Hiccups and shivering

Dear Invisble granddaughter,

Noelly is in hospital!

To get around Malvern, and in order for your Grandad to visit his clients, we left my little Ka, Noelly, with a friend here. Matt used to be our Saturday boy when we had the bike shop. He bought Noelly over to us when we arrived. Noelly was fine the first day but then he got hiccups and started to shake. I was with your Grandad and we just managed to get Noelly to the garage before anything worse happened.

Mark, at the garage, lent us a very old Astra. It’s got all sorts of cosmetic problems but it drives which means Grandad can get to his clients and earn some money.

We’re waiting for Noelly to be diagnosed.

When I went for a shower that night two women (of the braided hair and multi-coloured/multi-patterned clothing variety) were in there. The one said she was making apple crumble because she’d found some apples by the road. The other told her to check they weren’t red all the way through this time. Then they asked me if I’d like to share their crumble. Is that a euphemism for some lesbian activity? Probably not. It’s just my writer’s mind working overtime. They were lovely and friendly but I said no thanks anyway.

This is turning out to be an expensive trip – car repairs, bits for the motorhome, a trip to the dentist… That last one was to get Grandad’s bridge fixed. It broke when he was eating crusty bread. Not my fault this time. Apparently it was my fault when I offered him my last Rolo. There used to be an advert on telly which said, ‘Do you love someone enough to give them your last Rolo?’ I thought he’d love me enough not to take it! He’s learned his lesson and doesn’t eat Rolos any more.

Grandad snores. It’s all right at home because I can tap him lightly and he stops. He says it’s never a light tap and he has the bruises to prove it. But I’ve never seen any bruises. We can have a double bed in Sid or use two singles. Last night we were too tired to organise the double which meant the centre aisle was between us so when he began snoring I couldn’t reach to ‘tap’ him. It was a cold night and I was wearing bed socks so I took them off and threw one at him. It hit his head and dropped onto the pillow when he swatted it as if it was a fly. Ten minutes later the snoring started again. I threw the other sock. This time he woke and he threw both back at me which was really good of him as, at this point, I’d run out of ammuntion.

A little later I woke him up so that he could listen to the rain pitter-pattering on the roof. It’s such a soothing sound. He didn’t think so. Good job all the ammo was on my side.

Finally, I sat down to write

Sunday/Monday

We drove into the campsite at Blackmore, Malvern on Sunday afternoon and set up home. I think of Sid as ‘little house on wheels’. This is because, when we tried to explain to our internet provider that we wanted to cancel and didn’t have anywhere to renew because we’d be living in a motorhome, the person we were speaking to had to go and find out what a motorhome was. She came back with ‘Oh, little house on wheels’. So that’s Sid then.

An Elddis Sunseeker is very different to a Winnebago Rialta. The loo system is far more complicated in Sid. Win had a black tank which is where everything from the loo landed. It would have been dark down in its depths but who would want to check out the contents? No-one. Then, Leanne bought us a little light to fix on the loo seat. When it was dark the light would flash red if the loo lid was down and green if it was up and safe to go. Unfortunately the light’s moorings weren’t very good and within a couple of days the light had fallen down the hole. I like to think it flashed its way from Land’s End to John O’ Groats all up the right hand side of the UK and all the way back down the left hand side.

Sid has a cassette toilet. It’ll be a new experience emptying that but we didn’t have time to think about it.

There were other things that needed our attention. The loo wouldn’t flush, the sink wouldn’t drain and the water system had so much air in it that it was whistling and hissing when we turned on a tap. We’ve solved two out of three now which left us with finding out which way to point the aerial so we can get tv if we want it. We didn’t have an internet connection last night because we weren’t given a code when we got here. On Monday morning Colin paid £20 which will give us internet access for 12 months. Seeing as our little house on wheels will be here every sixth week, twenty quid sounds like a bargain.

Monday morning and the kitchen sink has drained overnight. I set off for the shower block and stepped into a winter wonderland. Every blade of grass was separate because each had its own coating of frost on it. It crunched as I walked over it.

Grandad left to visit a client so I decided to have sort out little house on wheels because we now know that what we put in Sid is mostly in the wrong places. There’s a small bookshelf. It has a lip so books don’t fall out when we move. More time was spent arranging books on that shelf than in all the other cupboards put together. Travelling without books would be impossible. Once everything was stowed to my satisfaction I was happy. Everything had its own place and I knew where it all was, from diaries down to dental floss and sweaters to soup tins.

Finally, I sat down to write. And that’s not as easy as it sounds. The table with folding legs is stored in the wardrobe. It fits between the two long seating units which turn into beds at night. Then the laptop is in a cupboard above the front windscreen but the plug-in mouse and keyboard, which I prefer, are in a cupboard at the back end. Finally the stand I put the laptop on and which is now doubling up as bedside table had been shoved between the driver’s and passenger’s seats. I like my screen to be at eye level. It stops me getting neck ache and sore shoulders.

Finally, I sat down to write. But a cup of tea would be nice, said that little voice from the procrastination department of my brain. I switched on the kettle. There were no clean mugs. Washing up was a priority but I didn’t want to take it all across to the shower block where the laundry and dish-washing facilities are. I used the kitchen sink. Washed up. Pulled out the plug. Nothing happened. The sink is blocked again.

Finally, I sat down to write. The sink can wait.

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.