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Pusser · Last edited by Pusser on Sat Jun 10, 2006 1:54 pm; edited 1 time in total

It was a cold, wet and windy night, and only one cloud in the sky, stretching from Northern Island, across the Midlands and into Scandinavia.

The time had come and I eased the Pussbus off our driveway and onto the road: a journey of two nerve wracking yards. I stopped and looked around. No sign of damage, no bangs, nothing fell out and triumphantly engaged first gear and drove the second leg of our journey stopping just over five yards away to allow my son to run back home to get something for his mobile phone.

While he was gone, I reflected on a frantic afternoon when I found that my new 7kg Blue Calor Butane Gas together with the all singing and dancing new type of clip on adaptor could only light one quarter of the smallest gas ring and even that spluttered out in just a few seconds.

I tried everything I knew which wasn’t very much and the only conclusion I could come to was the new adaptor was defective. I telephone Bicester Caravans and spoke to the engineer who was extremely helpful and even though he was booked solid for two months kindly offered to take a look for me.

This was about 30 minutes drive for me up the A41 and when I arrived he was already walking over to see me. He checked everything and also tried another adaptor with no success. Finally, he walked off to get another gas cylinder which he knew was OK, connected that up and gas once again flowed freely with all the little blue flames dancing on all burners. He said that he had never come across a duff gas cylinder before and nor had I although he had used hundreds and I had used a mere handful.

The gas I had purchased from Hunters Farm, also on the A41 and very near my home so I thanked him as best I could and was amazed that he wanted no payment for what must have been an irritating hour’s work. I insisted I give him something for his trouble and bounded back to Hunters Farm where they replaced the gas cylinder without question, or receipt as that was at home. I quickly installed it and tested it and the little burner burst into flames as it should and I was a happy bunny.

Eventually my son dawdled back, unaware that he had ruined my meticulous spreadsheets travel and departure times and I drove off hoping to make at least one hundred yards before the next interruption.

Still on the A41 but heading in totally the opposite direction as the afternoon’s journey, my wife suddenly demanded to know what had happened to her seat.

“What is wrong with your seat,” I asked, fighting back sarcasm and irritation.

“It’s too high”, she complained.

“Well, I think you can adjust most things, but I don’t think height is one of them”, knowing full well that was not going to be the end of the conversation.

“I am NOT travelling half way across Europe sitting in front of a pane of glass”, and stared straight ahead with her arms folded across her chest, a body language position I fully understood and knew I was in for a difficult time.

“Fine,” I said, “I will stop in the next lay-by and take out the windscreen,” realising I had already lost the battle to contain sarcasm and irritation and we had only been driving for half an hour. Before I had a chance to stop though, by randomly pulling and pushing levers, a position that was apparently satisfactory was found and that was the last I heard of seat issues but not unfortunately other previously unheard of issues still to be raised once in France.

We hurried down the motorway towards the Tunnel, always a longer journey than I think even though I had done this journey many times before.

On arrival, there was only one ticket kiosk open, heavily fortified to protect the new apprentice and her presumably experienced manager from vehicles that cannot be bothered to slow down or have difficulty negotiating the passage through.

Whether we were the apprentices’ very first customers, I do not know but she had to immediately call for help from her highly qualified tutor.

“There are four of you going?” queried the highly experienced manager, staring at the three of us.

“Nope,” I said. “Just the three of us. Me, my wife sitting next to me and my son behind me.”

“Oh”, she said, “I thought there were four of you”, her voice barely concealing her irritation that we had somehow deliberately left one person behind just to ruin her day.

“Hold on a second”, I said. I turned round and did a head count.

“One. Two. Three and …..nope. Sorry, we only have three. I don’t think we have enough time to organise another one”. She smirked, totally bowled over by my sense of humour.

“…and you have a Ford Focus” she said disdainfully eyeing the Pussbus with suspicion.

“Sorry, no again. We have a motor-home,” and I wondered why on earth they gave jobs like this to the blind or possibly in this case, the insane.

I could sense that the young lady learner was wishing she had never left Tesco’s checkout and we waited patiently for their computer to respond.

Respond it did ….”You have no return booked?” the experienced lady asked and “Yes we have” was the answer and another delay while the computer was asked again for the information producing an “Oh, Yes, here we are”, and it was at that point I realised that they had found the correct booking so God knows what booking they were originally looking at.

Finally, “Are you carrying any guns or explosives?” This I knew was a ploy to weed out the very honest terrorist leaving the dishonest terrorists to be caught by the tough guys in customs. I had the feeling that if I had said we have 2 kilos of Semtex and a couple of Uzi's she would have merely appended this information to our booking form. With a flourish she stuck a gas sticker on the back of our driving mirror and I was relieved to see the barrier lift and we headed for the sign saying France.

The first booth was empty as was the second booth and then we were called over by two blue suited customs officials, one man and one woman.

They were both very polite, checked my gas was off and then seemed genuinely interested in our holiday asking all sorts of questions and saying they wish they were going. Of course, I am too long in the tooth to believe they are genuinely interested in my holiday or anyone else’s. They use these questions to determine whether it is worth sticking a finger up your backside when you return and as I write this, I have yet to find out but if I was unlucky I would ask them to check my prostate while they were at it.

They waved goodbye to us with the enthusiasm and almost the sadness of relatives emigrating to Australia knowing it would be years before they see each other again and we trundled off to the next booth.

A middle aged lady poked her head out and told us to go to lane 14 and chuckled as she told us she had nearly forgot which lane we should go down.

Half way down lane 14 it became apparent that she had forgotten and we were flagged down by a man in a yellow security jacket.

“She’s given you the wrong lane she has Sir, Vera’s always doing that”, he chortled. “You’ll have to wait here until they are all loaded on,” and waved me to a small place to park especially designated for Vera’s mistakes and oversights. Although this was an inconvenience it was at least comforting to know that Vera had sensibly chosen this profession rather than one as an Air Traffic Controller. Even so, I felt she had set her sights too high and would be better suited for a less demanding roll gathering trolleys for one of the main supermarket stores.

When all were safely gathered in onboard the shuttle except us, the yellow coat walked over, still grinning at yet another one of Vera’s mistakes which in some ways helped to relieve the monotony of his job and gave him a chance to interact with Joe Public and exercise his social skills ready for his next advancement which I suspect was Vera’s position in the much sought after nice warm kiosk.

The train drew out of the station with no sense of movement or indeed the usual warning announcements on obvious things to do in an emergency. We had a whole carriage to ourselves except for visitors to use our carriage loo which we did not have and they returned to their respective carriages, eyes watering. Having departed late we arrived late. Another spread sheet disaster.

Our first port of call was to the customary very first garage you come across after leaving the tunnel and in customary fashion once again got lost exiting the garage. Diesel was 1.09 a throw; 0.09 more than last September.

As the Pussbus is LHD my wife was looking forward to me handling the peage fees and in the past she had suffered some criticism mainly from me on the queues we invoke when paying. These queues are caused mainly when the missus decides to get rid of loose change and if she is 10 cents short she empties her handbag in search of the illusive coin refusing to break open a new note. I refused to use cash and so she reluctantly gave me the credit card to carry out these simple transactions and so with the first peage coming up near Reims I was fully confident of a swift entry and exit and away with minimum fuss.

This would have happened had I not tried to give the lady in the kiosk the credit card with the window still shut and the card deliberately left my hand and plummeted into the door well, a position I cannot bend down to while sitting in the chair.

So I had to open the door to get out only finding the door would not open far enough because I was so close to the kiosk. I had to get up, open the sliding side door on the other side of the van, walk around and open fractionally the driver’s door and just got my arm through and retrieved the card. I took the opportunity to give her the card while I was there and noticed the queue of cars piling up to the only open kiosk as it was three o’clock in the morning.

I walked around the van again and through the sliding door and refused to look in the direction of my wife who I just knew was shaking with mirth. I could feel the m\home vibrating.

As I sat down the lady gave me the card back with the resigned look reserved for “Twits that come across the La Manche”.

We headed off, the missus saying nothing which was really worse for me than saying something.

After some hours we pulled over to a big Aires and parked by the Lorries, dying for a nice cup of tea. We had to carry on dying. We lit the gas and lo and behold, only one quarter of the gas ring lit and then spluttered out. We had no gas and therefore no life giving tea. The problem I thought I had sorted earlier was not sorted.

Never mind. We had a coke and got ready for bed and my wife locked all the doors internally and when she did the last door, the Cobra Cat 2 – 1 burst into life ensuring all lorry drivers in the vicinity knew we had arrived. Where was the key fob? A frantic search ensued; the Cobra enjoying every minute of this unexpected opportunity to perform, screaming its heart out. Cab lights were popping on in Lorries all over the place as far as the eye could see and I would not have been surprised if I had woken up my Mother in Devon.

I found the fob, and pressed the button and stopped the Cobra in full flight. As I lent over to unlock one of the doors, I squashed the other button which is labelled “Panic” button. Again the Cobra burst into action. More lights popped on.

This time I got out the van and pressed the button to lock and unlock all the doors and realised that the problem was the movement sensors and I discussed this issue with my wife.

“Did your bother to read the instructions before we came away,” she asked reasonably but that was just a disguise.

“Of course I did”.

“What did it say then?” she asked.

“I don’t know”, said I, “I couldn’t understand it”.

“Was the manual in German then?”

“No…in English.”

I tried to click the buttons to allow the doors to be locked and the movement sensor to be off. This only provoked another screaming session from the Cobra and now all Lorries were lit up.

I decided that having woken up an entire fleet of Lorries with the Cobra and door slamming again and again, that we may have overstayed our welcome. In fact I was pretty sure of it. So we drove off to new pastures to avoid being lynched by a mixed bag of our European brothers and oddly one sister, perhaps a hitchhiker.

At the next big Aires, we parked and I dug out the manual and found the answer to my problem and we turned in for about 3 hours sleep getting up and walking over to the café for coffee and baguette at eight in the morning.

(Next part when I get my head together after a very long trip back)

artona · Moderator

Pleased for you mate. Such a relaxed and refreshing holiday is often the tonic needed.

stew

nukeadmin · Site Admin

lol pmsl as always Pusser priceless Wink

Steptoe

Not since the adventures of Adrian Mole have I read anything quite so funny Very Happy

Pusser, you have missed your vocation; and there is more in the archives??

I will not settle until the next episode reveals the outcome of the gas saga; travel without tea available on demand is purgatory indeed, and one of the main reasons for having a motorhome Wink

kands · Account Deactivated

I think the above story gives us all a clue to Pussers real identity......

Mr Bean Laughing

So funny mate, I hope the rest of your trip is happy and successful

Keith

trevorf

Another couple of trips and you will have enough material to write a book mate - brilliant Very Happy

I will be heading for Dover in 2 hours time - really hoping my trip is less eventful than yours Laughing

Trevor

Rapide561

Oh Pusser

What can I say...

Have a fabulous trip and keep us posted

Rapide561

Motorhomersimpson · Moderator

Very amusing reading as usual pusser, looking forward to part two. Laughing

MHS…Rob