due to the high cost. Most of the time nothing goes wrong with the electrics but knowing our luck it probably will go wrong. No Crit Aire arrived yet and we cannot track it as the site does not appear to recognise British registrations. The next job will be a visit to the Fiat garage for her service . That should go well but who knows what they will find for the MOT. We have refused the flushing fluids through the engine as we had those done last year and being truthful mileage per gallon has got worse rather than better. Brake fluids were replaced last year but she might need new brakes and even more antifreeze. The work will probably have to be done at the Fiat garage as we only have four days now until we head for the most Westerley point of our little island. We will never get her booked in to another garage in that time nor will we get time to get her back for the MOT retest so it looks as if she will have to stay at the Riat garage when she goes there whatever happens.
So what of Cornwall? Why Cornwall? Well at time of the year I hope the children have gone back to school. Knowing our luck they wont have. Derbyshire were off last week, Shropshire and Yorkshire this coming week. We have booked a small cottage just outside of Newquay. Newquay because it is on the rugged north coast with beautiful sandy beaches and delightful walks. Newquay because it lies halfway beween Lands End and Tintagel making it easy to traverse the northern half of the county from east to west . Newquay because it lies just a nice distance from the south coast and we can travel from Lands End to the Devon border with impunity. We are not taking Suzy . She is filthy and needs a wash. We have decided not to pay to have her cleaned. we will manage ourselves with long brushes and soapy buckets of water thus saving £90 or so for another adventure . We probably will hate the house but at least we have the car and Sally Sat Nag to guide us on our way. The high hedgerows and the stone walling along the narrow lanes put us off taking Suzy. We will see so much more by car. The journey will take around 6 hours from our neck of the woods depending on traffic along the M1, M42 and M5. We will be well travelled along that road this week as we are off to the CAravan and Motorhome show in Birmingham mid week. I have the National Trust book out and earmarked Trerice a small manor house I visited many years ago in a previous life and on a previous visit to the county. Tucked away in the countryside just outside Newquay it will bring back memories on my kids being young and splitting holidays up into Cornwall in the Spring and Scotland in the Autumn. Sunday Falmouth, Penndennis and St Mawes castles and the river Helford . Memories flood back of old minis with doors and bonnets that did not match, an engine that kept juddering so much it ripped itself out of its engine mountings. A trip up the estuary to Malpas, breaking down in the rain at Gweek when the water split the distributor cap or the spark plugs got too wet and would not fire up. It will feel odd as we travel across Bodmin Moor which will be much changed in the last 30 years to visit Jamaica Inn and Lanhydrock. Across to St Austell and the Eden Project . That was not there the last time I was in Cornwall. Gardens to see at Trellisick and Glendurgan. Trips to St Michaels Mount and Marazion, St Ives with its artists and the Lizard, Portleven and Fowey. We may even get up to Tintagel and Boscastle and down to Plymouth and Truro . But first a trip to the Fiat dealer !!!!
On the way down as I crept inch by inch to Chesterfield I pondered on the news report this morning . Britain has the most crowded roads in Europe . I had that Homer Simpson moment - Doh - how much did it cost to produce that thought provoking comment. I could have told them for nothing . Having travelled virtually empty french autoroutes and driven miles and miles of empty Croatian roads I can say first hand the roads of Europe are far quieter than our roads. Why is this ? Well we are a small island with a lot of people living here. In my childhood families most families travelled by bus or train and did not own a car. If they were lucky enough to be able to afford a car they had one. Now every house has at least two vehicles and many like us have three. No wonder we were crawling at 10 mph to our appointment at the Fiat garage for Suzy's service .
We arrived early and parked up . There were a few parking spots but for some strange reason the large parking slots were taken up with cars so there were few available for a big girl like Suzy. The receptionist was blunt. The guy who booked us in was blunt. It seemed as if everyone had a Monday morning feeling and were venting their frustration out on us. He explained that this was a small service £180 - thankyou. The MOT £37.00 and it would probably not be done by 2pm the time we had requested . AFter a bit of pushing he said he would try for 3. Service takes 2 hours maximum and MOT an hour give or take a few minutes so as we sat at 2 - five hours after taking it in we started to get itchy feet. An hour later and she was done. New oil, sump flushed out, new oil filter and green ticks against everything else . Brakes Ok but she did fail the MOT. Why we wondered? We knew the failure would be on the headlight which seems to have a loose connection. We told them about it and asked them to fix it before the test . So what did they do? Ignore us of course and test it first . Ah the joys of MOT's and services . At least though Suzy is completely roadworthy and will hopefully after a wash and clean up be ready to take us on our journey to Greece. That is once we tax her.
In the meantime still no Crit Aire sticker. 60 days to go - now that sounds much better than 63.
Wednesday D Day minus 58 and counting. Today we decided to take a trip to the Motorhome and Caravan Show at the National Exhibition Centre at Birmingham. Sally Sat Nag was given instructions to take us there but as always she had a mind of her own and all the way there and back we had little idea if she had any clue where she was going. She did however get us to the car park in the end. We had already booked our tickets on line and joined the throngs of folks heading for the exhibition halls. We had mixed feelings about attending as it would be our first visit in over six years. Last time we were here we had not bought Suzy and were perusing all the examples of motorhomes on offer. We did not like the dark wood interiors of the French and German motorhomes. I guess we were rather green at the time. This time we had no intention of buying a new one we were just going round to look and not buy. The halls were buzzing and as we did not want to see inside motorhomes we could not afford we made the conscious decision to walk the perimeters and look at what was on sale . A whole area devoted to park living with bungalows selling for enormous amounts of money. Tents, groundsheets , monkey bikes , electric bikes and everywhere bit of paraphanalia you need for tenting , camping and motorhoming. Caravan movers , the Caravan Club now renamed the Motorhome and Caravan Club, ACSI selling their books . We trundled our way for a coffee before visiting the stalls handing out literature on campsites in both Britain and abroad. Our one and only purchase was a Cadac grill. Always wanted one but never thought I would buy one. On offer we took the plunge and paid our money and in return got the Grill plus a length of orange tubing to attach to the gas bottle when we purchased it and a free pizza stone. Job done it was time to head for lunch . A cavery where the chance to try our five a day was easy .
Saturday – a week in Cornwall or a week in Kernow if you say it in Cornish or Welsh. We got up early having rung our landlady for the week to advise here we would turn up about 5pm. Sally told us it would take almost 8 hours to get down to Cornwall which seemed somewhat excessive. Knowing she is suffering from some malady we took her instructions with a pinch of salt. First stop Tesco to pick up a few groceries and then set off for the M1. Out of Derbyshire quickly and into Nottinghamshire . In a blink of an eye out of Nottinghamshire and back into Derbyshire and all the while Sally Sat Nag told us to exit at the first opportunity as she tried to avoid motorways. She shouted at us all the way down the M1. We ignored her as we knew the route in our heads. Head for the M42 and the signs for the South West . Sally of course knew better and wanted to take us to Solihull , then to Shirley and this nagging continued all the way through Warwickshire and into Gloucestershire . Happily ignoring her we stopped off for a bacon breakfast . We needed something warm as the weather was inclement with the pitter patter of rain constant on the windscreen. The sky leaden and grey with swirling clouds. The only sign of Spring was the white blossom on some unidentifiable tree along the motorway verges. We switched Sally off and dumped her in the glove compartment , walked over to the café and ordered our tea and bacon butty. Fully satiated we headed back and plugged Sally in again. It took a while to warm her up and to get on our way. As if in a fit of pique after a mile Sally shouted “You have reached your destination”. Not quite right we were only on the M5 and had another at least three hours to go. Finally she has flipped her lid and refused to find any route. Relying on our map reading skills we drove past Gloucester, Worcester and the Severn estuary. Bristol to our right and the sea. Through Somerset and Devon , across the Tamar at this point a tiny stream and into Cornwall. The houses started to look Cornish built in flint and with a slate roof , hard and at ease with the elements. They settled in with the landscape as did the churches which although were powerfully built looked quite graceful as if adorned with lacework rather than stone work.
As we were too early to go to Driftwood Cottage we tried to find a Halfords in Bodmin in order to buy a new sat nav. Diversions were in place and we never did find it so Sally was booted up again and finally decided to work. How well remains to be seen. Dinner was spent in Jamaica Inn. The old smugglers inn famed in the book of the same name by Daphne Du Maurier. The inn had not changed a lot since I was last there about 25 years ago. Still dark and forboding, grim and stark built of grey granite. Years ago the road ran right outside and the place felt very remote . Today a new by pass goes bay taking the traffic around the village of Bolventor. The story set in Cornwall in 1820 was inspired by du Maurier's 1930 stay at Jamaica Inn The plot follows a group of murderous wreckers who run ships aground, kill the sailors and steal the cargo.There is a museum on site full of shipwrecking and smuggling items and a room dedicated to Du Maurier. We decided not to visit and instead sat inside close by the log burner drinking our soft drinks and eating soup and salads . Beneath the beams covered in old paper money we mused on what our week would be like without Suzy.
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Home and Away
Bob Carlsen
Thanks for the memories...
We took our kids to Devon and Cornwall for Spring Break in 1993. We rented an apartment in a restore barn. The kids loved to visit with the sheep and llamas. We visited Doone Valley and the church where Lorna Doone was shot by the Carvers...Lorna Doone was one of my favorite books in middle school and our cat is named Lorna Doone. We also visited Tintagel and almost everything else in that area. When Linda and I visit the UK in the next year or so, we want to go back to that area as my ancestors came from Devon. I'll enjoy reading your next installments.