Remote Blogging, and why Plan AA is normally the best plan.

Remote Blogging, and why Plan AA is normally the best plan.

So here we are in Polperro.  Hurrah.  Hang on, more emphasis required - HURRAH!!!

That’s better.


I'm writing this now but will have to post it many days hence, as we are luddite-like in our technological isolation, here.

It’s raining absolute cats and dogs, and right at this minute, I’m very glad I’m not one of the seagulls who live on the very tall, exposed chimney stack which I’m keeping an eye on out of the kitchen window, but I’m also feeling almost as content as it’s possible to get.

We arrived two days ago, after what could be described as one of the worst journeys we’ve ever had.  

We were allowed in the cottage from 3pm.  Working backwards, we figured out that we should leave home by about 12ish, maybe 11.30, to allow for stopping at the butcher’s in Tideford (Paul Bray & Son, if you happen to be passing) on the way here.  I further figured out that this would allow me to teach my Friday morning Zumba class, get home, shower, and head on down.  Timing could not be more perfect – tight, but perfect.  So we got the packing mainly done on Thursday, and while I sloped off to teach on Friday morning, Simon heroically loaded the car, in the sure and certain knowledge that no doubt I would arrive home from class and criticise his loading.  I know.  Unreasonable.  What can I say?  I never claimed to be an angel.

So I raced home from the village hall, showered in double quick time and packed the last few bits I couldn’t pack earlier (shampoo, conditioner, hairbrush, sweaty Zumba gear for washing!), made myself a sandwich to go with the ones Simon had made for the girls, and we all - me, Simon, girls and His Royal Hairiness - leapt in the car with a loud hurrah and general shouting of “WE’RE OFF!”, well on schedule and gagging for a week’s R&R in beloved Cornwall.

Which is when problem 1 reared its ugly head.  The.  Car.  Would.  Not.  Start.

I know, right?!  HiLARious.  We thought so, too, as you can imagine.  Totally dead.  Not even the slim ray of hope of the sad chug-chugging, which eventually dies out, anyway.  Nothing.  No-thing.  Not a thing.

So began an entirely grown up and relaxed (was it BOLLOCKS!) discussion about how to approach a solution to this shitty problem. 

Clearly, it was a dead battery. 

Various options swum into view, and swum on by. 

As it happens, we have a fresh, new car battery (long story, but to cut it short, thanks, Dad – wouldn’t it have been perfect if that had been the solution!?) sitting in the hall at present.  Did we know how to attach it?  No, we didn’t.  Arses.  So although it was probably fairly straightforward, we decided that this particular moment of crisis and extreme tension was probably not the time to get our CSE in Basic Car Maintenance. 

Luckily, despite many other areas of things having gone west of late, we still have AA membership.  Without any further ado, I went back in the house, looked up the number (yeah, it should be on my phone, I know), and rang the very nice men up.  I explained the predicament, with a bit of giggling and wringing of hands, followed up by a slight break in the voice – you’d have liked it, I promise – possibly my finest performance to date – and the very nice man said that he’d send on of his very nice colleagues along, and he’d be here within 45 minutes.

Good.

Meanwhile, I had thought that we would try using Car B and some jump leads to start the battery of Car A, and if we got it started, we could ring and cancel the very nice man. 

This was clearly a good and sensible plan.  However, meanwhile, gorgeous husband had had the bad and senseless plan of trying to bump start the car on the drive, which, although (in his defence) is quite steep, is also (in blatant attack) about 2m longer than the car – i.e. by no stretch of the imagination long enough to get a bump start.   This daring plan had therefore resulted in Car A being half way across the road, and diagonally across the drive, absolutely buggering up any chance of getting Car B close enough to the bonnet of Car A to attach the relatively short jump leads.

Sigh.

Back to Plan AA. 

I was supposed to drop off a key with my lovely friend A on the way to Cornwall, so I rang to explain our delay, so that she wouldn’t think we’d buggered off without dropping it off.  Very kindly, she offered to come and give us a jump start.  Who were we to refuse?  So she whizzed up, we got the cables connected with just about enough space for a careful car to pass us up the lane, and followed all the instructions.  Nothing.  Either the battery had had it, or the jump leads were SHIT.

Back to Plan AA.

Right, girls, out of the car, come on, bring HRH, we’re going to go and eat our sandwiches in the kitchen instead of the car. 

So this we did, in bizarre suspended world, bit of cricket on the telly, trying not to get the kitchen all crumby for coming home to.

Meanwhile various other friends, and bless you all, offered their services and the services of their faithful car batteries for jump starting, but we were by now too fearful of failure to waste anyone else’s time.

At 43 minutes after the original phone call to the AA, Gorgeous Husband started commenting that it would be nice if the world could actually surprise us for a change and someone could fucking well turn up on time.  I was quietly (well, I say quietly…) rolling my eyes and sighing at this, as the tirade continued until about 10 seconds before the deadline when – knock knock knock woof woof woof!  YES!  AA Man.  Bang on time.

Girls!  LOO, NOW!  CAR, NOW!  Chug chug chug, vroom vroom vroom, ooh, that WAS flat, don’t stop for petrol for 45 minutes, give it a good chance to charge up, thank you very much – girls, wave goodbye to INCREDIBLY nice man and HURRAH!  WE’RE OFF!!!!

Goodbye home!

M3, A303, hello, Little Chef – whoosh – hello Popham little planes – whoosh!  Oh oh… helllllllooooo sssslllllooooowwww ttttrrrraaaafffffffiiiicccc.  Oh bugger.  Crawling crawling crawling.  From well before Amesbury for hours…  Hhhheeeellllloooooo, Ssssttttoooonnnnneeeeehhhheeeeennnnngggggggeeeee….  And so it went on, for HOURS.  And we tried swapping the A303 for an early leap onto the M5, but within a mile we’d hit another jam.  It was uncanny.  Wherever we went, so did everyone else.

In order for this blog not to end up as long and boring as the journey, I am going to cut it short.  Suffice it to say that it DID take hours, Littl’un eventually gave up and threw up volubly all over the back of the car, including dog bed, golf clubs, colouring in book, Gorgeous Husband’s hat, seats, carpet blah blah blah bleugh bleugh bleughed. 

We had meanwhile realized several things.

1)   We were going to get to Tideford well after the butcher closed, leaving us with nothing for dinner.  This problem was easily solved thanks to Steve Jobs’s Excellent iPhone invention.  Googled the butcher (which is illegal in 99 states) and rang the order through, arranging to collect it from the pub if they’d all gone home.

2)   Slightly more worryingly, we remembered that the key for the cottage is housed in a tiny key safe screwed to the front door.  We hadn’t been given the combination for said safe.  VERY safe, in that case, no?  Further googling, however, produced a number for the owner.  Who didn’t answer.  So we spent most of the (long) journey somewhat concerned that we would arrive and not be able to unload and get in, and as our phones don’t work in the village, we’d be bleddy stuck, m’loves.  In the event, we got the number at the eleventh hour, but it was a bit sticky for a mo.

Anyway.  Whatever.  We got here in the end, and the chippy, which threatened to close while we were in the pub, actually stayed open until we finished, so we had fresh hot chips with our gorgeous Cornish steaks and salad.  So that's enough moaning from me - there was other stuff, but with a tummy full of excellent steak, a glass full of good quaffing wine and a snootful of good Cornish sea-air, me old love pops, I'm now, frankly, beyond caring.

Night night.