Adventures with Aimile

  Example of SilverHind jewellery The following weekend I was back down to Windsor and a family excursion on the train to London and the British Museum. On the Monday, I drove into London to collect Jacky and her chair. It took three attempts to get it inside, but we succeeded without having to pass it in through the roof. We had an uneventful trip back up to Shropshire to stay the night with JR and load up my tool chest, which he had been taking good care of for the last 10 years. The chest weighs at least a 100 kilos and Aimile's springs went oof! under the weight. However there was more to come at my daughter's. JR had an early start as he was working in Scotland. Chris and I set off a bit later. He was driving gingerly with all the extra weight and me as well! But the newly refurbished sweetly-purring Aimile, seemed to cope easily. My friends have been phoning regularly to ask when I'm flying back to Syros - they can't believe I'm in this for the long haul... bu...

  Gremlins come as standard equipment with a Deux Chevaux. Mostly they are relatively benign and I have encountered enough to forge a co-existence and still make forward progress. This one had defeated both me and Connor and proceeded to twist my tail  the following morning by allowing me to start the engine with jump-leads from the friendly Bulgarian, who was running a car wash enterprise in the hotel parking lot. He wasn't going to let me off totally scot free and she wasn't revving quite correctly, so I removed the top of the carburetor and inspected it for dirt or water. Nothing really suspicious presented itself, so I put it back together and low and behold she ran perfectly. The Gremlin allowed us to drive into London all the way to Jacky's friend's house. I wasn't confident enough to risk the motorway, so we drove round the old South Circular, weaving in and out of what were the old villages that merged into South London.  Jacky and I ...

  True to form the weather had was getting greyer by the minute as we exited the tunnel and headed for London. We didn’t have enough petrol to get in and out of London so we pulled into Maidstone Services, filled up and were soon off again and on schedule. Aimile managed about 5 miles before coughing and spluttering and I had to pull onto the hard shoulder as she ground to a halt. That was a bad moment in fact several moments. Please tell me I haven’t filled up with diesel by mistake. That would be so embarrassing and it was a ghastly place to stop with the heavy lorries thundering past only inches away and to cap it all, it started to drizzle. There was nothing obviously wrong, that I could fix. We started phoning for a recovery vehicle. I had bought extra European cover to add to my Greek car insurance, so while I was phoning Greece, Jacky was phoning her bank as she had some cover with her account. Jacky got there first and they offered AA Assistance and said a recovery vehicle ...

  The following morning I didn’t have to prize Jacky out of bed. Janic butted open the door and Cedric jumped onto her bed and decided she need a wash. It was love at first sight between those two. There was snow forecast for the Alps, although we had our “snow Socks” ( soft snow chains)  I wanted to get going and be heading downhill before it arrived. About 10.00 0’clock we left. the city traffic had gone down marginally and we had to make a start on our climb over/through the Alps.          The climb up through the valley to the beginning of what proved to be several tunnels was spectacular. Aimile managed the majority of it in top gear only having to drop down to third in the steeper drags. When we finally exited into French sunshine, minus the windscreen wiper on my side. This could prove a problem if it started the rain or snow. We pulled off the Peage and into a small town in search of replacements. After several stops we wound up at a tyre supp...

Aimile turned a few heads in the London traffic. We got lots of friendly waves and toots, he had his photo taken many times and attracted a few curses when I got the directions wrong and we dithered in the traffic. You have to be decisive when driving in big cities... So I've been parted from Aimile and Chris for nearly three weeks. He's been backwards and forwards between Shrewsbury, Hereford, Windsor and Wales and I've been to London and Devon, trying to sort some aspects of my life - mostly without much success. Tomorrow, Chris will collect me and we'll see if my chair will fit for the onward trip - the wine will be much reduced anyway! We'll drive north together for a couple of nights, then take a ferry from Birkenhead to Belfast, to start the next phase of our adventure. Aimile has had some attention, so hopefully it's going to be a smooth run. It's not too late to join our 'guess the distance' competition to benefit Syros Cats. While I've b...

  Just when everything was going so well... It’s very cold, getting dark and windy. Aimile has puttered to a halt on the motorway from Dover to London. Chris has pushed him as far onto the narrow hard shoulder as the fence will allow and we’re contemplating what to do next…   It’s all been smooth driving through France. Uneventful and uninteresting flat scenery, with some snow still lurking in gullies along the road. Every so often, there’s deeper snow as we climb, but nothing to worry us. It’s grey, damp and unpleasant. The heater is working though and we headed for a large booze outlet just outside Calais. It’s a tasting joint too, so we can sample before we load up. With no back seats, there’s a lot of space and the allowances are still quite good, despite Brexit. The helpful shop guy shows us how to get the French tax back too – a very small benefit of the UK’s departure from the EU.   Neither French nor English customs or passport control delayed us and we were soon ...

  Thank you to Takis from the Parakopi garage in Syros, who with his brother, helped get Aimile ready for the journey It took us 7 days to get to London , minus a day off exploring with my friends. The biggest take away is how well Aimile is performing. OK we are not super fast. We were cruising at 80 kph and to start with the trucks would roar past, leaving us swaying in the wash from the slip stream, until we learnt to surf their wake and our speed increased to 90 kph and the petrol consumption dropped to an amazing 19.5 kilometers to the liter, or 55 mpg.  It has not been all plain surfing. It almost didn't start at all, when Blue Star decided to cancel our ferry off the island due to bad weather. Fortunately we managed to switch our  booking to the trusty Artemis which goes to a pot on the tip of Attica. Exiting the boat at 5 pm we had to get to Patras for 23.00 to catch the next ferry. Aimile began to show us what she was capable of. We arrived by...

  . After a lovely day in this stylish Italian town it’s time to head for the hills. We’ve wandered the  elegant streets, explored one of the largest collections of Egyptian artefacts in the world and  sampled good local food and wine. Our generous hosts have provided lovely hospitality and good  conversation and I’ve made friends with their small menagerie of animals. We have a long drive ahead and will need a couple of nights along the way, before we get to ‘La  Manche’. Aimile needs some attention too. Chris and our host, Aimon have made a neat cover for  the radiator to stop too much cold air getting into the engine. Although it’s sunny, the temperature  is hovering around zero. We’re watching the weather forecasts, hoping we don’t have to use the  snow shoes.   It's soon cloudy, but as we drive higher into the mountains, we get some tantalising glimpses of  brilliant sunshine lighting pretty alpine villages. There’s snow at the side...