Then the fun began - or did it?

THEN THE FUN BEGAN – along with our new life.   

          

2.30pm - Jan the Van was now packed full to the gunnels – having emptied all our worldly belongings into him all the cupboards were jam packed with supplies – for some reason we seem to have stocked up on 800 poo bags.  Now I know that the  dog is a real sausage maker but 800?  We will find shops on our travels you know.

Jan hadn’t been anywhere for about 4 weeks so it was hope against hope that he would start. No worries he has an emergency start off the leisure batteries if he’s not playing. 

So positioned in the driver’s seat I turned the key and after a bit of a cough and a splutter – eureka -  he fired into action.  Now the sound of a 6.8litre V10 engine starting up is a sound to behold.

Then I had to manoeuver getting off the drive – and the last thing you want to do is to crunch the van just as you are beginning your new adventure - we did that once with Vanessa just as we were leaving for a 2 week holiday.  It was raining and very overcast so getting darker and very difficult to see in the mirrors and so they needed to be wiped. 

Then just as I was pulling away……………….  WAIT – came the cry from Mr A Right. What’s wrong I cried - I had already checked that we were not still hooked up -  to find that  the step had not retracted.

1.       I wouldn’t have much space to get through the gates.

2.       You can’t drive around with the step out –it’s a real hazard - we had to do something.

Well what we used to do with Vanessa when the step got stuck was to give it a good kick!!!! So with a lot of brute force Mr Right connected boot on step and …………………….. nothing, not a twitch.  A few more tries and …………….. still nothing.

Time was getting on – the darkness was soon to be upon us and it was still raining. Funnily enough Mr Right always seems to be the one outside when it's raining.

Then we tried the internal lights and they didn’t work either – a sudden realisation dawned – the leisure batteries were flat and must be dud because we’d been on hookup.  

Thank goodness:-

1.       We weren’t planning to go wild camping tonight

2.       We were having the van serviced tomorrow

3.       It happened now and not in 4 weeks time.

Mr Right, who might be a pen-pusher but is actually quite practical, scratched his head and then decided to put the generator on – now that’s something that we don’t do very often.  So again a bit of a cough and a splutter and the generator kicked into life. At least that gave us enough power to retract the step and get on our way.  Phew!!!!! All was not lost and we didn't have to find somewhere local to stay for the night.

Just over an hour later we arrived at Briarfields campsite and “hooked up”.

As we sat down we both looked at each other and said “Well we’ve done it now!!!!” We thought of cracking open a bottle of Champagne that we had brought with us to celebrate the first night of our new lives and then suddenly realised that that might be a bit dangerous as we’d just shaken it up for 60 miles.

So we settled on a bottle of red wine instead.