Cameron bought himself an Audi
from a garage in Glasgow, he flew home to collect it and asked me if I wanted to
join him on a road trip to his place near Manheim? How can anybody not want to
go on a wee road trip adventure with their son? I was in with bells on! I gave
away tickets for events that I had booked that weekend, then packed my running stuff
hoping to get a run in at some stage, we
had promised his gran we would visit her before we left, on the Saturday
morning Cammy collected me and we went up to mums house at ten am she wasn’t out
of bed! We woke her and then we made smoked haddock with smoked muscles and
plant based square sausage things for breakfast, getting a chance to catch up
with mum before leaving, the drive down to Newcastle was uneventful with lots
of motorway signs saying yellow alert storm coming, it was wet and windy we
stopped at Dunbar for some Scottish provisions chip shop sauce haggis Irn Bru bon bons etc for Cameron’s
German cupboards, along with snacks for the trip Cammy was buying some beers, he
is 24 and six foot three he was asked for ID he just laughed apparently it was
the fourth time he had been asked for ID in two days, he has lived in Germany now
for two years and been asked once in two years for ID - nanny state Britain demonising
drink!
We made good time arriving far too early deciding
we would go to north shields harbour for a walk around in the rain to kill some
time before boarding, again uneventful boarding Cameron had booked late and our
room was one of the last left on the boat away down in the bulge of the ship
the very last floor, a storm was coming storm Dennis which made looking at all
these watertight doors a bit ominous in the depths of the boat! As we left the
car on deck five and descended down to deck two, We dumped our bags and made
our way to the bar on deck nine ordering two bottles of Newcastle brown ale £9.98,
the girls were putting towels along the galley so I asked if they were
expecting it to be bad? oh yes the girl said very matter of fact expect the worst
she said! just try to enjoy it she said its not often we get conditions as bad
as we are going to get! Oh well more beer would be appropriate Cammy paid the
next round on his card with euros it was 9.98 euros! The bar was changing one
for one (rip of merchants), the exchange rate is 1,19 euros to the pound I bought
the next round with euros on my card, it flashed up I had spent £8.34 so using
pounds on the boat was costing £1.65 more for the same thing, the bar was busy
there was a band on and a music competition and a game of bingo which I won,
the first full line two vouchers each worth 20 euros the bingo had cost me £5 a
board each, I used the winnings to get a whisky taster flight at the ships
whisky bar and we headed to bed just as the swell was picking up,
Cammy
said he hardly slept a wink I felt it rocking and heard the crashing but I didn’t
think it was that bad perhaps being deep down in the hull took the edge of it
for me but Cameron said he felt he was bounced right of his mattress, he had
bad motion sickness when we went up decks to watch the boat come in to harbour I
bought myself a coffee while Cammy looked a bit white outside in the howling
wind and rain, when we docked we waited ages in the car to disembark he asked
me to drive as he still didn’t feel good and rolled his seat into a declined
position, when we eventually got of the boat and through customs he asked me to
pull over and park? he needed to be sick which he was as soon as we stopped, I drove
on toward Uterich where I stopped at services for a sandwich another coffee and
some water, the toilets charge 0.70cents for the toilets which I totally grudge
and had a pee in the woods, Cammy had nothing he still felt bad and didn’t even
want water, as I drove on towards Arnhem the car brakes seized on suddenly the ABS
lights and brakes all on! when I pulled over onto the hard shoulder all the
wheels were smoking as the brakes certainly were seized on! We poured some
water over the discs and pads to help cool them, I went and filled a water
bottle up a few times from a fortunately nearby duck pond, while Cammy had a
look on the net for potential causes one of which was the brake fluid reservoir
being too full, this turned out to be the problem I took the lid of and sure
enough the fluid had heated up expanded to the full capacity of the reservoir
chamber thus forcing the hydraulic pressure to force the brakes on, using my handkerchief
to extract some of the excess fluid down to a metal filter plate left the
brakes enough of a gap to come off when the lid was replaced good enough to get
us to Cammy’s house,
it was nearly six PM when we arrived we got organised and
decided to eat out and have a few beers in Viernheim on the outskirts of Mannheim
going into Manheim would have meant a tram journey of thirty mins in and back,
we walked along to the town centre grabbing the cash line which is giving a
surprisingly good rate, we need a cash line as Cammy says the local bars and
restaurants don’t take visa, the town
hall bar and grill was ok for food and beers it’s a bit of a an American diner
style menu and décor wise, we didn’t stay out late and Cammy went on to drink
lower strength Radler`s,
I heard
the lads head out to work at five AM I then slept on until eight, then left Cammy’s
place closing the door behind me at nine AM, I invariably get lost heading to
the tram stop from Cammy’s place when alone and this was no different I turned
the corner to see a tram just leaving this meant a twelve minuet wait for the
next one plenty time to get a single ticket which I didn’t bother stamping (no
guards this time) I asked at info about an Manheim to Frankfurt airport train there
was one leaving in six minutes, I just had time to buy a ticket from the
machine then head down below the tracks to come back up at platform three, last
man on their train I could have chilled out and got the next one, as I got to
the airport in plenty time it was 10:40 when I got to the terminal for a flight
leaving at two PM! Plenty time to get noodles soup and do a bit of shopping
before a saunter through security and a wait at departures,
There was a bit of turbulence on
the way up through the clouds leaving Frankfurt but nothing too bad coming into
Glasgow was different it was into stormy weather and bouncy where you could see
the horizontal sleet hitting the wings as they bounced about, the majority of
the flight was pleasant enough though and I was even lucky enough to
witness the shadow of the plane ringed
in light around the shadow this phenomenon is called a glory, I have witnessed
this out in the hills where it’s called a Brocken spectre, and that spectre has
yourself in the middle of a rainbow Halo instead of it being the airplane on
this occasion,
Once landed at Glasgow and back
to miserable Scottish weather I decided to take the express bus even though I think
the asked for nine pounds is a complete rip of, if there was two of you it
would be cheaper getting a taxi the short hop into town, the Aberdeen airport bus
has three times as far to go and is a third of that price, also the airport bus
in Edinburgh is also cheaper (not the tram which again is wrong as it should be
cheaper than a bus) it was ten pound twenty pence for my train with my railcards
twenty percent discount making the journey from Glasgow to polmont about the
same price as Viernheim to Frankfurt, I arrived back at my front door eight
hours after leaving Cammy’s front door
