Week Seven ...

Well this morning I am going to pick up the van, and my garage have said they are 99% sure that it is fixed. The problem has been intermittent trouble from the dash pod, they believe. But just in case, I asked them to fit an isolator switch for the battery. Call my cynical, but we're on Week Seven of Van Gate and I am not leaving anything to chance.

I'm also being taken to see a friend's mate who's a mechanical electrician, so he's going to look at the van on Friday morning and see if he can figure out the problem.

And while I'm sorry to bang on about Van Gate, it has really been getting me down. I feel as drained as the poor battery. But when I got the phone call to say the van was ready to pick up, my spirits shot up. Admittedly, the sun is shining which is a rarity at the moment, but the prospect of the van actually being FIXED - well, I felt this massive burden being lifted. Possibly.
I was thinking, as I walked Moll earlier, how lovely it would be not to have to worry about my van. I'm so fond of it - it's a real workhorse and has seen me and Pip through all sorts of crazy camping, different ideas of Pip's, and subsequently, since then, has felt like a benevolent older brother looking after me. (Well, until now, poor thing.)

So I will be more than delighted if this is the end of the road for this particular misadventure. I could feel my confidence, which has been trodden on severely over the last few weeks, pick up its head and shake itself, like a Peter Pan shadow. If I can once again rely on my trusty friend, we can soon be ready to fly out of the window again, into NeverLand. Well, maybe. I mustn't get too hopeful. I don't want to be disappointed again....

Everything recently has been on hold so it would be great to get going again, workwise and everything wise. We did do walk at Cot Valley on Friday which was great, so that's another for the book, and yesterday I was researching an artist called Gill Watkiss whose work I love. I met a friend for a drink in the evening and she brought along a friend who I'd met before - who turns out to be Gill Watkiss's daughter! Now isn't that a wonderful Cornish coincidence? It cheered me no end.

The only other spanner in the works is that my phone, which I use for taking pictures for my books, has decided it's too old to download pictures onto my iMac. The frustrating thing is that the phone works fine, but I do need to be able to use the camera. So it's finding another second hand phone. SIGH....

This wonderful tortoise was spotted on our walk last Friday. What a clever critter...