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FLYING PROMS
After all the flying around that we had been doing (I made 34 international flights this year). At the beginning of August, just 3 days before my big "Op", it was nice to go away for a weekend to watch some old aircraft instead of sitting in a new one. Brian & Liz Synnott very kindly invited us down to stay with them and spend the evening at Old Warden airfield dining "al fresco" whilst listening to the orchestra and watching historic aircraft strut their stuff. Unfortunately the weather was less than perfect ....
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When we arrived it was fair "tipping it down", however, undaunted, like several thousand others, we pressed on and set up camp under our umbrellas. Liz produced an excellent 4 course meal from a hamper, with the best fillet of beef that we had ever tasted. Meanwhile Brian poured the wine. The wine seemed to go on for ever, but seemed to be getting weaker! (me thinking "Brian's got the cheap stuff out") and then I realised that the rain was running down my umbrella into my wine glass!!
We Brit's are forever optimistic and have "heart" and sure enough the rain stopped, the weather cleared and the "Hart" (1930's Hawker Hart) got airborne together with most of the other aircraft. A grand night was had by all.
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The weather cleared and the show went on Left - The "Lizzie" takes off (The only surviving flying Lysander) Right - Lizzie looks on - with Brian patiently awaiting his turn! |
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The following day we all got together with Chris and Kate Saunby for lunch. They had also turned up at the Proms the night before but had left 'wet through' at about the same time we arrived.
HOSPITAL AGAIN
The day after returning from our "Proms" weekend I was admitted into the James Cook University Hospital on the outskirts of Middlesborough for my big "op". James Cook is a brand new and very large NHS hospital and I can only heap praise on the hospital and staff. I was well looked after in a very large and well equipped room of my own.
The operation was to try to cure my left hand problem and to stop any further deterioration in my right hand. The consultant neurosurgeon was not too optimistic about fixing my left hand, but thought he should sort my neck out since it appeared that the nerves were trapped and could cause similar problems to my right hand. Damned clever these chaps for It involved cutting a hole in the front of my neck (about 6 inches long) bypassing my throat etc, and then drilling bits out of the upper spine, before cutting another 6 inch hole in my hip from where they took some bone and stuffed it in my neck! (So as that old song goes " My hip bone is connected to my neck bone" and with my earlier operation (1982) when they took bone of my lower pelvis to stick it in my lower back - "my bum bone is connected to my back bone" so in the "words of the Lord" (the wife) - no wonder she says I "talk out of my backside!")
Anyway despite warnings that I may lose my voice temporarily (or even permanently - Jill hoped!) or have lots of other nasties happen from that point of view, the operation was a success. However it has not fixed the left hand problem and only time will tell how the right hand will develop!
I was up and home in a week, and despite being offered a 6 month sick note was back in the office straight away! (Oh to be a hired hand (so to speak) and get 6 months off!)
Visitors from Down Under
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I'd only been home a few days when I got an email from Mike Mitchell in Perth W.A. saying him and Mary were on their way (next day) to the UK for a few weeks to attend a wedding. (Mike never was good with the forward planning!) Naturally enough we invited them up to sunny Yorkshire for another get together, our 2nd this year after a gap of over 30 years! |
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FRANCE & SPAIN AGAIN - WHERE DISASTER STRIKES
Needless to say I was told to take things easy after the operation, but the doc did say, if I felt OK after about 3 weeks, I could fly and drive.
During this period we had received and accepted an offer on our house in Spain. We had received the 10% deposit, and therefore had to complete with one month otherwise under Spanish law you are liable to pay out very large sums in compensation. (1/2 the value of the property). This meant that we had to complete by the middle of September just 4 weeks after my operation. No problem. We decided to fly to France, spend a few days there, and then drive down to Spain collect the money, hand over the house, send the furniture and virtually all the contents to Danielle in Luxembourg (since she was going to be a little short on furniture) and recover some of the smaller more personal items to France, Seemed like a good plan at the time!
We have to fly from Stansted to Pau as Ryanair are the only ones who go there from the UK. We always take the train from York, via Peterborough, have a driver to York and only have to walk up from the station to departures at Stansted, so the trip to Pau was no problem. However, we have a drive of 1 hour from Pau to Monleon (100 Kms). We kept Jill's Cabriolet at Pau, which is a manual gear change, as the old Prairie (Automatic) had become very unreliable. I couldn't drive it because of my neck and Jill had real problems because of her new knee! It was a struggle for Jill but we made it to Monleon.
Our big concern was that there was no way that Jill could drive the 1,000 Km to Mojacar and back.
| To solve the problem we decided to buy a new car in France, We wanted something to replace the knackered old Prairie which was very useful for carrying stuff. We needed it in 3 days so we went on a local hunt whilst Danielle (In Luxembourg) trawled the internet and telephoned garages a little further a field. What we found was that the French (especially in the South West) do not like automatics. We found just one, much bigger than we needed and twice as much as we wanted to pay, However, needs must, and what does a lot does a little so we bought it, A seven seater Renault Grand Espace. Perfect for shifting stuff from Spain, ideal for Chris and his mates, but bloody big (Still we thought it could double as an ambulance if things went really pear shaped!). |
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We had bought the Prairie for Jill in 1989
so, although it had been a bit problematic in the last year or so it had
given us good service so Jill was sad to see it go to that big scrap heap
in the sky!
Anyway, the day after taking delivery of the Espace we went to Lourdes to rendezvous with Barb Moore, an old school friend who Jill hadn't seen since 1967. Barb married Colin Horner, who briefly shared a flat with Les in Liverpool, before emigrating to South Africa were they have lived ever since. The meeting came about because Barb & a South African friend had booked a coach trip around France. When she looked at the route on a map, she realised that she would be passing us. We arranged to meet in Lourdes which is about 1 hour away. |
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Barb and Jill in front of the Grotto where the Virgin Mary appeared before Bernadette |
Miracles do happen at Lourdes It was a miracle that Jill & Barb met up. We were given the wrong RV point, the wrong coach company and the wrong time, yet, despite not having seen each other for 40 years, Jill still managed to welcome Barb as she alighted from the coach. They only had a few hours together, yet they managed to see the sites, reminisce and exchange happenings over 40 years. We're stopping off in South Africa in March, on our next world trip , so more time can be spent reminiscing about the good old days! |
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To Spain to complete the sale - a traumatic week
We took all the rear seats out to turn the Espace into a van, threw in some cardboard boxes and old sheets for covering a coffee table we were bringing back, and left for Spain the next day. Because I was still officially unfit to drive, and in any case couldn't move my head, Jill had to do most of the driving, especially the tricky (head turning) bits over the Pyrenees and through towns and cities. I was able to take over and give her a break on the motorways.
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Chris had stayed in Valencia during the summer and recommended it as a very interesting city. We had driven through/past it dozens of times over the years but had never stopped so we decided to stay there enroute to Mojacar. We took our time and arrived in Valencia just after 3 on a Saturday afternoon. The traffic in the city was pretty heavy. Knowing the parking problems in Spanish cities, we had chosen a hotel right in the centre that claimed to have parking. Jill was driving and I was navigating. I heard a warning bleep from the on board computer, but being unfamiliar with the car, and it all being in French, I assumed that it was warning that another vehicle had got too close. We were on a 3 lane boulevard with traffic lights at every junction. Almost immediately a car containing 4 young blokes drew up on our inside, a bus lane, "honking" their horn and pointing to the rear nearside wheel. It was flat! |
ROBBED!
I immediately told Jill to pull into the bus lane and pull off at the next junction. Fortunately there was a disabled car space in the side road so Jill very skillfully reversed into it whilst I held up the traffic! By this time the tyre was "as flat as a fluke". Luckily the salesman (who I must say has been excellent) had given us a thorough briefing on the car which had included how to change a wheel. For a normal able bodied person in a temperate climate it was easy. However, for a gammy handed, invalid in temperatures in the 90's it was somewhat more difficult. Despite the trauma I managed to jack up the car, retrieve the spare (one of those "short distance runners") and was about to change it when a chap approached Jill, as she had got out of the car and came around the back to see if she could help. He spoke to Jill in Spanish talking about a "Mechanico" and pointing down the road. We thought he was trying to help, but, although Jill speaks a little Spanish and understands most she could not understand him. He appeared to give up, and walked away. I finished changing the wheel.
When Jill got back in the car she discovered her hand bag had gone from between the front seats. It later transpired that the bastards in the car had put a knife through our tyre to force us to stop so that they could rob us. Later the local Policia told us that it was a gang of Roumanian Gypsies who do it all the time!!! I guess we were lucky that I had a load of packing in the back covering my lap top and that we had stopped in a very public place, otherwise the knife might have been used on us!
Unfortunately, amongst other things, the bag contained Jill's purse (with several hundred £'s and Euros), 7 credit/debit cards (4 English, 2 Spanish & 1 French), 3 cheques books (one for each country) a bag of Jewellery, her driving licence, spare electronic car key and critically her passport. (She needed this to complete the sale of the house!). The good news was that my wallet, emergency glasses case and Passport were spread around and the car and me so were safe.
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Valencia from the safety of our Hotel balcony |
We were not far from the
hotel, so we drove straight there. Unfortunately they did not have
a car park as claimed on their website. I would have to go to a
public one some several blocks away round a very confusing one way
system. I dropped Jill off and left her to check in the hotel and call
the police, etc
I eventually returned to the hotel to find the two male receptionists helping Jill make the report to the police. They then helped us both telephone the various credit card companies and banks in 3 countries. Not an easy task late on a Saturday afternoon. |
A very distraught Jill on the phone |
It was sods law that after all their help, when we came to actually check in the receptionist couldn't find our details. I looked on my lap top for the booking and found that I had "boobed". It was the first time in my life I had messed up a booking. I had booked for Sunday instead of Saturday. Fortunately they had a room and changed the booking.
On to Mojacar and more problems
The house sale was scheduled for the following Thursday. It had to be completed by the Friday otherwise it would cost us. Arrangements had been made to the present the Spanish Notary with all documents (including passports) on this day. It had to be a proper passport not a temporary one. We had no hope of getting a passport for Jill in that time as it had to be issued in the UK. Things were getting fraught. As luck would have it ,the buyer was having trouble with his mortgage, so we managed to get the buyer to accept responsibility for the delay and not us. This meant that he had to pay for us to return to Spain two weeks later, otherwise he would have lost his 10% deposit.
However, our problems were not over, we had to a temporary passport for Jill from Alicante so that we could get back to England, to get a proper passport to return to Spain! Fortunately I had a copy of Jill's passport on my laptop so getting a temporary one on the way back to France proved relatively easy. But not cheap! What would have happened if we had both lost them with our money and credit cards doesn't bear thinking about. We warned - don't let it happen to you..
Back to France - 6 tyres later!
It wasn't our week, I had had a new tyre fitted in Mojacar as the punctured one was irrepairable, then on the way back to France, as we left the Spanish motorway system the onboard computer went from a 50 Km range to virtually zero. I was driving and had decided to hang out until we left the motorways so that we could by some cheap fuel. As we approached the first garage it looked closed with workman on the forecourt. However, as we passed it I realised it was open so I stopped and reversed on to the forecourt where there was lots of work going on with lots of scrap iron lying around. I filled up, Jill took over the driving and we headed towards the Pyrenees and France.
We hadn't gone far when the computer sounded a warning. This time we knew what it was and looked at the screen. It said (in French) that the offside rear tyre pressure was low and that we should stop as soon as we could. A minute later it "beeped" again and told us to stop immediately! We did. We pulled into a lay by to find that the tyre was flat and had a great gouge out of it. I couldn't turn my head when reversing so must have reversed into some low lying scrap iron in the garage. With my experience, It didn't take long to change the wheel, but left us with the problem of over 400 Km to go across the Pyrenees, running on a temporary tyre and no spare. Too risky! It was 5.30 in the evening. Fortunately the Spanish work until 7. We tried several garages without success and eventually found a tyre specialist. He didn't have a new tyre, but after some investigation produced an old one of the same size. He said we could have it fitted for 20 euros. We took it and headed to France. We had a new one fitted next day making it 6 new tyres and one old one fitted in two weeks - they don't go through that many in formulae one! - Do they?
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The BBQ in John's new batchelor pad |
Back in France we went straight back into party mode. John Slattery had bought a new (old) house and had got the keys that day so we decided to help him celebrate by organising a house warming for him. We supplied the furniture, since the house was totally empty, and some food and some booze whilst he and ex-wife Renatta supplied the rest. We held it in what he called his summer kitchen. It was the size of 4 double garages and looked like it, but thanks to Renatta's food, we had a great evening. |
We ate and drank a lot in his "summer" kitchen |
England & Spain again to see more money down the drain!
We returned to England on the Saturday but had to be back in Spain on the Tuesday with passports in hand. We had to head for Durham on Monday, and with a lot more trauma, incident and appeals to the passport office management, we managed to persuade them to give Jill her replacement passport that day.
The handover was scheduled for Thursday at 12.00 Hrs, but we had to make sure that all the furniture and household goods were ready for collection that morning. I had been let down by one English removals company, but had contacted another called Moves2Spain. We visited his warehouse, met him and thought he was OK so employed him to move the kit to Luxembourg. His two men arrived late on the Thursday morning but managed to get everything in their van by the time we left! The schedule was then to deliver it to Luxembourg on the week commencing 9th October when we would be there, Little did we know what was going to happen!
The exchange of contracts went without a hitch, and the new owner, an Englishman, handed us a Euro Bankers Cheque for a very large amount. Unfortunately the banks were closed so we were unable to pay it into our Spanish Bank. We were leaving for the UK that night so I had to take it with me. I was a little nervous of letting it out of my sight for although it was made out to me, it was an irrevocable bankers cheque so I felt I was carrying a few hundred thousand pounds in my wallet. Just slightly more than I normally carry!!
I didn't want to pay it into an English bank because of the currency charges, so I decided to hang on to it until I was next in Europe, which was to be a few weeks later at the beginning of October. This turned out to be a very bad idea...........
