I haven't blogged for days because it has been so hectic what with parties and leaving meals and all the lovely people being around, not to mention another FULL day packing Thomas and the trailer, but I hadn't forgotten about you so I took some pictures and now, in a monster post, I am going to catch up on everything which happened...
*sound of a tape rewinding at high speed*
Sassy's cage, prepared |
Grumpy Sassy |
Shopping trip |
First of all I decided that the bikes were not going to go on Thomas' roof as I wanted to put the other roof box on there, and just strap the bikes onto Julian's roof. This meant that a load of the lighter boxes (with model aeroplane kits in; oh yes) would go into the roof boxes to keep them light, and I could stuff Thomas with all the heavy stuff like the books and DVDs and this actually worked really well as I put far more stuff in there than I had planned, leaving the trailer AND Julian lighter; success.
The records went in well on the back seat, along with my TV and some large pictures and then I put more and more things in there; a suitcase, a carved thinker statue, various boxes of rubbish and eventually I was struggling to shut the door so I stopped. Literally. It had taken a lot out of me as a lot of the heavy things were in the back and I had been climbing in and out of the truck bed to pack things most efficiently.
Perfect aim (as always) |
I haven't got any pictures of loading the trailer as I've taken them loads already however suffice to say it was a hard task which took most of the afternoon to complete; I did have one unexpected complication which was my whisky cabinet would not fit anywhere so I've had to take it apart; not the end of the world but a little frustrating.
On the roof, like a boss |
The bikes are securely secured |
Finally for my packing (and this was about 6pm and people had already arrived for my party!) I fitted the roof box to Thomas, and also locked the ladder onto him, and then filled the roof box with toy planes and other assorted stuff. At this time I finally gave in and went and freshened up, changed and grabbed a beer.
From this point on it all gets a bit hazy, as I'm sure you can understand. I have a selection of photographs below taken by myself and others who made it to the party, but I can remember dancing a lot, running around and talking to loads of people, feeling really amazed at how many and who had turned up, and drinking lots of beer and whisky.
Drunken dancing |
Me with two of the twitterati |
There is whisky in the cup; honest |
Me with the sharpest dressed man in the room |
Is THIS the best selfie EVAH |
Smooth dancing skills |
Only I am looking at the correct camera |
Ooops I bombed it |
I'm gonna miss this man |
Saturday had been put aside as a rest and recovery day and (my mate did loads and) I did a desultory bit of tidying before Dan turned up and, muttering a lot, proceeded to finish off the task for me. He is likely to never let me forget that he had to tidy up after my leaving do; I just think he's probably so happy to get rid of me the pain of having to do it will pass quickly.
T and J jamming away |
One of my other best mates turned up a little later and we had a great afternoon of jamming and chatting and a few more people came past and before you knew it the time had come to head over to Tiramisu, my favourite restaurant in Blackpool, for my leaving meal with family and much loved ones.
The end of the leaving meal |
This was a really lovely occasion; the food was excellent as always and my favourite waiter was on form as always. All in all the evening rounded off what has been a wonderful few days of friends and fun. There are few things I will miss about England; the main one is the people around me who have proven themselves over and over to be wonderful people.
When I eventually got to try and sleep in Julian I was disturbed by Sassy. It was mainly my fault as I felt bad having left her in the cage all that time and I decided to let her out. First of all I had to construct a barrier so she couldn't get into the cabin and this required getting the screwdriver out. Then she went straight under the table and I remembered there was a power cable so I walled that off but as I was doing it I saw that in the 30 seconds she'd been under there she had used it for her toilet; the only carpet in the entire camper! Typical. So I was there cleaning that mess up. After all this, and about 30 mins of laying in the bed panicking she had jumped into the drivers seat area I got up, put her in her cage, and fell straight to sleep.
And so we get to today (what a crazy long blog; I'm sorry I'll keep them shorter from now on....)
I woke at 7am with the alarm and dragged myself pretty quickly out of bed and got on with the tasks I had to do. These were pretty basic such as gather the gifts I had been given the night before and stash them, split the bacon up into the takeaway boxes one per day and update the sat nav with the latest maps. Oh, and pay myself so some of this may actually happen.
Super pump in action |
I pulled Thomas and the trailer out of his parking space, and swung Julian round next to him, so we were fully ready for leaving and then got the pump out of the Laycorn box and put air in a few of the tyres which were a little low.
Here we go, here we go... here we GOOO!! |
Almost before you knew it the time for leaving was upon us (dead on 10, as you'll know that was when my count down timer stopped) and Dan had turned up by this time so we had a little staged "waving as we drive" picture and then, after making them stand around until exactly the right time, we started our drive.
This was largely uneventful and we got to the first driver change over point without any real problems. That is, until I tried to stop Julian and found that he would not slow down easily. I had to stand on the breaks to stop him and then the engine revved alarmingly when I put him in neutral. Hmmmmm. I got a little confused and thought that my parents were ready to head off again after our brief stop and started him up and once again he revved massively high so I threw him into gear and lurched off... leaving my dad stood wondering what was going on and waiting for my mum to get back from wherever she had gone.
After a few miles of chatting about the symptoms I decided to stop him on the hard shoulder and check if the accelerator throttle was sticky; cjc concurred and so we did. This would also have the benefit of giving my parents time to catch up. First of all I got my hands dirty fiddling with leaving and pullies in the engine and I found the problem, squirted WD40 all over as much of the assembly as I could, and started him up again; he was not over revving. Success. And the parents had pulled up behind us.
At the next stop I was slightly worried again about the revving issue however he was good as gold and actually hasn't exhibited this problem since. I think I can put that one down as an "I fixed a car by the side of the road" moment.
An old man being overtaken by a bearded man |
We are not moving fast; 50mph is about top speed (and the trailer is only rated to that anyway) so we were much amused to overtake a car on the motorway. Not the slowest moving vehicle (by much anyway).
We arrived in Birmingham and had some food and then it was time for cjc to go get a train and leave us to continue this journey on our own. It was so lovely to have him join us though and I am pleased we worked it out like that.
Sassy, this evening |
And so you find me, now sat in the dark with the lights on in the back of Julian, Sassy stretched out on the floor under my legs (and hopefully less sulky) and about 10 minutes away from collapsing into bed; it's an early start tomorrow; 5am probably so we can get on the road and make Oxford before the rush hour gets bad. Ferry from Dover to Calais and another few hours driving on that side of the channel and I'll be back on your screen, typing like mad and watching the batteries diminish.
It is so exciting to finally be on my way, and to have had such a lovely first day with gorgeous weather and good company. Tomorrow we start into our standard seating of me driving Julian, and my parents alternating between driving Thomas, and sitting in with me.
Night night all, I'm shattered.
Can you give us a map, day by day, of your travels and progress, or is that grossly impractical while travelling?
ReplyDeleteSeeing a graphic of the journey would be pretty cool.
That would be really tough; if I had thought I would have set my phone to recording, or something, and output that... I've put the location at the end of the day, and the total miles done, at the top of the blogs tho.... to help with that :)
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