Just before Christmas last year we had set up a web site to spread the word about “The Big Pitch Guide” and to show people what the guide contained and how they could obtain a copy but what we could not have expected was the amount of interest it would engender. Our web-master, Edward Martin, has been supplying us with computers for over a decade now and has watched and advised us over the last couple of years as we tried and tested many different ways of presenting the Guide – and even he was so excited about the project that he presented us with a bespoke web-site at a fraction of the true cost, a generous deed for which we are extremely grateful. Mo and I have spent a small fortune on developing the Guide and we are only now just beginning to see some return on our investment – we don’t expect to make a fortune but as long as we recover our costs for now and the future, we shall be happy. In the meantime we can honestly say that our membership stands at well in excess of 200 people and has already brought to our attention four RV friendly sites that we knew nothing about. Details of these sites are being prepared right now and copies of the pages will be sent to all ‘Friends’ within the month – our thanks to the ‘Friends’ who came to the show at Telford and told us about the new sites. Since then we have had several very heartening e-mails from satisfied ‘Friends’ all of which makes it a much more worthwhile sacrifice of our spare time. Jackie S (SP 002) mailed us to say they had not caravanned until 2003 and then rapidly progressed from a Hymer to a Damon in 2004 and felt relieved, at last, to have an accurate knowledge of where they could actually go – Jackie described it as an ‘essential’ guide and who are we to disagree! Gill and Paul (CH 001) said that they had only recently bought their RV and after many refusals from sites saying they could not accept RV’s, they now felt spoilt for choice and were hoping to add to our list of friendly sites at some time later – roll on, the more the merrier.
On to a subject for which a friend needs some help and I am sure that somebody out there will be able to come up with the goods. His wife is totally wheelchair bound, they want to become RV’ers but really need help and advice on UK available RV’s (pre-owned if possible), on loo and bathroom conversions, chair lifts etc., etc., etc. They have spoken to several dealers but really need some proper ‘practical-experience’ advice from anybody with such experience and I beg of you, if you have such experience, let me know your address or telephone number and I will pass it on immediately.
I wrote last time that we had retreated back to the site at Brue Yachts in Highbridge, Somerset in order to gain some peace and quiet in which to produce the Big Pitch Guide and I have to pass on some heartfelt thanks to George and June for looking after us really well and for being exceedingly helpful throughout the lead up to the show at Telford. They have allowed us to install a BT broadband telephone line, they have loaned us a small caravan in which to store all the necessary bits and bobs that we cannot normally carry on board Bumpy and, in general, have looked after us above and beyond the call of duty. They very generously invited us into their home for Christmas Dinner and even offered us spare blankets, should we need them, during the last spell of really cold weather. One thing Bumpy does not need is help in keeping Mo and myself warm and comfortable but it really is nice to know that the fellowship amongst RV’ers is alive and well and presently residing in Somerset.
Our thanks must also be extended to Bob Edwards and his family at the firm of Travelworld US RV in Telford. We contacted Bob after we had produced the prototype of the Guide because we wanted some honest criticism and advice on the product and we hoped that he was the man to give us an unbiased opinion. Not only did he help us with advice on the production of the Guide but he also offered us a stall at the Travelworld US RV Show in mid-January this year. Mo and I discussed the idea and decided it was a make-or-break situation – we had already committed ourselves to producing the Guide but were still not really sure that anybody would want it. I had some serious doubts about it - but this probably stems from the fact that I suffer from an inferiority complex brought about from an unfortunate experience on my wedding days many moons ago. You see, my best man was called Dickie Dows, built like a brick-outhouse he stood six foot four inches in his stockinged feet, whilst I am only five foot ten shaped like a Queen Anne table leg. Naturally enough, he was known as big-Dick and I was known as little-D…….. well - enough of that, now you can see where my complex stemmed from!
I say a make-or-break situation because Mo and I had no idea whatsoever of how the Guide would be received – true we had an inkling that it would go well from the demand generated on the web-site but would we require one hundred books or five hundred – at a cost of £2500 per one hundred books we just could not afford to go mad and be left with four hundred and ninety nine books to take home. We decided that we would produce one hundred books for the Show but each time we packed the car George or June would appear with more mail and we would have to send books off to fulfil our mail orders. We had already produced a special run for Eric Randle at ‘Itchyfeet’ in Cornwall which we had arranged to deliver in the week after the Show but that soon got swallowed up in the demand and here we are at the end of January awaiting another reprint – most satisfying for us but it means that we still do not have time to put our feet up for a rest even with the prospect of fresh Lardy Cakes just around the corner! George loaned us a display stand for the show, Bob had promised us a table and chairs in a prominent position inside the Telford Exhibition Centre and we had purchased some plastic carrier bags to advertise our wares – we were all set for the Show, come what may.
The journey up to Telford was uneventful, Bumpy seemed pleased to be back on the road and (with a lot of our spare tackle stored in Gorge and June’s caravan) felt quite lively once we got onto the motorway. One small frustration occurred when we passed a garage advertising LPG at 38p per litre (we are currently paying 44p) but in their wisdom the garage owners had positioned the tank in such a position that only a ‘Smart’ car could get to it – a problem that we quite often come across in Service Stations to the extent that we are now actively considering publishing an annex to The Big Pitch Guide showing RV friendly LPG stations. More on that subject at a later date but if anyone knows of such LPG stations please let us know and we will pass the information on.
Annabel at Travelworld had arranged an overflow car park quite close to their depot in Halesfield and we arrived mid-afternoon looking forward to an early-to-bed night ready for a crack-of-dawn start the following morning. OK, the Show was not due to be opened until 0900 on the Friday morning but even that meant we would have to start at a ridiculously early hour if we were to be there on time. It was a freezing cold night and we powered up the generator to cook supper and burn the furnace during the evening, switched it off as we went to bed but forgot to turn the furnace down – an action we later regretted and the result of which meant that we did not need to set the alarm clock after all – we awoke at 0300 to hear the carbon monoxide alarm beeping furiously to tell us that we had run out of ‘house’ battery power. We have two furnaces, one heats the lounge and one heats the bathroom and bedroom and we were using both at the same time because, in general, we are nearly always on hook-up power which quite happily runs both furnace fans and which does not run the ‘house’ batteries flat in a couple of hours. Oh, how the quickly the innocent learn from their mistakes - even in the dark of the early morning, Mo had that look on her face which meant that I - being the driver, was at fault for wanting to come to the Show and disturbing her perfectly comfortable existence at Highbridge and if she had any say in the matter, I would have been banished to the nether regions of the car park to spend the rest of the sub-zero temperature night, in the nude, under the stars. Next morning I spoke to Jim, the warranties Manager at Travelworld, to ask him if he could up rate our house batteries as soon as possible during our first service in February – it might cost me a bob or two but that is nothing to the ‘silent’ punishment Mo can offer up when the need arises.
We, nevertheless, got to the Show on time and spread ourselves over the promised desk, set up our display and awaited the influx of potential members - they soon started to drift in and before you could say ‘Boo to a Goose’ it was Sunday afternoon and we were packing up and arranging the trip home. Boy, did the time fly! I don’t think I have talked quite so much - to quite so many people - in quite a long time. Mo was the same, in fact, at one time on the Sunday morning she actually sounded quite hoarse, something I have never ever heard before – she can ‘speak for England’ as the saying goes but the demands of this Show stretched us to the limits. On the other hand, it meant that we only brought back enough books to cover Eric Randle’s order - that is until we settled back at Highbridge and read the weekend mail whereupon Eric’s books once again disappeared into jiffy bags on their way to fully paid-up members.
We met some really nice people at the Show, most especially a couple known as Chris and her partner Russell Swift. They had parked their sports car, on display, just across the room to us and almost immediately came over and introduced themselves – a deed which helped us ‘break the ice’ of our debut onto the Show scene by getting us talking - which in turn - soon had us talking to potential customers - and the rest is history. They turned out to be very well known and, in our opinion, rather special people; Russell can be seen quite often on TV performing precision driving techniques such as parking his car between two others at a kerbside by doing a ‘handbrake’ turn and sliding his car sideways into an impossibly narrow gap. His video display showed him setting a record by ‘slide’ parking his car into a space that was just 44cms longer than his actual car – for those of us that prefer real measurement to ‘mickey mouse’ numbers, that means there was just 9 inches space at each end of his car when he climbed out of it. He later told me that he had, in fact, set a new record since making the video – where he parked his car with a space of just 33cms front and back – and to put that in context, if you lay your hand flat on a table and measure across your knuckles it should measure somewhere about 10cms – just a little less wide than Russ had at front and back of the parked car! Most important of all, though, was the fact that they knew the secret of how to get into the Staff Coffee Room and kept us supplied with copious cups of free coffee – lovely jubbly, as they say. For a couple of people, who are quite famous in their own right, to take the time out to befriend a couple of (young) old upstarts like us, is rather special in view and they have joined our Christmas card list without any doubt whatsoever.
One of our better ideas with converting Bumpy to suit our needs was to exchange the, in our opinion, useless day/night blinds with thermal quality household roller blinds. The old day/night blinds only stayed in place because the strings holding them in place were kept quite taut and that in turn meant that it was difficult for Mo to operate them by herself. Not only that but the holes punched in the blinds, through which the strings passed, soon began to show excess wear and tear and even, in some cases, had split up or down to the next hole in line, which also meant that the blind would not close properly and looked scruffy when in the closed position. So armed only with excessive zeal and little or no knowledge whatsoever, we took down the overhead lockers, removed the blinds and replaced them with the rollers and, even if we say so ourselves, we are very pleased with the end result. The blinds roll up and down easily, they are absolute lightproof and they keep the inside of the vehicle much warmer – try putting your hand underneath a closed day/night blind to see just how much cold air comes through the ‘double-glazed’ windows. We are now extending our ideas into the bedroom and are about to replace the old day/night blind at the bedhead with a thermally protected but easily removable headboard – after which, Mo has decided that we will remove the dinette table and benches as well as the lovely reclining relaxer chair that I sometimes manage to occupy when watching television – in favour of replacing the dinette with separate table and chairs and a two-seater settee. I can understand the logic behind it, the wheelchair will fit much more easily under the standalone table when compared to the dinette, and the reclining chair is so heavy and bulky in the slideout that the space left behind after it’s removal will be much better utilised by a decent comfortable settee which I have no doubt the family cat will soon bag for itself.
We seem to have had a spate of new discoveries this last week – simple things - like finding out that the LPG warning alarm, mounted on the bottom of the wall in our corridor, is in love with me! No, I kid you not – just about every time I have walked past it over the last few months it has whistled at me - nothing special, I mean, it’s just the ordinary high-pitched ear-piercing alarm whistle - but it goes off every time I walk past it! Last weekend, just for a change, it whistled at Mo and we began to think that we might have an AC/DC alarm after all, you know, one that swings both ways at once! Then the truth began slowly to dawn on us, the alarm didn’t like us at all – didn’t care one little jot for either of us – no, it was our deodorant that it was in love with. Every time we climbed out of the shower and sprayed deodorant under our arms, if you’ll forgive me for being so personal, the aerosol propellant gas obviously sank to the floor and set the alarm off! Now that we knew the truth, we decided to experiment with different deodorants to see which one the alarm preferred - but it’s not fussy, it loves them all -with the exception of roll-on sticks, and not only that but I then discovered that it only whistled at me when I had sprayed on my aftershave. I used to be a fan of the boxer Henry Cooper and I still love to spray on a drop of ‘Brut’ when I think the occasion demands it but I was a bit taken aback when the alarm decided that I had used too much, darned cheek! Still it’s a novel way to check that your gas alarm is in good working order – stand close to the alarm and give yourself a good old dose of underarm spray - but be prepared for it’s shriek of disgust.
It is said that many a time ‘pride comes before a fall’ and this month has been no different in that department. We had had a really good weekend at Telford, exceeded our expectations with the book, met lots and lots of lovely people and we were finally making preparations to return home to Somerset. I have always maintained that I could reverse our car-laden trailer on the back of the RV in a decent straight line but was always honest enough to say that I doubted that I could do a three point turn with it still attached to Bumpy. However, when we left the overnight park at Telford, the security guard indicated that we should go to one end of the park where he would unlock and raise the barrier so that we could be on our way. Unfortunately when we got to that end of the park, he fiddled around with several padlocks and chains before announcing to us that he only had the keys to open the barrier at the other end of the park – which meant we had to turn around completely, in a fairly crowded car park. I looked around in despair but eventually spotted quite a large gap in the parked cars, which, if I could reverse into it, would mean that I could get around without taking the trailer off. Nothing ventured –nothing-gained - select reverse, head out of the window and away we went, backwards. I was more than pleased; indeed I was really chuffed, when I completed the manoeuvre with complete panache and drove off to the other end of the park as though I did that sort of thing everyday of my life.
Everything was going really well, we were on the motorway, Bumpy was humming along beautifully, the stereo was wafting gentle soothing music around the air-conditioned cab and it was then that I realised that I couldn’t remember what I had done with the car keys. Now, when I am loading the car onto the trailer, I have a set routine which invariably ends up with me putting the car keys into the cup holder on my side of the cab – and they weren’t there, this time. In my memory I went back over every move that I had made - up until performing my three-point turn in the car park – and it was then, with a sinking feeling in my stomach, that I remembered the security guard had disturbed me just after I had tied the last wheel down on the car but just before I had removed the keys, wound up the drivers window and shut and locked the car door. With horror I stared intently at the reverse camera screen to see if the car door was flying wildly open in the wind but my fears were allayed when all seemed well. I mentioned to Mo that I needed to pull into the next service station in order to check the trailer bindings, secretly hoping that she would never realise that I had left the drivers door window wide open - and it was then that I saw the motorway gantry lights displaying the sign “Salting in progress.” Nothing daunted, on we went, it was getting dusk so I knew that the chances of discovery were getting slimmer by the minute - but then I saw, just a couple of hundred yards ahead, the flashing yellow lights of the road ‘gritter’ lorry doing just 45mph in the centre lane ahead of me. Traffic was overtaking it on the left and on the right as it spread it’s load far and wide across the motorway. I couldn’t overtake it on the right so I had to go to the left and all the while I had this huge vision of a wide open car window collecting half-a-ton of rock salt as we passed slowly by. I hung back as much as I could hoping beyond hope that a service station would appear out of the blue but eventually I had to ‘grit’ (excuse the pun) my teeth and go past the lorry, come what may. Mo knows my routine as well as I do, and she must have seen the look of tension on my face as we went past the gritter because she took one look at the cup-holder and asked, “Are the keys still in the car?” I had to admit my misdeed but tried to explain it away by saying that just like spreading wet sawdust on the factory floor helped clean the floor better so a good dose of road salt on the upholstery would probably produce a superior cleaning job next time I vacuumed the car. I blamed the security guard at the car park, the driver of the gritter lorry, Santa Claus – anybody, I could think of who might get me out of this hole but all to no avail, as she gazed inexorably toward me Mo had that inscrutable look on her face which, without the need for words, expressed the view ‘You Plonker!’ |
