Plan B (by alaric)

I've hired a car to take up to the Lake District this weekend.

A Peugeot 308 with 350 miles on the clock that smells of new, picked up in London Euston, drop off in Gloucester, four days, for £166 from Avis at zero notice and with nothing more than a debit card and a clean licence with the same name on and a photo that matches my face - not bad at all. 1car1 was offering £200 for the same thing, but I'd need a utility bill, which by some miracle I don't happen to normally carry with me!

The van will stay here until I return next week and then I'll transport it to a place of fixing.

I broke the van! (by alaric)

While in London with the van, I had to deliver a server to a data centre - (InterXion London)[http://www.datacentermap.com/united-kingdom/london/interxion-london.html]. There's parking at the DC, but it's £20 to park a van there, so I decided to try and get into the car park marked just north of it on the map, in Quaker Street.

While I could find the car park, I couldn't find the way in - I could see cars all parked behind a fence, but no sign of the entrance. But while navigating the narrow little roads, I had to turn around in Grey Eagle Street:

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The road was narrow, only a single track, but with a wide pavement, so I opted for a three point turn. I turned hard right to bring the front of the van up onto the pavement, and the right wheel went up, but then I heard a grinding scraping noise. I was a bit surprised to be bottoming out on a not-particularly-high kerb, but I reversed back and found a place further down with a dropped kerb (but less pavement, since there was a car parked up there) to turn.

However, I noticed that my steering was suddenly a bit funny. I had to hold the wheel at about seventy degrees left to drive in a straight line. And the suspension felt odd - I could feel every little stone in the road, and if I went over even the slightest bump, I heard a funny creaking sound.

BAD NEWS!

After a quick check for visible signs of damage as soon as I had parked (none), I did the business of the evening, and then drove carefully back to Highgate for a closer look.

I parked with the wheel perfectly straight, then got out and looked at both wheels.

Here's the left one, pointing nice and straight ahead:

And here's the right one... pointing twenty or so degrees to the right:

Looks like the tracking's totally out, then.

And by the scientific method of placing my hand in the gap between top of tyre and wheel arch then holding it still while I walk around and try on the other side, the right hand side seems an inch or so lower than the left, too.

And all this when I'm supposed to be doing a five-hour drive up motorways tomorrow evening. Eeek.

I'm going to see if I can find a place to look at my tracking and suspension first thing tomorrow... but I'm dreading what it'll cost, and doubting I'll get it fixed the same day...

The Camping Holiday Of Despair (by alaric)

The plan was simple: borrow Sarah's parent's campervan, drive down on Friday evening to the village where our friends were being married the next day, sleep over, get up in the morning, have a nice breakfast, explore the area a bit, do the wedding, sleep over, then have Sunday to do touristy things with a few of the others who were staying over after the wedding, sleep over, and come back Monday morning.

However, it did not go to plan.

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Stuck in the back of an out-of-control vehicle careening down a slope! (by alaric)

The scene: I, with my family, are in a Little Chef. Jean, bless her, has got food all over herself, so I go out to the van, in the car park, to get wet wipes.

I unlock the back, hop in, go to the box of stuff, and start rooting about for wipes. I feel a slight motion, and wonder if it's strong wind rocking the van, or if somebody bumped into it while getting into an adjacent car as I continue to root. Then I feel a bigger rocking motion, and look outside to, to my horror, see the world moving... the van's rolling backwards, with me in the cargo bay and nobody in the front!

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Don’t Park the van in the mud! (by sarah)

Would anyone listern? No. So as a result the van is well and truelly stuck along the side of the drive.

It all started with the fact that we have been flooded so flood precuations are taking place in the normal parking area so we had parked in front of the greenhouse but then Barbara was having a tea party and her guestys needed to park so the van had to go otherwise the guests would have to park on the grass which obviously wasn't on so the van had to park on the grass. I said it wouold get stuck and was assured that parking along the gradient would mean it wouldn't get stuck.

We got stuck.

We where therefore late for cubs becuase even though we had left extra time for towing out etc... the towing rope snaped and after a bit of a hoohar we transfered our stuff to Barbaras car and headed off. All was then fine until my scouts arrived - we were supposed to go to the village pound to float new year lanterns but alas I had left the reflective jackets in the van along with torches etc... on top of that lots of the kids failed to turn up in outdoor clothing and I was already concerned about the fact it had rained so much - I was waiting for Al to finish cubs properlly in order to send him out on a recky of the area when one of the perants told me it was so bad down there that she wouldnt be happy for her kid to go - it was at this point I realised I'd left the jackets and that behind anyway.

I was very annoyed with myself but I think the lanterns still worked well inside in bowls of water - fortunatly I'd planned for incase we had bad weather.

Still the van is stuck and we are now hoping that the builders are going to help us get it unstuck - SIGH. Still it turns out we have a Roman Urinal 🙂 but more on that later!