A phone call to Mike at Smart Car Specialists provided
the good news that Smarty’s boot had been fixed – a faulty switch, and the
service and the check of the Smart Tow system had been completed. She was
currently away getting an MoT and Mike would let me know when she was ready for
collection.
My next phone call was to Chris at Elite Motorhomes
to check on progress on the delivery of Mabel to Banbury and see when we might
be able to collect her. It was clear Chris had done nothing since we met him on
Tuesday when he was going to arrange transport and get back to us with a date
for collection. He called me back after speaking to “Transport” and said Mabel
would be in Banbury Tuesday or Wednesday next week. He then asked whether delivery
to us in early May would be OK. It wasn’t and he was going to see what he could
do. Regarding the safe, I mentioned to Chris that the safes they had on display
in their showroom were too small for our needs and we needed something similar
in size to that installed in Myrtle. When I asked him where that was, he said
it was in our old motorhome – no wonder it wasn’t worth getting a locksmith in!
Chris then suggested we found a replacement safe which they would pay for –
providing it wasn’t too expensive!
Mike phoned shortly after my unsatisfactory
conversation with Chris to say Smarty was good to go. It was an easy 90 mile
return trip to Guildford and I was back in Southsea in time for lunch. In
Guildford I had mentioned to Mike I was uncertain whether to ship Smarty back
to New Zealand. He was in no doubt saying she was one of the best and fastest
Smart cars they had worked on. The contrast between the courtesy car and Smarty
was even more marked with just me in the cars. Smarty is significantly quicker
and much better equipped, it’s becoming a bit of a no brainer whether she goes
to NZ.
After lunch Jane, Adam, Safiya and I went to a
local park for a kickabout with a football and then to the beach for Safiya to
have an ice cream. I started a game of who could hit a stick standing
vertically in shingle not far away with a pebble. Adam managed it twice!
Adam prepared chili con carne for dinner for which
we were joined by his friends Nick and Jo and their children George and Eloise
together with Darryl and Honor. Nick and Darryl are Adam’s train buddies – they
travel to London together to work. Nick arrived ahead of Jo and told us about
the hard work he had put in during the day to improving the driveway of their
house he they had bought recently. When Jo arrived she immediately launched
into Nick for making a mess of the garden – “turned it into a helicopter
landing pad”, she said. Similarly Darryl was getting it in the neck from Honor
over the way he was packing up their home! Darryl and Honor were about to set
off on a 16 month round the world trip with their three children whose ages
span the range 4 to 10. A much greater challenge than ours we thought. Darryl,
Honor and children are planning to reach NZ about the time we get back and we
gave them our contact details.
We shared stories about the United States with Darryl and Honor. Darryl had made himself unpopular with the rest of his family in San Francisco when they walked across the Golden Gate bridge on the basis they could take a ferry back to the city from Sausalito. And so they could, but they found getting to Sausalito required walking another three miles! A tour bus driver at the bridge offered to take them to San Francisco for an exorbitant sum, so there was nothing for it but to walk back over the bridge. That did nothing for Darryl's popularity, particularly with the children, and it waned still further when walking back Honor saw a woman jump from the bridge. That required them to call the police, go through the woman's bag for her details and deal with the ensuing police presence.
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