dancingthroughchaos

‘It’s OK, I’m with the AA’ – tag line for The Automobile Association

I had planned to write this blog about the wonderful writer’s retreat in Wales that I attended last week but it’s been somewhat eclipsed since then by the epic journey that finally brought me back to Surrey. Perhaps I’ll return to it next month.

My own car is currently languishing in a beyond-recovery kind of state on my sister’s drive and so my Mum lent me her little car for this trip to Criccieth in the beautiful, north-west corner of Wales. A Skoda is seldom, if ever, a ‘cool’ car but it’s a nippy little thing with a turbo and very pleasant to drive.  Until the dashboard lights up like a Christmas tree, of course.

When the EPC light came on coming down the M5 on my return journey, I had no idea what it meant.  Pulling onto the hard shoulder I consulted the handbook, discovered it indicates an electrical fault and came cross the advice that I should, ‘Drive carefully to the nearest specialist.’ So far so helpful, except that there’s a distinct lack of specialists on that stretch of road.  No matter; the next services weren’t too much further and my Mum keeps the RAC details on the keyring.  After congratulating myself on purchasing extra data, I crawled down the inside lane in the manner of elderly drivers who irritate everyone else.

Over the next several hours I became thoroughly acquainted with Roadchef services at Strensham southbound and will be glad to never return.  I can tell you that their wifi is rough and finding a signal if you’re with the same phone provider as I am is extremely challenging. If you do find a signal (I recommend either the front part of the foyer or by the lorry park at the back) phoning leads to multiple options, no human interaction and instructions to register your breakdown online.  That process failed when it said it couldn’t find my location despite the appropriate settings and I prayed for a friendly truck driver to help me.  

Hurrah, for lovely Phil, who drives a tanker and who came to my aid, reported my dilemma online with my details and waved away my thanks saying if it were his wife, he’d also want someone to help.  Bless.

Despite waiting for a further five (yes, 5) hours, I had no calls or messages to indicate when anyone would arrive to help me.  In desperation, I tracked down my husband and asked him to call their HQ somewhere.  Neither of us were impressed.  We became increasingly and more vocally unimpressed to discover that someone had a) been and gone again, because I wasn’t by the vehicle (where there was no signal to get a message to tell me he/she was coming.  Fantastic.), and b) my Mum’s policy was only for her and the car not any named drivers.  People: please check the cover you have!

This story could run for months, so to spare you I will tell you that we were able to contact our friends nearby who came and took me home with them so I could sleep in a bed rather than my car, and from where I promptly joined the AA – not the alcohol-related one, though I was offered gin.

The next morning, we started again – you have to be with your vehicle to report a breakdown – scouting the services to find a decent signal.  This time I had to call my son to get a number to call as the AA App wouldn’t accept the car registration.  (*Sigh.) As soon as I managed to get through and back on track I received a call to tell me a penalty clause applied for using the policy within 24hours, and I must immediately pay £150,  Was this a scam?  I asked them some questions before I agreed to pay it (my Dad would have been proud), but it was worth every penny.

To relieve you of unnecessary angst and far too many paragraphs, let me assure you I did get to Surrey, although not until 2.45am the next morning.  In the time since the EPC light came on until then, I could have flown to South Africa and back to Heathrow, and returned to Cape Town again.  Seriously.

However, I am now fairly up to date on the working conditions of the AA team; I have a raft of stories that would make your hair curl about rescues and articulated lorries.  I can tell you that Strensham is the go-to service station for people heading to Glastonbury; Michaelwood has great internet but poor signal; Leigh Delamere has functioning, clean showers and a reasonable Waitrose and WH Smith is always the place to go to report your breakdown and get 24hours free parking. Phew!

I was brought home in stages thanks to the various time constraints of AA working hours.  Rimi had to get back to Gloucester, Morgan to Bristol and Keith was working all night so would be off on another job as soon as he signed off on me.  The original AA man, also a Phil, had a fascinating diagnostic box of tricks which showed up something which he fixed with a combination of magic Kraken™ tape, insulating tape and luggage ties but unfortunately whatever was wrong was clearly still horrendously wrong as I crawled down the slip road to the motorway with barely a spark of power.  By then, he was long gone.  I’m grateful that the road was half coned off for road works and a gap allowed me to duck out before I joined the melee.

So: umpteen phone calls, four AA men, one three-way call with AA HQ and the police, one visit from a British Highways guy (presumably making sure I wasn’t doing anything too stupid), an unspecified number of loo trips, one large coffee, several litres of water, one orange juice, one shower and more than half of my book (thank goodness for a Kindle), multiple phone calls, many text messages and a crowd of friends cheering, praying and checking in on me in one form or another, including the guy I was supposed to meet to do our Facebook Marketplace deal in Gloucester (thank you Roy for holding on to it for another week), I arrived in Surrey, bleary-eyed and grateful to fall into bed.

I was, and am, also thankful for and seeing the kindness of God in the following:

• I made it to a service station with access to food, drink and clean loos.
• My Droitwich friends who were a) at home and b) able to rescue me for a night.
• It was neither raining nor snowing.
• Long, light summer evenings.
• Kind engineers.
• Enough signal and internet to register and follow through the breakdown process despite numerous challenges.
• A good book.
• Access to recharging points.
• Sufficient focus to refuse total panic and do the next thing with a measure of peace.
• Personal safety.

The little blue car is now at the garage where we are hoping it’s an easy fix… time will tell.  Meanwhile, a slow weekend is probably just what I need.  Perhaps I should write something.