NOTES FROM MUD ISLAND PART 9

Friday 17th September

And having left the beautiful verdant carwash lanes of Devon and Cornwall, we headed back to Yatton as Robin & Tracy were starting work the next day. The idea of work, something so second nature and addictive just a scant week or so ago, seemed foreign and unappealing on all levels and we were very happy that it was happening to someone else and not to us - just yet.
The mattresses in our guest bedroom in Yatton, still a long way from our own home comforts were never so rapturously embraced as that night after the rigours of bed hell in Edeswell.
Tomorrow (13th Sep - I'm running a bit behind here) would be our first venture out into the harsh world of Mud Island under our own recognisance (with the aid of Gabby Garmin, of course) and in our newly named Skoda, Sally.
And so, off we set to Bristol and the very first thing we encountered before even leaving Yatton was a detour in front of the local shopping precinct which really pissed Gabby off, however, we soon learned that forcing her hand simply got to her to recalculate a new route once we ignored the initial protestations and the little car graphic spinning wildly off the preplanned magenta course..
But soon we were cruising into Bristol under leaden skies with me trying to figure out the idiosyncrasies of Sally's windscreen wiper controls. Now this may seem dull and uninteresting to many (me too initially) but it took some working out and I still wonder if this methodology was planned by some coke-snorting engineer to annoy drivers whilst bamboozling them simultaneously or if there is just some quirky fault that is unique to Sally and Sally alone.
What happens is this: if you click the intermittent mode on from the off position then the wipers do a grudging sweep of the glass before resting again and sitting there unmoving for - well they simply don't move. So, as the windscreen is now totally obscured by rainwater, one clicks one mode up to slow wipe which is too much as there isn't sufficient rainfall to warrant this and the rubber begins to scrape across the glass with terrifyingly annoying squeals so off the wipers go.
But not before I tried to click one mode down to intermittent again from the slow wiper speed only to find out that this intermittent mode is now not really intermittent at all but just a slight pause as they sweep back to their starting point and begin a new sweep and repeat this interminably.
Fucking bizarre, I think to myself and switch the damn things off.
Rain builds up on glass, accident seems imminent so on they go to intermittent again until eventually I discover that if you go through the motions of: OFF / INTERMITTENT / SLOW SPEED / INTERMITTENT / OFF (PAUSE HERE FOR AT LEAST 6 OR 7 SECONDS) / INTERMITTENT then the stupid fucking things actually operate at a speed that works for light drizzle.
And it has nothing to do with the density of the rainfall or the speed of the car - it has everything to do with serendipity and eureka moments which I chose not to divulge to Karen for fear of being certified by the time we found our way to our Bristolian destination.
Which was (drumroll) a cosmetics shop to exchange some mail-order goods that weren't quite as expected. Yeah I know - anticlimactic and as about as exciting as - well a monologue about Skoda windscreen wiper operation.
But to Karen's abject horror (yes, of course it wasn't me exchanging cosmetics you dumbasses), the frigging shop was closed for renovations and the nearest alternative was in Bath.
Seemed like divine providence if you ask me - it was wet (off and on - just like the temperamental Skoda wipers) and we had an opportunity to go and see Bath, a pretty place by anyone's standards and it was the quiet time of the day.
So off to Bath we tootled under Gabby's circuitous guidance (she just loves roads that are not straight and after a further week of driving here in mud island we can safely report that another euphemism for that activity would be: Death By Roundabout). Fucking hell but there are a lot of roundabouts in this country and Gabby developed a wicked knack for instructing me to take whatever number exit from a roundabout where a) in some instances she counted minor exits such as sporting venue entrances and b) in other instances she didn't which then resulted in a) me spinning around the fucking roundabout more than once to Karen's (and many other road users') horror or b) us shooting up the wrong exit (easy boys this is a family blog) with me cursing the stupid satnav bitch, Karen telling me to calm the fuck down and Gabby placidly saying "recalculating" as I steamed and fumed.
We reached Bath unscathed, much wiser as to the guiles and vagaries of satnav devices, and found the place friendly, very touristy (but in a nice way - i.e. it was quiet that day) and glory be - the Lush shop (no not a rehab clinic for alcoholics but an emporium of natural, solid cosmetics - apart from the sodium-lauryl-sulphate that is) was open.
I parked, Karen went to the shop, I moved the car to a longer term parking precinct, went back to the shop, waited, waited some more, ended up paying for a wagonload more cosmetics than had been originally ordered (surprise, surprise) then we meandered through the drizzle and among the shops to a nice vegetarian pub, The Porter where we had lunch.
The barmaid was a hybrid South African / English combo who had lived just about 75km from our place in Magaliesburg on the West Rand, Roodekrans. What a small world it really is. Afrikaans being bandied about in the heart of Bath - yegods!
The food was superb, Karen drank some Italian rose and soon we were meandering back to Yatton with Gabby getting her own back on me for ignoring her earlier orders (vich must be obeyed at all times jawohl) by taking us yet another death-by-roundabout route all the way. Must we always be commanded and managed by women? That is rhetorical of course but it is the reality all good men should live by - the women do actually know best.
Sigh.
Goo goo ga joob...