Every day is a really exciting day at the moment!
Each day my workshop becomes a little more like a weaving workshop.
But it didn’t start out that way!
Our main move was on 4/5 January. All was going swimmingly. We had managed to pack the van (a transit) really well and had enjoyed a calm crossing overnight from Portsmouth to Caen. We had even managed to fit in a visit to relatives about 2 hours into the journey. 3 hours later we had resumed and got just 1 hour away from our new home when
ZUT ALORS
Mega-smoke out of the exhaust and sudden loss of power! It would have been alarming enough if I hadn’t been overtaking two lorries at the time! OK, so it was a little foggy, but lorry headlights shouldn’t just disappear behind a smoke screen, should they??!!
We limped on the hard shoulder and put our hazard lights on and I continued to drive very slowly to get off at the next junction which, fortunately, was only 5kms away. Oh, and just to make things a little more interesting, it was the coldest night in France this winter up to that point!
I have to raise my hat to Green Flag. We phoned them and explained the situation and they sent someone out within 45 mins and he even brought a tow-truck with him to take us to his depot. We had to leave the transit there overnight, and the rescue man agreed to take us the hour home. So far so good.
We hadn’t got very far before his new car started showing a red engine warning light! So we pulled over, stopped the vehicle, waited a few moments and started again. The engine light went out. Great! Just 5 mins later on it came again. This happened a few more times, and our driver decided that it was too risky to go further, so back we went to change vehicles.
Finally we were on our way again with a car that didn’t show any red warning lights, thankfully! We were relaxing into the drive and pleased to be on the way home when suddenly, a fully-grown deer started out from the verge right in front of the car! And we weren’t going slowly!!
What can I say? The car had very good brakes, and somehow our driver managed not to hit the deer – a good result for all of us!!
We were on full alert after that, I can tell you!
We eventually arrived at our destination about 12.30am – after initially hoping to arrive at 7.30pm!! But we were safe and sound, even if our transit was a little sick. It finally arrived back with us three days later, just in time for us to off-load my workshop stairs so that our friend could fit them. He was coming from the UK specifically to fit them. It would have been a little awkward if they hadn’t been there!
The transit is unfortunately not well enough to go anywhere now! The engine is ok, but the turbo is so expensive to repair that we are hoping to sell it to someone who is able to repair it themselves! We now have a little Renault Kangoo – not the most elegant of vehicles, but very useful for bags and cases for when my students need picking up from the airport.
Things are happening fast now, so I’ll be able to post more news and photos during the next few days!!
In the meantime, Happy Weaving!!