So the plan was to drive down to Edinburgh - then to Whitby - home of the award winning but no more Little Beck cheeses, pick up some of their unwanted cheese making kit, swing round and stay at Durham for a couple of nights for The Girl to get some serious auntie time, and then hoof it home.
The plan was scuppered by the realisation that the van brakes were seriously dodgy. Off to the garage for a £400 'investment' in new master brake cylinder and front brake discs.
Night one
Having had to mess everyone around the first night was now Dunbar. We left Reay (the garage) about 2:30 and headed south. It was raining. The windscreen wiper wasn't working properly.
At the Country Store (On the A9 just north of Inverness) we stopped for refreshment and I decided to get a temporary fix on the wipers by switching the blades - not the wipers - you cant switch the wipers cos they are different lengths. It was a botch - but it worked. Top up the water in the van. Head south to Perth, add diesel, top up water. Arrive Dunbar about 9 ish - to a superb and I mean superb home cooked chicken Korma from Tadg. Superb.
Night Two
The day began for me in the Shoestring cafe (as was, it's been renamed but it'll always be the shoestring to me) - for a bacon roll and a coffee. Oooh that commuter vibe - tee hee. Then on to the Crunchy Carrot for a cuppa, lending a hand to set up shop and a reet old goss.
We left Dunbar about ten and headed south. Stopped in Durham for food and to top up the van with water. Employed 'Sat Nav' aka The Girl to read off the print out from the aa routeplanner to negotiate our way across to Little Beck and pick up the gear.
Return to Durham, stopping along the way to top up the van with water. Arrive Durham about 5pm to a wholesome leek and potato soup.
Night Three
Quality sister time with lots of shopping and museuming. The Girl bought an I Ching fortune telling kit and immediately wished for a Chinese takeaway for tea. I Ching said it would come true - and behold it did. Invested in new windscreen wipers for the van.
Night Four and fifteen knights
Left Durham about 10am and headed for home. Stopped for diesel in Dunbar and never started again. Kapput.
Knight one was a young chap with patient wife who helped me push the van away from the petrol pumps and with a swish swosh swush swaggered over with jump leads. No amount of me telling him the battery was fine would dissuade him from trying. Failed. He gave me the number of the RAC, they would welcome my membership if I (I mean the van) was less so many metres long and so kgs heavy. Doubt - indecision - I'll think about it. I tried to phone a couple of Dunbar friends and went straight to voice mail. I seemed to be losing battery power in my phone. I phoned Jussi.
The Girl rooted round and found her I Ching and wished to be back to school on Tuesday, I Ching said "Your wish could come true but you will have to work very hard for it". My turn, I wished for the van to be fixed - I Ching said "Your wish is unreasonable."
Minutes later Jussi phoned back with promise of knights 2 3 and 4. Shaun and Claire had Matty the Mechanic staying with them and they'd be over as soon as they'd finished their sandwiches. They arrived all grins and groans and grimaces and Matty set about his magic. The electrics seemed fine. Hitting the started motor as the ignition was turned looked and sounded impressive but did nothing. Taking various covers off and sucking teeth had little effect. Trying to turn the engine by hand, involving crawling under the engine in designer shirt with wrench and contorted face did nothing. "So", said Claire, "what should he do?"
"Scrap it." Matty had many strengths - empathy not being one of them.
Knight 5 appeared, in the shape of a Green flag breakdown man. He repeated Matty's tests and added a couple of his own. He told me how old Mercedes Sprinters often lost the top of their pistons and these fell in the engine and jammed it. Not terminal - but it'll cost more than the worth of the van to fix. If it's not that - it's something seized which for a van this age is as near as terminal as you'll ever get. He kindly gave me a quote for towing the van home. £956 + VAT.
We deserted the van and headed for Shaun and Claires abode. Knight 6, Rachel, was patiently waiting. She qualifies as a knight because it was her and Matty's wedding anniversary and she had tolerated Matty speeding off to help me. Now they were back it was time to put those romantic plans into effect. Matty went climbing with Shaun, Rachel and Claire went to Ocean Terminal. Brings a tear of warmth to yer eye so it does. Rachel and Claire took the girl - so I was free for the rest of the afternoon.
After one of the best pints of my life in the Masons Arms and finding the place devoid of potential knights I headed for Knights 7 and 8 - Lennie and Simon and copious tea and sympathy. All this despite being up to their necks in the final preparations for the teenage daughters halloween bash.
Knight 9 was Tadg, who'd driven by and thought there was something remiss with my posture and set out to find me on foot, despite only suspecting it was me and not really having much to go by that I needed assistance. More tea, more sympathy and a knighthood for Margaret (Knight 10). Knight 11 phoned knight 9 and arranged for us all to go for a pint. Chris (for it was he) bought beer and jollity and the offer of borrowing his car the next day for all the running about I was destined for. He also loaded my phone with useful numbers - local garages and the like - while I extolled the virtues of a board game I played as a kid (Nile - great game).
Back to knight 2 and 3's for a romantic Indian Takeaway - knight 6 alarming us all with her accompaniment of chips and garlic rice, followed by a game of Cranium. Bed was floor - but none the worse for that - though I cant pretend I slept all that well.
In the morning knight 2 gave me a lift to knight 9s where I dropped off the girl, and then drove me on to Knight 12. The oily fumes of reputation envelope Ford Ferguson - a mechanic of almost mythical standing. If it's possible to get back on the road, Ford Ferguson is your man. But not on this occasion. He listened to my story - threw in a good few stories of his own, and gently told me that it was extremely unlikely that I could be helped - and the best he could offer was a business card for knight 13.
Knight 2 drove me back to the van, and I phoned knight 13. Within minutes he appeared with his breakdown truck to carry my faithful little (bloody enormous) van to Haddington, the final journey before white van heaven where they can hassle innocent car drivers with impunity on fluffy clouds amidst blue skies. Knight 13 was being paid - does he really count? Well he gets my swish of the sword for his humour. To pick up the van he had to block a side road off the A1. And his gentle cussing of all the enraged motorists this was inconveniencing was almost the highlight of my day. Perhaps the highlight was when he scared the daylights out of a rather wanky looking white Audi driver when he reversed the truck, at some speed, straight at the rather impatient looking pillock. Knight 13 - Scott of Randy's Garage Haddington.
Knight 13 dropped me off in Dunbar and I grabbed breakfast from the butcher in the High Street. A quick call to knight 11 confirmed that the insurances were in place. I found where he'd hidden the keys and headed to Haddington to hear what they thought of the prospects for the van. To be honest they were a little too quick to try to sell me a new one for me to really believe that they'd looked at it at all - but I'd heard enough from knights 4, 5, 12 and 13 to be pretty convinced it's time had come. So I looked at one van and made an offer on it.
My offer was too low - I'd have to wait until the boss came in - he was due about 1pm. It was now about 11, and I returned to knight 9 for extra strong coffee and to reassure The Girl that all was well.
Then I went to knight 2 and 3s to pack our bags and leave them the key they'd lent me, and head on to Haddington. I got there about 1:30. Boss was on his way. He arrived too long after 2.
There's things to do when bargaining. Shake his hand at the beginning. That physical contact makes you more human to the seller. Establish his name and call him by it - again reinforcing that human touch. Don't be afraid of silences. Let them hang. Open your bidding low, but don't be insulting. Gently point out the limitations of the vehicle on offer. Squeeze the sympathy - jovially telling of the fix your in.
I did all this - but felt totally out of my depth - this guy "Ronnie" to all but his business card ("Roddy") - or am I going deaf? - had dealt with more suckers like me than I'd had bacon rolls. Still I got the van for £500 less than I'd originally been asked so we were both happy. Never before had I parted with £2700 so easily. It was the first and only van I'd looked at in the first and only van vendor I'd visited. Just like that.
Paperwork and chit chat. Ronnie knew my home village - had played golf on the beach before he was married - before all the bridges made the journey north so much quicker...
Payment. Cash only. Sh*t. More rushing around - withdrawing three grand in cash at the bank prompted more security questions that I'd ever have imagined. Meanwhile Jussi, (who deserves a knighthood too yeah? Arise Knight 14 (actually she should be knight 2, but that would mean going back over this whole post and renumbering everybody)) was back at home trying to sort out the insurance. For some reason it was all rather complicated and, it seems, the old sprinter had never been properly insured - I mean we'd paid the insurance premiums and all that but the insurance had been in the wrong name to merit the no claims bonus they were giving us and so had it come to it, they would have refused any insurance payments. How the hell did that happen?
The upshot of that was that at the last minute Ronnie had to phone his secretary who by this time was standing by the post box and tell her NOT to post the letter to DVLA, so that the vehicle could be registered in Jussi's name rather than mine.
Ronnie gets a knighthood. Not only was he very nice as he counted at the £50 notes totalling £2700, he also got one of his guys to pump out the 90 quids worth of diesel from the sprinter into the 'new' van, had other people help me load one van into the other, and offered me copious help with other bits and bobs that needed sorting out. This guy made money out of me - make no mistake, but arise Knight 15, Ronnie (Roddy) of Car and Van Hire Haddington.
So fully equipped with a 2003 long wheel base transit, I drove to knight 11's car and removed our bags and then on to knight 9's where I dropped off the keys to knight 11's car, drank gallons of tea and picked up the girl. And set off for home, leaving Dunbar about 4:30 - timed nicely to hit the rush hour on the Edinburgh By-pass and Forth Road Bridge.
We got home about half past midnight. Slower than you might expect - even accounting for the long break we took in Inverness - but the road between Lairg and Tongue was overrun with stags - 'unnerds of 'em - leaping about all over the place. But traffic was light - I was on full beam all the way from Lairg.
Rarely have I ever been so grateful to crawl into my own oh so comfy bed.
Epilogue
You knights you knights you saved us. Thank you so very much.
It was an incredibly lucky series of events. Most astonishing of all is that the van should pack up in Dunbar. It was a nine hundred mile round trip - if we'd broken down anywhere else that whole thing would have been a heck of a lot harder to deal with. How lucky is that?
It was incredibly lucky that the van died in Dunbar. It is a whole lot easier and cheaper to get a 2nd hand van in the central belt than it is in the north highlands.
I Ching is scary. I've used it a few times and it has never been wrong. Not only does it seem to be able to predict, but it can also offer advice on how to overcome, and it can seem amazingly perceptive and accurate. But I don't believe in that sort of thing so that's alright then.
In dull moments, waiting by roadsides, in sleepless moments on floors and wonky beds, this has been my refuge - it's brilliant - go buy it - here.
The new van has the best sound system in the house (apart from iPod and Sony cans) - and I've wished for a sound system in the van ever since we got the old sprinter.The girl never made it to school - we gave her the day off- no need to work so hard just for a day at school.
