Parallel to this activity, the evenings were mainly filled with trips to Sid’s favourite drinking establishment (and that of his friends), the Garden Gate. On the Thursday night, Auntie Shirley was visiting from Weymouth for a night so we nipped down there to play in the weekly pub quiz night. I’ve gone to a few of these over my past number of visits to England and it’s too bad that it’s not something that has really caught on in Canada...lots of fun. There were hardly any patrons in the pub as 9 o’clock rolled around and the quizzing was about to begin but suddenly some more people arrived and in the end there were six teams...and we were quite pleased when we found out that we won! It only costs a pound each to play so we were offered a token monetary prize which we duly (and following the pub’s local tradition) donated to charity.
The next night we returned to the pub even though Sid and I didn’t expect to. The reason, months ago a friend of Sid and Sonia’s, Eli, had scheduled an evening out. She has children and hence doesn’t come out too often so we had to oblige of course... Yet the problem was that on Saturday there was going to be a “retro video game” event at the Gate so certainly we had to return...for a third day in a row (and four out of five...but who’s counting.
Why am I detailing all of this pub debauchery? Well, it helps explain why my negotiating skills were weak when perspective buyer #1 showed up on Sunday. He had driven down with a buddy from north London. I would guess that Peter was in his mid-40s with short whitish grey hair and a slim build. He got right down to business checking her out and I tell you, he didn’t miss a thing! Turns out he’s a mechanic. He even noticed a slight leak from the engine to the main exhaust manifold that was super subtle but there was no denying it as Christophe and I had to cut a new gasket slightly to get it to fit. Peter was mostly concerned about the state of the rust on Betty and rightly so. She definitely has some bad spots. So he began to build a shopping list of issues she has.
I didn’t help the matter out either. While showing him that the interior appliances worked, I fired up the gas stove, it lit no problem, I turned the dial to turn it off and closed the lid. About 5 minutes later, while I was standing outside the back with Peter’s friend and Peter’s head was buried in the engine while it was idling...a shattering sound crashed out from the back as the glass plate covering the gas burners disintegrated. What?!? How did that happen? Well obviously I hadn’t turned the burner off. With the sun low in the sky, I didn’t see the flames still kicking out and Peter’s friend even noted that he thought I’d turn it off...damn. So I set about cleaning the mess while feeling like an idiot.
We took Betty for a short test drive in downtown Aldershot, which happens to be a maze of one way streets and Peter turned the wrong way down one...whoops. Okay, I didn’t feel as much of an idiot. In the end he did buy it for a couple hundred of pounds less than I had hoped to get for her but in the grand scheme of things, I figured it was more important not to be stuck with a campervan that I couldn’t sell. October is definitely not a seller’s time of the year for campervans in England. Sadly Peter stated that he would not be calling her Betty and that most of her future trips will be weekend fishing trips to a lake north of London.
Memorable times with Betty
Somewhere in Montenegro:
At the Tara Canyon in Montenegro:
Arriving at the Adriatic coast:
Topping up the brake fluid after a harrowing hill descent in Croatia:
I must give a shout out again to my new friends near Bordeaux, Christophe and Virginie. Without them I wouldn’t have had a van to sell...thanks guys!
Properly broken down at Dune de Pyla:
The biggest fix of the summer:
My saviours at Dune de Pyla:
And Betty, what can I say? Ours was a love hate relationship. You provided me with a good home and showed me Europe but damn girl, you definitely ended up costing me a lot more than I expected. These troubles did lead me to some new friends and for that I’m grateful. After over 15,000 kilometres in just 3 months, just running to a lake for weekend fishing trips will be like retirement for you...enjoy!
Basking in the Coupe Icare in France:
Bye Bye Betty!
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