There Are A Few Things That Need Doing First

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Indeed, there were a few things that needed doing before D & A could truly hit the road.

In no particular order:

- MOT: Motor vehicles in the UK are required to undergo an inspection at least once a year call the MOT test (short for Ministry of Transport D suspects). The motorhome was due for one or so D thought. It was actually overdue for one.

- D & A wanted to visit A's nephew Haley who is attending graduate school in London.

- D wanted to purchase a new GPS device or Sat Nav as they are called in the UK. The Garmin device they brought from home the previous year had on occasion taken them into some bottle necks in which the street, buildings and bridges formed the bottle neck and their motorhome formed the stuck cork. D had thought he'd found on the web another Sat Nav that promised to avoid repeat cork performances.

- D wanted to pick up a Mifi modem to use with both their notebook computers to allow pay as you go cellular broadband connection.

- D & A want to have some storage boxes added onto the exterior of the motorhome and to replace the cushions and upholstery. D found a couple of businesses on the web that are said to do those kinds of jobs well at not too exorbitant a price. They need to try to set up appointments.

D had it in his mind that these things could be accomplished in short order, may be a week at most. His dealer had offered to set up an MOT appointment in Essex almost two weeks away. Driving the M25 back to Essex wasn't attractive to him. He thought he should be able to get an MOT done closer to Chertsey in shorter time. He asked at the campground office and they didn't know but suggested he ask at the car dealer next door. The car dealer suggested a couple of places but in the end, none of them had a lift that could handle the motorhome's 3.5 ton weight. Finally, D tried the Yellow Pages and found two places that could do it. One was a Fiat dealer who would charge a top price and the other was a small truck repair shop a few blocks away in Chertsey that promised to be cheaper than the Fiat Dealer. The Dealer couldn't do it for two weeks but the local guy could do it in a week and a half. D booked an appointment at the local shop.

D & A found a Currys/PC World shop that seemed to carry both the Snooper Sat Nav and the Mifi modem. However, this particular shop could only sell them the Mifi modem but they directed them to another of their shops in New Malden about 40 minutes away. So, we took a drive up the A3 to New Malden where we were able to buy the Snooper.

The new Snooper Sat Nav (as in satellite navigation) enabled them to input the dimensions and weight of their motorhome and hopefully avoid getting stuck blocking traffic at the entrance to a too narrow single lane bridge as they had south of Glasgow the previous year. It works.

The Mifi required them to set up an account with Three, a cell phone service provider in the UK. D already had a visa debit card account with HSBC in the UK. He assumed that their card would suffice for Three. However, when they had returned home to Canada the previous year, they changed the address on that account to their Canadian address. Three's computer didn't like that. So, D &A changed the address on the account back to their UK address and waited for the address change to filter its way through the banking system. Eventually it did and they were soon e-mailing and surfing like all get out.

They took a long walk to the Weybridge train station and from there trained into London. A's hip had begun to really bother her and they bought a folding cane which seemed to help her considerably. Upon return train trip, they determined that with schedule in hand, they could coordinate their timing to catch a train from Weybridge into Chertsey and have a much shorter walk back to the camp ground.

This made the next trip into London much easier when they met up with A's nephew who's at graduate school there. He hoped to bring us to his favourite pub that also serves Thai food but by the time we got there dinner was no longer being served. We took a bit of a walk about and found quite a good Chinese restaurant. It was the best restaurant meal we'd had since arriving.

D contacted the companies that could do the cushions/upholstery and the storage boxes for the motorhome. The upholstery place was farther north near Leeds and they couldn't fit us in for quite some time. So, we made an appointment to have the work done at the end of October. The storage box place was in Cornwall and they could fit us in sooner. So, we booked an appointment for the 2nd of September.

D cleaned up their bikes and got them in running order. They offered A's bike to Haley who accepted it. Next they had to determine how to get the bike to him in the East End of London. They learned that they could take the bike on the train but weren't keen on riding it through the streets of London. Haley found that some of the Underground lines in London allow the transport of bikes and the one that stops closest to his home is on one of those lines. It was a bit odd for them carrying the bike up and down stairs as well as on the train in the Underground but they and bike got to Haley safe and sound.

Finally, they drove the van to get its MOT. The Sat Nav told them they were there when they hadn't even noticed the lane. It looked more like a driveway. Having gotten themselves in a pickle with the van on several occasions the previous year, they decided not to blindly drive into the lane but rather to park outside and explore the lane on foot. Indeed the shop was located down that lane along with many other businesses. They brought the van in and had a full service including tire rotation done in addition to the MOT.

It was ready by the end of the day and they were ready to continue on their trip in a bit more than two weeks rather than the one week D had hoped for.

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Photos

Chertsey
Just up the street from the campground.

Chertsey
People seem to be fairly well off around here. There are lots of nice houses.

London
Once you've learned how to read the train schedule, getting into London & back from Chertsey is relatively painless.

Golden Jubilee Bridge, London
Walking over the River Thames from Waterloo Station

Free/Rental Bikes
Based on hardware used in a similar system in Montreal, once you have an account, you can take a bike for free on short trips and at quite reasonable cost for longer periods.

A's Nephew, Haley
Like most students, he seemed to be happy for a visit and particularly happy to show us to a good restaurant.

A's Raleigh 3 Speed
Cleaned up the bikes and got them ready to roll.

Truck Repair Entrance 1
The Sat Nav took them to this lane but D was hesitant to drive down it.

Truck Repair Entrance 2
He dropped A off and parked the motorhome in order to scout out the possibility of turning around once committed.

MOT
Passed with flying colours.