Engine tonic

The object of the day was to collect the new engine and axles for the camper van that we had purchased from the Iveco breakers yard in Darlington.

This sounds remarkably simple but I can assure you was not. A truck engine weighs two tonnes and axles are not lightweight either, and they cannot all be easily stuffed into the back of a taxi.

We spent a good deal of time at the farm yesterday contemplating the repair of Mark’s trailer, which is made mostly from loosely connected flakes of rust held up on two large but flat tyres.

We considered all possible low-budget options, because of having spent all of our money, and in the end Mark’s sister got so fed up of us flapping about that she gave Mark half of a truck hire for his birthday present, which is coming up soon, on condition that we buzzed off out of her kitchen and let her get on with her life.

This morning we went to collect the truck from Kendal, and it was a splendid affair, huge and not rusty at all. Mark took it off over the fell road to Darlington, and I went home to clean the bathroom, which was by far my preferred occupation for the day as I have got minimal interest in heaving huge lumps of rusty metal about.

Whilst I was domestically employed it became hotter and hotter; then Number Two Daughter arrived home from her walk with the dogs, completely soaked to the skin and warning of an approaching thunderstorm. I rushed into the garden and hauled the washing in, and ten minutes later we had the most spectacular thunderstorm I have seen for ages, huge raindrops bouncing almost a foot high, until the alley at the back of the house was a rushing torrent. It was so spectacular that we sat at the back door and watched it: for rain to be interesting in the Lake District it has got to be pretty out of the ordinary, I can promise you.

I realised halfway through that I had left our bedroom window wide open, and rushed up to close it, but too late, Mark’s side of the bed was wet through. I closed the window and hoped that it would dry out. Obviously he doesn’t know yet because of it not being bedtime, the weather has dried out now and we are back to sultry warmth, so with any luck he will never need to know, and I can always pretend it was the dog.

In the end the rain stopped and everywhere steamed, the garden is astonishingly green again and smells gorgeous. Mark came home, having missed it all. He had had some Hard Stares from the police on the way, because of coming back over the fells in a pick up truck with a huge quantity of  scrap iron in the back, on the very day that the gypsies were packing up the Fair, which sadly we missed: and we went off to the farm to unload the engine together.

It is not at all easy to get an enormous engine off the back of a truck.

Mark has got a crane but it is very small and to manage the weight we had got to get it very close to the back of the truck, and it was quite exciting, so much so that Mark’s sister and her husband came out to watch and laugh and make helpful comments. We had also got to be very careful not to spoil the beautiful truck because the man at the hire place had warned us that it would cost us seven hundred and fifty pounds if we did, which was quite scary enough to make me very worried.

In the end we levered it and Mark tightened the chain and eventually we managed to get the crane to lift the engine to about two inches above the back of the truck. I drove the truck away from underneath it whilst Mark held the crane with a block and tackle and Mark’s sister’s husband lifted and lowered the crane, and Mark’s sister shouted things like: “Up a bit – left a bit – no, up a bit more – oh dear…” until finally we had got an engine on the floor of the workshop instead of on the back of a truck and nobody had been squished to a horrible death and the truck was all right as well, so all in all it was a jolly good day.

The picture shows Mark and his lovely new engine. He is going to put it in our dear camper van and make it all right again. Apparently it has got a special shaft attached to something which makes it even better than the old one, also it works which is also a huge improvement.

I am so very pleased and happy.

Also we can go to the Fair next year.