Monty Python
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| Scorchio |
It's getting late. Andrew-Neil-speaking-to-an-incredulous-Diane-Abbott late so I may need to keep this short.
Today has been a mix of Victor Meldrew, Benny Hill and Monty Python. Things started off well enough. Ichiro adored his first ever experience of air-conditioning and snoozed deeply most of the night. This morning we were able to have a coffee and an old bit of toasted white bread with butter and peach jam. The hotel sits next to a petrol station and they sold ice. Harry fits as much as he can in the fifteen or so Thermos flasks he has brought with him (ok, maybe it's six or seven), adds some water and is able to reach back and refresh Ichiro's heavy ceramic bowl with icy cold water throughout the trip. The attendant at the petrol station also kindly agrees to me using one of their brooms and squeegees and I clear up the multiple dry unrecognisable insect remains from the windscreen.
Mid-morning we set off and quickly put Spain behind us. I was pleased to have driven more yesterday as this left just 5 hours and 22 minutes to arrive at our destination: Dona Fátima's.
In October last year, Harry and I travelled to Portugal by train to look at a couple of properties, which is when we first heard of Fátima. She was the vendor of the quinta we came to buy. It became apparent that she lived in Germany but her name was unmistakably Portuguese. I wondered what her story and that of the property were as promissory contracts made their way back and forth between Oxford, Germany and Portugal. Either way, we're now installed in an annex beside her house. Even as I stand typing at the kitchen worktop (there's no socket near the kitchen table), topless and wearing those same bloody tracksuit bottoms (at least they have saved me from getting bitten! You should see Harry's legs), I can announce that Harry found clean clothes! No shampoo, no, but I should be grateful for what I can get.
Given the shorter travelling time today, I preferred to stop only once. As we have done before, we make a pit stop, refuel ourselves and let Ichiro have a little wander and sniff and further mark the boundaries of his now vast territory. We didn't top up on diesel as we had more than half a tank left. Harry met my concern with reassuring noises that it wasn't a problem to stop again if we needed to. We then set off for what I was looking forward to being the last long drive.
You can probably guess what comes next. "It's happening again! It's happening again!" I yelled as the STOP light came on and the engine failed. I pulled over and put the hazards back on. Again. A few moments of silence passed before I turned to Harry and said, "I'm just going to try and start again." Last time nothing was done to fix the van and it had been running fine so I didn't feel too worried. I turned the key and, hey presto, it worked! The van purred again its low diesel tractor engine noise and we were off. Thank goodness. I really really just wanted to get to our destination.
Unfortunately, a few minutes later the same happened but this time I couldn't get Monty to giddy up. I yearned to avoid contacting the breakdown cover people again. I didn't want another taxi, another night with dirty clothes, another day of faff. I thought it might have something to do with the temperature of the engine so opened the bonnet and left Monty a few minutes to see if it would make a difference. No. Nada. Eventually, I relented and called the company. I got an operator who had difficulty with letters and numbers which made for an interesting conversation, especially when it came to sharing our co-ordinates. He was going to refer us to the local service and some minutes later we received a call from a Portuguese number and the young woman who spoke to me explained that they hoped to have someone with us within the hour. I tried to explain the history of the problem and hoped she'd have some quick solution. If it was a simple problem, she said, they might be able to sort it at the road side, otherwise it would be towed and given it's Sunday, nobody could look at it until tomorrow...
We weren't in France and we weren't in the shade this time. It wasn't ridiculously hot but the inside of the van was becoming more uncomfortable for Harry who was worried about Ichiro. We were well-versed by this point in moving the bags, rucksacks, toolbox and knife-sharpening machine so that Ichiro could walk through from the back of the van into the cabin and out the driver's door. It's far too dangerous to open the sliding side door. Being a UK model, the door opens onto the motorway. Not too far away was a small patch of shade offered by a medium-sized pine tree. We took what we got, brought Ichiro's water bowl with icy water and waited.
Some twenty minutes later a green van turned up and a man got out and it was all déjà vu. Do you speak English? A little bit. OK, I speak a bit of Portuguese. OK, we'll manage. This is what has been happening with the van, blah, blah, blah. He then has a look inside, does something then asks me to try and start the car. It starts. Great. He calls me out to look under the bonnet with him and explains something in Portuguese about what the problem is. I understand that fuel may be escaping (but he doesn't think it's this) or air is getting in to the fuel pipe and kind of repeat it back to him in my Spanish/Portuguese hash. He says no, that's not it so I ask him to write it into my phone. This allowed me to put it through the translator but also meant I could explain to anyone else exactly what he had identified as the problem. The translation came up saying that it was a fuel leak or air getting into the fuel pipe so I've no idea what I had said to get the disapproving look and disagreement!
He pointed to the pipe and then showed me a little hand pump on the far back left which when squeezed, sucks diesel into the pipe. This is how he'd made it work. I'd just like to say at this point that I had no idea how rudimentary vehicle engines are. The whole thing looks a bit like something Harry would throw together if he was left in a junk yard and told "today's challenge is to make a combustion engine! On your marks, get set... go!" The mechanic says he'll wait for us to pull off and follow us. Now we move everything in reverse order, dog in, multiple items shoved around, Harry huffing and puffing, and away we go. It wasn't long before the engine conked out again and I pull over. The mechanic comes to meet me. He gets me to squeeze the pump this time and says I'll need to keep pulling over and doing this until I can refuel. He suddenly switches to English and says: you need to fill the tank. Totally. He clearly wanted to make sure I understood this. How far is the nearest petrol station, I ask. Fifteen kilometres. Not too bad, I think. It was at this point that for the next fifteen kilometres Benny Hill music played, I would at least think, if not say out loud, I don't believe it! and I would pull over, Harry would pull the bonnet lever, I'd open the bonnet and frantically squeeze the pump, pump, Pompidou, Harry would turn the engine and off we'd go again.
This next bit you just couldn't make up. We pull into the services, I collect some plastic gloves (I can't stand fuel getting onto my hands) and then have the tormenting challenge every foreign gas station presents: how to thwart customers from abroad from being able to fill up their vehicle. I think the system I am used to of pick up nozzle, fill tank, pay at the kiosk really can't be improved on. But no, it's put your card in and I'll go blank on you or type in how much fuel you'll put in (how the hell am I meant to know!) or complete this Sudoku puzzle before you can get anywhere. And breathe. I work it out but then it just decides to slow and top at 73€. I really need this tank to be full and that didn't feel like full to me. I turn the key and the fuel indicator shows we have two bars to go. I hope that the fuel pump will let me have another go at refuelling. Whilst I'm doing this my smartwatch starts ringing and it's a Portuguese number (actually, I forgot it went off when I was driving but with the fiasco that was refilling the fuel pipe manually every few kilometres, I wasn't in a place to answer). I think about ignoring it again (partly because somewhere in my mind answering the phone in a petrol station is verboten. But is answering a smartwatch also...?) but give in and start pressing the green button frantically with the thin transparent gloves on. Argh, it won't work with gloves on and I'm still holding the nozzle! Suddenly the watch comes to life, it's worked and I have the same lady from the Portuguese wing of the recovery service. "Sir, we've sent the tow truck to you but you're not there." "I'm sorry?" What then ensues is an exchange where it comes to light that the man who came to our rescue, identified the problem and provided a solution wasn't sent by the breakdown service. What the? "Did you pay him?" "No, I didn't!" I felt like I should be in some kind of trouble but she said she was pleased that the problem had been resolved though I remained unconvinced that there wouldn't be some fine or minor prison sentence for time-wasting.
It kind of ends there in terms of the road-side assistance saga (please don't let some fine or Portuguese court summons appear, please) except the headquarters person in France calls me to see how I'm getting on and he's also bemused and asking if I was asked to pay the chivalric Portuguese mechanic. He seems to pick up on my feelings of guilt and forcibly states I've done nothing wrong and that yes it's fine I call back tomorrow to follow up on somebody having a look at the van properly.
Until Monty pulled his trick I had slipped into a new gear. Open road, windows down and blasting cooling air, time to think and reflect. What would I write in my blog? Things about the state of the world, the state of medicine, so many very important things. It seems Monty saved us from all of that, bringing me firmly back to terra firma. The coda to all this was arriving at Moinhos de Vento, seeing Fátima wave at us in the distance and steer us in, having her show us around our new temporary home, feeding us and rather a lot of joyous loveliness from someone who is essentially a stranger. A stranger who we met because in Portugal (at least in our case) the vendor and buyer of a property sit together around a table in the notary's office, and therefore have a chance to meet and connect. More on that next time.
