A working adventure

This blog is for the granddaughter I’ve never been allowed to see and only know via Facebook. This doesn’t mean anyone else is excluded. Everyone is welcome.

 

Dear Invisible Granddaughter,

This is Day 4 in our motorhome called Sid. Motorhoming is not new to us but we’ve forgotten a lot.

Ten years ago I spent some of my winnings from Deal or No Deal on a Winnebago motorhome. It was a small version – not one of those monstrous ones that do about six miles to the gallon. We called it Win, partly because of the maker’s name and partly because it was paid for by my win. We travelled the entire coastline of Britain. I’ve failed to interest a publisher in the book but now we’re off again. (Picture of Sid above, along with my little yellow Ka called Noelly.)

We sold Win six years ago and regretted it ever since but now we have Sid, so called because the maker’s name is Siddle and he spelled it backwards when it came to making motorhomes, so this is an Elddis. (At least that's the story we've been told.) We are using this one for work reasons as well as for pleasure or, as in our case, both combined because we’re both lucky enough to love our work. Every sixth week the LSO (Long Suffering One, Grandad or Colin, depending on who is reading this) visits his reflexology clients in Malvern and Abercych, West Wales. And while he’s doing that I’m writing.

We collected Sid last Thursday, 1^st December. It should have been simple. Because of the house sale our bank balance has never looked so good but when we tried to pay for Sid our card was refused, and refused and refused. It took over three hours of endless phone calls, a trip to the local branch of HSBC and six more unsuccessful attempts before our card was finally accepted. At one point your Auntie Leanne suggested the bank hadn’t got enough money to pay that amount and had all the staff scratting around in desk drawers trying to find enough.

By the time we left it was dark, foggy and freezing for our first ever drive in Sid. Talk about being thrown in at the deep end. Sid was also making a lot of noise so I took off my high-heeled ankle boots and crawled up the centre aisle to find out what was causing it. The grill pan in the cooker was dancing about so I took it out and stuck it under a seat cushion.

Finally, we got back to your Auntie Leanne’s house in Callington where we are staying until we buy The Cuckoos’ Nest. Leanne had driven us 100 miles to collect Sid and waited through all our problems. She’d reached home before us and had taken her migraine to lie down in a darkened room. She didn’t want to eat until I mentioned porridge.

My porridge is legendary. When friends come to stay, like the writer Anita Loughrey who held Granddad’s hand all the way through my game on Deal Or No Deal, they always ask me to make porridge. Maybe I’ll make it for you one day. Auntie Leanne managed a dishful with a good dollop of golden syrup stirred in. You can forget pumpkin seeds or toasted almonds. My porridge comes with syrup or inch deep brown sugar.

Most of our belongings are in storage at the moment so we had to make several trips during the following couple of days. We fetched things and we returned things until, finally, we were ready for lift-off.

Your Uncle Ken guided Granddad off the drive and we all waved goodbye. We took to the road believing everything would be plain sailing. (Gosh, we’ve had flying, driving and now sailing mentioned.)

‘Plain sailing? You can forget that,’ said the Universe.