Limbo… and ‘That London’

In the previous thrilling episode I mentioned that we had opted for a complete new engine from Mercedes with a delivery time of 3 – 5 days.  This was duly ordered on Friday 10th March.  It’s now Monday 20th March and it has yet to arrive, despite a new delivery date of…  today  😦  This is not the usual Teutonic efficiency that we expect, however there is nothing much we can do but enjoy the hospitality of our absent friends and continue with our exploration of ‘Daarn Saarf’.

A very forlorn Red Dwarf

The Sunday before last we availed ourselves, for the second week in a row, of the ‘Pensioners Special’ at the village pub – a whole roast chicken to share, accompanied by mountains of vegetables, roast potatoes, pigs in blankets, stuffing and a couple of square yards of Yorkshire pudding.  Easily enough to gorge oneself at the pub and have the remainder bagged up to take home for a couple more meals.  We pensioners have to watch the pennies you know!

Our main excursion recently was up to ‘That London’ to meet some fellow Hymeristas who took us on a splendid tour of all that is hip and trendy in the capital.  We were met at Charing Cross station after a trouble free 45 minute journey on Southeastern’s finest (are you listening Southern Rail) and hopped onto the passenger ferry to whizz up to Greenwich.  Here we had a spot of early lunch in the glorious sunshine before walking up to the observatory to visit an exhibition of astronomical photography, which was excellent (and free).

The Greenwich Massive

From there we hopped on the tube and zoomed over to Cambridge Heath, Hackney to marvel at the weird and wonderful objects on display at the Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art & Natural History.  Ecclectic doesn’t come close; we saw condoms and Viagra supposedly used by the Rolling Stones, a gold plated hippopotamus skull once owned by drug baron Pablo Escobar, shrunken heads, dancing moles a chocolate anus collection in white, milk and plain (£6 to you sir!) and some stuff that just defied description!  We loved it, well worth the trip and I’m sure if we went back we’d see a whole new lot of weirdness 😀

Dancing mole…

For the man who has everything!

WTF!

You can’t get these at Thorntons!

After the museum we took a cab and the newish overground railway to Camden Lock were we ferreted around in the market and made a few ‘essential’ purchases (space is tight in a 2 metre x 7 metre aluminium box so a strict ‘one in one out’ policy is in force).  After the excitement of the market with its trendy young people we went for a couple of pints at a pub in the canal basin and watched the sun set over the warehouses.

Rave on!

Deadpool!

Our final port of call was a slap up dinner in a fantastic Turkish restaurant belonging to the nightclub where our friend works.  We ate until we could eat no more and after a quick tour of the nightclub our friends made sure we got on the tube back to Charing Cross, where we caught our return train to be home by 11pm.  All in all a fabulous day out and a big thank you to Julia and OJ for organising it.

Since then we’ve met yet more Hymer owning friends, who have paused their tour around Europe and flown back to blighty for a family get together and are off back out there again this week.  Great to see you JC and Gilly, mind that fridge door 😀 and hopefully we’ll catch up with you soon.

All we can do now is wait and hope the engine turns up soon, however there are plenty of other interesting places for us to visit still so don’t worry too much  😉

More ramblings to follow.

Cheers,

Lee.

Still Grounded… But not for long!

We’ve been languishing in the picturesque county of Kent now for just over a week.  Again a massive “thank you” to our friends for letting us stay in their house whilst we get Red Dwarf fixed so we can join them in France.  Watch out for those chainsaw wielding, toothless zombie farmers chaps  😉  😉

In the previous post I mentioned that the general consensus, from those more mechanically minded than me – which is nearly everyone, was that the aftermarket turbo fitted to our ’93 Mercedes Hymer S700 had failed.  So when the garage called me earlier this week I was hopeful we would be up and running again soon.

The voice on the other end of the line opened with “I’ve got some good news and some bad news…”  “OK” says I “what’s the good news?”  “It’s not the turbo, the bad news is at the moment we don’t know what caused the engine to fail.  We need to lift the cylinder head, should take a couple of days, we’ll be in touch.”  Bugger!

Sure enough a couple of days later and all is revealed  – and it’s not pretty.  Apparently one of the pre-combustion chambers, which are pressed into the cylinder head and designed to fail by cracking if they overheat, overheated… but instead of cracking a large chunk of it came off and dropped into the cylinder burying itself in the top of the piston.  As I said I’m no mechanic but even I know this is not good.  “Terminal” was the way the man at the garage described it…

We have two options:  send our engine away to be reconditioned or, for not much more money, get a brand new complete engine from Mercedes with a 12 month/12,000 mile warranty.  Neither option is cheap but we have an emergency fund (although we weren’t expecting to spend so much of it this early!) and as this will be our home for the next 11 months as we travel around Europe (OK 10 months by the time we get going) we want it to be reliable.  So we’ve bitten the bullet and gone for the new option.

It should take 3 to 5 days to get the engine delivered and another 5 days to have it fitted and tested which, fingers crossed, should mean we’re back on the road before the end of March  😀

Meanwhile we’ve been taking in more of the sights locally and further afield.  On Monday we took the train to Brighton, had a lovely lunch in the Basketweavers Arms (they had our favourite Nottingham real ale – Harvest Pale which made Jules’ day) and wandered round George, The Prince Regent’s homage to China and India, the giant kitsch beach hut known as Brighton Pavilion.  If you like over the top decor, pineapples, gold leaf, red flock, fake palm trees, tromp l’oeil bamboo and general extravagance (which we do) then you’ll love it.  We opted for the 45 minute audio guide for an extra couple of quid each which was informative without being boring.

On Wednesday we walked to picturesque Penshurst village and back in glorious spring sunshine with accompanying twittering birds, sprouting tree buds and recently born lambs.  Today (Friday) we were whisked (thank’s Jim) to the historic town of Lewes where we wandered the misty streets, mooched around some of the surprisingly reasonable antique shops and enjoyed another top notch pub lunch at the local Harvey’s brewery pub.  A few pictures below.

More trips are planned next week including a visit to friends in ‘That London’.

Stay tuned for more drivel.

Cheers,

Lee.

We had lift off!

So the big day finally arrived, the day we left our house and headed south to meet up with friends at Canterbury Park & Ride.  The plan was an overnight stop at Canterbury then up early in the morning for a quick drive to the Eurotunnel at Folkestone for an 8.50am crossing.

That was the plan…  At 4pm Wednesday 1st March we locked up the house, soon to be occupied by new tenants, and set off – me, Jules, our two cats, Yoda and Baggy and a van load of stuff for an 11 month tour of Europe.

The last few days (and weeks, to be honest) had been hectic; packing up the house and putting it into storage, filling a skip with rubbish, getting the house ready to rent out, sorting the van – service, MOT, reupholstery and finally packing.  At last we were ready, the day we had planned for over the past couple of years had finally arrived; we were happy, we were sad, we were nervous.  This was it!

Holly the SatNav was programmed and off we go, the sun was out and spirits were high.  Two and a half hours later it was all a bit different.  We were just passing Duxford on the M11, still about an hour and a quarter’s drive from Canterbury.  I glanced in the nearside mirror and saw thick white smoke pouring from the back of the van!  Shit!  Then there was a large bang and a huge jet of flame shot out from the underside of the engine, the side where the LPG tank is mounted!  I don’t mind saying I nearly crapped myself!!  As I pulled over to the hard shoulder we were shaking and scared – what the hell had happened, were we still on fire?  Quick grab the cats!  Get out!

The flames were gone, it was dark and raining.  We sat there in the van staring at each other.  We were in shock.  I felt sick – all of the planning, all of the dreaming all ruined.  I called our breakdown recovery service ADAC, they arranged to have us taken to a service station off the M11 where we would be safer.  We phoned our friends and told them the news obviously our rendezvous wasn’t going to happen.  They were fantastic and offered words of sympathy and encouragement.  I explained what had happened and Richard, who is knowledgeable in all matters mechanical, reckoned that the oil feed to the turbo had let go, spraying over the hot exhaust manifold hence the white smoke and flame.  All fixable he said.

I’m writing this on Friday 3rd March and what a difference a couple of days make.  We have a plan – our friends who we were supposed to be travelling with for the first three months and who live nearby to where we broke down – have very kindly let us stay at their house.  The van is in a local commercial vehicle garage with proper mechanics in greasy overalls and dirty hands  Investigations will start on Monday.

Until then we can relax and re-group which is just what we need after the madness of the last few weeks 😀  We are still on holiday, we’re just in The Garden of England rather than Le Continent.

More news soon…

Cheers,

Lee.

Red Dwarf – not what we expected at the start of our big adventure!  But he will rise again 🙂

A few pictures of us enjoying our unscheduled holiday in Kent.