well a fine adventure was had on saturday .
needing to borrow a vehicle to get heavy stuff from oxfordshire , i was going to borrow my freinds flatbed transit ,however , it was stuck in some sort of limbo , so in the end i drove down to near llandovery to get his nissan patrol with a 3.5 ton v heavy trailer .
we should have realised the day was going to be unpredicable when, on the way down ,we got to the lpg stn ,a 10 mile detour, to find for the first time , no lpg ,bum. another detour to kington and filled up , and of we went .
in the back of beyond we found his place , and now i must say , i have never driven anything this size , and i have never EVER towed anything .
off we went , tiny lane after tiny lane , after about 15 mins we found an a rd and looked for a petrol stn . found one,a tiny cramped one , ,and had to pull in between the pumps and the shop ,,not a big gap . put a 100 quid in , still under 3/4 of a tank !
went inside to find a fiasco at the till , that in the end resulted in them printing out the whole days transactions to see if veronicas payment had gone through . i remained zen ,some bint came in to complain about us blocking the pumps , v explained and she went away quite quickly .
25 minutes later we were off , luckily i looked out of my kerb mirror just in time to see my trailer wheel mount the kerb around the pump ,,,,or would be except the bints other half had blocked the way with his car and dinky trailer , he had to shuffle off ,and we were than off.
i fairly quickly got used to the behemoth , did i mention its raised about 4" on big tyres ? ...and i trickled along at 50 mph watching the fuel gauge .
got to oxon , and managed to reverse into place well .
loaded the lawnflite ride on , the sun mca1500 tester ,two pillar drills , cabinets , and filled the car with heavy metal stuff.
v sweaty work . its not a low trailer .
and off we went , now about 7.30 pm .and 130 miles to go.
all went quite well until we got to newent ...this when i decided i should have gone m5.
the rd at newent was shut , with a detour marked to the left ,its now aout 10 ish i think it was ,maybe 10,30 , oh yes we had to stop and pump up the tyres since one was only 20 psi , i wapped them up to 65 ..anyrdup ..here we are following this detour ,turned left then right to head north down a tiny little lane , going down hill high banks either side ,row of cars following the tank ,and yup , came face to face with another queue of cars ...
the car i was facing ,had a moment to think , then started trying to mount the bank , backwards ,then the other bank , then back to the first bank ....it looked like a slow mo pinball ,,poor blonde girl in the car was getting redder and redder , and flapping her head around like a vulture ,trying to reverse ...but basically hopeless.no matter how hard she rammed the bank in her red J family two door , no way was the nissan/chieften battle tank getting by .
so , to sum up , its pitch black , tiny corridor , 5+cars behind me , same for her , and no way out other than asphyxiation.
I'm beginning to feel a little jaded . and start laffing.
in the end miss "i cant drive" manages to get back enough for us to pass a private house drive,in which is parked another young lady/snowflake , in her mini , i wind down my window and smile and say "Fun !" to which she replies ," i don't know how to reverse" with eyes as big as saucers .shes a petit librarian type.
i am laughing even more now , and v is trying hard not to get out, turf out the "ladies uk cant drive" team , and do it herself, when out of the blackness comes Boadicea !
yup , looking like a russian shot putter comes this dynamic ,black hair tight down and straight parting refugee from every police and army training exercise ,carrying a bit bucket of DO It NOW energy .
she asks me to back up a bit , i say maybe you could let those behind me know ,oh and ps i am making it up as i go along never having towed in my life , so i edge it back , she turfs the SF out of her mini ,wedges herself in it and boots it into the drive of the house , then the highlight of the event for veronica ,our original blonde girl decides to get out of her car , and flutter .
picture this .
shes about 25 odd , 5'9" , beautiful,if vacant ,face , figurewise ,junoesque is i think the word , wearing a white cotton full length summer poets dress and pale pink cardigan , and topping the whole ensemble , a metre of crimped permed golden ,not blond , golden hair .!
i immediately named her Guinevere ,,v went for Rapunzel .
so guinevere /Rapunzel flapped about looking for a prince for a few mins , then Boadicea got her back in the car , and she finally worked out to drive up the drive as well , that left us with the bods black J stealth saloon ,which prompty reversed into a gap at the bottom of the hill ,she having terrified all those behind her into hiding in a layby further down said hill ,as i drove past ,white faced and quaking is how they looked to me , i liked her !
throughout all the latter part of this fun i had v constantly going "shes so pretty "...... the penalties of an upbringing based on disney i suppose.
so off we went , me shouting thank you at the top of my voice as we piled past the detour victims ,with a mass of hollering beeping cars behind me as we made a frantic rush for freedom.
PHEW >
got a bit lost a few times and refuelled , and finally got in at 12.45 in the morning ,oh not to mention it was raining hard , and the 3 ton load of trailer kept locking its brakes and squealing on slippy down hill sections of hairpin corners , and lastly the car started smelling plasticky and hot , and i found the exhaust pipe had come apart above the axle and was pointing straight up at the floor .
hey , got my lawn mower though !
regards
robert
