April Update - 24/4/08 - Mum & Dad's house, Devon, England 
(1,565 km)
We had a lovely afternoon wandering around Windermere after I'd tried unsuccessfully to parallel park the Mog! Oz said to try again with my attempt to squeeze it into a space but I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and retired to a big car park rather than face the small crowd that had formed!! I don't suppose we'll have this parking problem much in Africa!
Arriving at the MOT centre and pulling up between a milk tanker and a 14 wheeler we suddenly seemed quite tiny - we have to have MOTs completed at HGV centres as the ordinary car centres are too small! I did, however, make a new friend when I asked Oz if he wanted a cuppa and the lorry driver next door said yes!
Oz took the Mog through the test and immediately the tester said that the headlights were wrong... luckily I was waiting in reception and didn’t have the agony of seeing if he would pass it or not – what a pain to have to go back to Atkinson Vos to get something altered then have to wait around for a re-test. The Mog passed the rest of the test with flying colours and after consulting his paperwork the tester declared that, although it was very strange to have one left-hand drive and one right-hand drive headlight, it didn’t say anything in the book about it so it could pass! We can only assume that the previous owner had a very good reason for the lights to be set up like this! Either that or he smashed a light and it was the only one he could get to replace it with... either way, we'll have to add it to the list of things to look at.
We called in on the way past Bristol to see our friend and Carnet guru Paul Gowen at the lovely RAC building just off the M5. Paul had primed security that we were coming but we were rather small fry after the guys in the double-decker bus that had visited him just that morning!
As usual it was lovely to see Paul and we showed him round the Mog and discussed the finer points of the Carnet system in relation to our needs. Paul gave us a little mascot dog called ‘Malty’ and a bumble bee called (unsurprisingly!) ‘B’ to take with us. These are his daughter, Jody's toys and we will make sure she has regular updates of their travels. As trainee intrepid explorers Paul had arranged for us to go to the top of the RAC tower which is used as a meeting room but how anyone concentrates when there is such a fabulous view out of the window I’ll never know. We took some pictures of the Mog from above which may well be the only time we get to see it from this angle.
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(Click to enlarge picture)Mog at the RAC and Paul hangs on while Oz does doughnuts in the car park! (Spot the big grins!!) |
After waving Paul goodbye we headed for my parent’s house in East Devon. My mother, who hadn’t seen the Mog before, said that she loved it and declared that she would borrow it after us and go for an adventure with my father ... I can only assume she hadn’t seen the bathroom arrangements at this point!!
We are now in total chaos as we have empted the back and are busy repacking it all along with all the paperwork we didn’t manage to finish in Scotland. We have managed to catch up with a whole stack of friends including, Keef, Andy, Mark, John P, Nath, Steve G, Karen, Rebekah and Steve but still have loads of people to still see (a special hello to Amy and Barbara at Honiton Barclays!). Oz managed to squeeze in days climbing with Andy yesterday and my father returns today from abroad so it’s not all work!!!