118 Back to Hertford

Monday 6th August

A slow decamp and it was back to Hertford to annoy the kids. ;)

We arrived back at the Hertford area at about 1pm so decided to pop into our favourite pub for a pie and a pint so to speak.

The landlord and landlady, Kevin and Denise, have become loose friends over the years and when we asked if they were in to say hello to we were shocked to hear that they have been sacked by the brewery for underpaying their staff and doing something with the money that they should not have done (I do not know exactly what).

We then set off for the Kingsbury family home to collect our caravan. Billy Kingsbury is my brother Bruce's lifelong friend and the family home is annexed by several family businesses including Foley Specialist Vehicles, the people we bought Gromit from.

We pulled the caravan out and Peter Kingsbury gave us some washing tools and a hose so we changed the caravans colour from green to white. Thanks Pete.

We then dragged the caravan back to Hertford caravan site and set up. We sorted most of the services out, electric, fill water tanks etc and when we turned the water pump on the caravan suddenly flooded inside.

On inspection it was evident that the water heater had blown out under frost. Doh. That's what you get for not reading the manual. I looked in the internet and gleaned that they had stopped making these some time ago and the parts were no longer available. There was however, a replacement one made by another company that was designed as a direct replacement. £350 to you sir.  Deep joy !

We had to rip the soaking wet carpet up and decided to replace it anyway.

Tuesday 7th August

I found a local caravan service dealer and got a quote to replace the boiler of £469 fitted. Ouch. I booked the repair for the next day anyway never the less. We struggled to tear ourselves away from the Olympic triathlon which we won (that will be the Royal 'we' ) but then had to drag ourselves to the shops for some carpet. Luckily we found some for £15 which was 6" larger than we needed. Luck at last. Then it was off to deplete Trula's coffee supply only to find that it had been done already. The first thing she did when we got there was went out for some more. It's not like she doesn't know what we drink or that we were coming. Kids !!!  Anyway, a surprise delight was that Zoe was also there and was in a jubilant mood as she had just been offered a job having been made redundant a month ago.We chatted for ages and then went for a pub meal at the Dusty Miller pub at Gilston. This place has fond memories for me as it was my late Dads watering hole and I have a mental image of him and his best mate, oddly enough also called 'Dusty' Miller, sat at the bar that we were at.

Wednesday 8th August

We spent the fist hour or so fitting the new carpet. We used the old one as a template and as it had dried out nicely we decided to put it back and put the new one on top. We then waited for the fitter to come and sort out the boiler. At about 1pm he came and in an hour it was all done. We then popped into Hoddesdon for some shopping and then popped in to see Pete, our old next door neighbour for a chat and a cup of tea which turned out to be a beer. I needed to speak to Julia, our tenant as I need to access the garage and hence go through the garden. We knocked on the door and had a quick chat with Julia. She was very happy with the place and kept asking when we were coming back as she did not want us to take the place back anytime soon. Nice.