tanked up

on day two of our hols we were woken again at the crack of dawn, indeed well before the crack of dawn, and taken off to the park with the metal trees for a quick run around. then the peeps spent a frantic hour tidying up her maamship's flat, which had descended into the chaos they take with them wherever they go. after that we all piled into hattie, who is her maamship's campervan. the reason we went in hattie rather than arthur the audi was because of my boy's fear of travel. he loves hattie and spent lots of time fiddling around with her cupboards and switches before settling down with his laptop to play a computer game called morrowind.

young dave and i managed to find a space on the floor to kip, although young dave very quickly wormed his way onto himself's lap, where he collapsed in a hairy grey heap. after quite some time we arrived at the services where we were meeting her maamship and the prof. and sure enough, there they were! it always amazes me when any of the peeps' arrangements comes off. after a bit of pottering around and a cuppa we set off again, following their car. about 20 miles further on the deisel light came on. this was hattie's way of telling the peeps that she was thirsty. herself indicated to her maamship and the prof that she was turning off and we headed into the filling station. herself pulled up by the pump and got out.

"its the other side!" called her maamship. herself got back in and moved to a different pump. she fiddled around with the keys and unlocked the filler cap. as she finished filling up her maamship came out from the shop, having paid for her own fuel.

"its the ignition key," she said, seeing herself having trouble locking up the cap. herself managed to lock the cap with another little key and got back into the driving seat. we headed off again up the motorway. a little bit further on herself turned to himself.

"the fuel light hasn't gone off," she said, rather worriedly, "i hope its ok."

"you don't think you put it in the wrong place do you?" said himself, ever the optimist. a rapid phone call to the prof established that this was indeed what had happened. herself had filled up hattie's water tank with deisel. there was a fair bit of wailing and gnashing of teeth on the part of herself. it was agreed that we would all turn off at the next exit. it was also established that hattie would need a new water tank. herself was somewhat crushed.

this time her maamship filled hattie up, which seemed like a sound idea. herself might have filled up some other tank instead. luckily her maamship is a person who is not easily flustered. she seemed to take all this in her stride.

we carried on with our journey and eventually got to the place where the boat was. we had a quick lesson in which end was which (something her maamship and the prof have very little need of, being boat experts) and then got into a sort of boat queue. ahead of us was a rather impressive structure, which i discovered was a boat lift. now usually it is young dave who exhibits signs of a nervous disposition. but on this occasion it was my good self who got the collie-wobbles. teetering hundreds of feet in the air in a boat in a large container filled with water is not my idea of a relaxing time. in the container with us was a tour boat, filled with people taking photos of us, with a man giving a commentary with a microphone.

once we were at the top things improved. over the next couple of days we pootled along the canal to edinburgh, a large city full of people who we couldn't understand. young dave left his mark in the middle of the main street, much to the peeps embarassment. herself did what she could with the old plastic bag trick but a certain miasma followed us. young dave never fails to deliver.

the rest of the week was spent pootling back again, and was unremarkable save for one breakfast time when herself was frying eggs for everyone. she was about to pour in some oil when she let out a shriek. yet again she had got her liquids muddled and was about to pour whisky into the frying pan. in her defence, the bottles are very similar. i suppose it gives a whole new meaning to scotch eggs...