We have had an adventure but it is over now.
At least, I hope it is over now. We are tucked away in a Scottish lay-by. The fire is lit and the water is hot for our showers. The dogs have been emptied and the curtains have been drawn, we are full of very good dinner and iced lemon buns, and as I write these very words, Mark is opening the wine.
We are in grave need of it.
It has been a difficult day.
As you might know, it started when I came home from work at four in the morning. Mark and Oliver were already awake and getting dressed, and between us we packed the camper van and filled the water up and left our house clean and bright and welcoming to come home to.
I hope our neighbours were not disturbed by the five o’ clock hoovering. They will probably just think that I am one of those wives whose price is above rubies. They get up before the dawn although Solomon, or whoever wrote it, does not mention hoovering.
Once we were on the road I set Mark off with a story book on the computer. It was Sherlock Holmes, which we like, and I knew that he would not miss my company if he had a good story to listen to. I left him with water to drink, and jelly babies, and some grapes, and then once I was confident that he would not be lonely or hungry, I went to bed and left him to drive.
I do not think that we were even out of England by the time I woke up for the first time.
There was an enormous clatter, and Mark swerved to a halt on the hard shoulder, swearing.
I sat up in bed, but he had jumped out and was running back down the hard shoulder.
He came back a few minutes later with the exhaust, which had fallen off.
It was not much of an exhaust anyway, he made it out of an old table leg, you might know the sort of chrome minimalist modern look things. If ever you are stuck they make very handy exhaust pipes, and it has lasted for three years and has taken us the length and breadth of the UK.
It had gone rusty. He is going to have to make another one now, so if anybody is chucking out a table do let us know.
He said that it would not matter, and we all settled down again.
We stopped at Perth for fuel. We have to do this because the fuel gauge does not work, so we do not know how much further than Perth we can go. Not very far, probably, and we do not want to risk it, so we stop at Tesco and reassure ourselves.
I dozed a bit as we chugged out of Perth, and then there was the most awful bashing and grinding noise.
There were roadworks. Mark found a bit at the side of the road where there was a space, because they were building a bridge, and pulled over.
He did not know what the noise was, and so went to investigate. I did not at all like the sound of this, and so I got up and got dressed.
He came back looking a bit grim.
It was a thing called a broken central bearing in the prop shaft, and meant that we had broken down.
We contemplated this in marooned silence for a minute or two.
Then we realised that we could not possibly give up. We had to fix it and get Oliver to school.
Fortunately we had still got twelve hours before the back-to-school deadline, at half past nine at night.
I found some hopeful prop shaft numbers online, and Mark telephoned them.
There followed a very lot of explaining and measuring prop shafts and looking at bearings and talking to people. This took ages.
In the end he found a company in Dundee who had the right one.
They agreed that they would deliver their appropriate prop shaft bearing to a garage in Perth if we could go there and dismantle the old one.
The garage in Perth said that this would be all right.
We drove there, slowly and anxiously, on our broken prop shaft.
Then Mark put on his overalls and took the prop shaft to bits.
Oliver and I waited, with our hearts in our mouths.
We thought that we would distract ourselves by doing Oliver’s neglected prep, which was to prepare a presentation about the chap who had designed Air Force One. He was very clever and believed that things should be modern and shiny but not too modern and shiny otherwise backward stupid people would not want them.
We did this, and got some lunch ready.
Eventually Mark came in and said that the new prop shaft would be arriving at around half past two. That would give us time to fix it and still get Oliver to school before the deadline.
It was only one o’ clock, and we did not want to waste the day, so we all promptly went to sleep. We were woken an hour later by the parts van arriving punctually at the garage, bearing a shiny new prop shaft.
Mark hastily nailed it into the camper van in the place where the old one had been.
Then we set off.
Scotland was having weather.
I took a picture but have not been able to add it because there is almost no internet here. I will do it tomorrow when we are back in the actual world where there are modern things.
The only bit that was really scary was the long single track bit over the mountains. That had not been gritted and was a bit like a helter skelter designed by somebody with an over developed sense of humour.
We chugged along cautiously, having no wish for further adventures. Oliver sat with us in the front, and we all thought sadly that we would be parted in a very few hours.
He promised that he would work hard and do his prep, and we knew that he would because all the children work hard and do their best at everything. This is one of our pieces of good fortune that makes our lives so brilliant.
It was dark when we got to school.
We put the exciting red sheets on his bed and filled his tuck box and cupboard with more tuck than I hope he will eat, and retreated to the camper van for a farewell dinner.
Eventually he had to go, and we were suddenly so tired that we could hardly think straight.
We crawled little way south and here we are.
There is not much wi-fi. This might not make it to Facebook.
