Day 9: Shattered dreams, shattered van, shattered wallets, Part 2

Rain pitter-pattered down all Friday night, and at 6am Saturday, as owls variously mopoked and boobooked, we knew the possibility of dislodging ourself from the bog unassisted was even more unlikely, so we decided to ring the Automobile Asocation at a civilised hour. Meanwhile a refreshing cup of tea and a wee in a toilet rather than a bucket was in order,  so we carefully picked our way along the sloshy, muddy paddock the 100 metres or so to the Folly Farm 'amenities' area.  (Yes, we had a flushing dunny in our van but it was not straight forward, required regular sluicing with various chemicals and, ultimately emptying (ee-yew!) and really, who could be bothered with all that when a simple bucket would serve the same purpose? For wees anyway.)

But the amenities area door appeared locked, so we carefully picked our way through the mud back to the beast to make a piece of toast in Satan's handy toaster.  Suddenly an ear-piercing and unstoppable shriek emanated from Satan's CO2 alarm.  Twenty owls fled their perches in neighbouring yew trees. Finally when we shut the toaster off, the alarm stopped.  We tried again, this time with Satan's door wide open.  Same problem.  'Good-oh,' we said.  Then we spotted an old bloke and his dog wandering through the paddock, so Geoff said good morning and asked him if he knew what time the amenities room opened. "Not locked" was his gruff response.  Geoff said we couldn't open it.  "Give it a shove with your foot" he said, before disappearing into his van.  So we again picked our way through the mud to the amenities room, and gave the door a shove.  Yes! 

I made my way to the toilet and locked the door.  When ready to vacate, I attempted to unlock the door. No luck.  With Geoff pushing from the other side, and me pulling from the other, we got the bastard open after about 10 minutes.  That was two more dramas and it wasn't even 7am. We boiled some water in the kitchen and trudged back to Satan to consider our options.  It had to be said.  "This is an effin disaster," I ventured (although I did not say "effin", I said 'fuckin' ").  "We'll strike the same problems everywhere we go."  "Yes," Geoff readily agreed, relieved that we were as one on the issue. 

Satan, still bogged.

And so more in sadness than anger, we decided to return the van to London and lose our two weeks hire fee.  We had already forfeited the 1000 pound security deposit because of the damage to the van.  So the AA pulled us out of the bog and we headed back to London, surrendered the van, caught a taxi to Walthamstowe and hired a Mitubishi Mirage. (Getting to Walthamstowe itself before the hire place closed was also fraught with drama but I won't bore you with details. )

Finally we were on our way, older, wiser and poorer but enormously relieved. Or at least, enomously relieved until we realised that it was impossible to get out of London.  Round and round we went on ring roads and orbitals and circles, watching in dismay as our exits veered off to the right when we were in the far left lane, or vice versa, but always with four lanes of heavy traffic inbetween.  It took an hour and a half to find our way out.  A local would have done it in 10 minutes.  But finally we got a break and after circumnavigating London several times, we hit the M25.  Yay!  At least we weren't trying to maoeuvre the unlamented Satan through this chaos.

We retraced our steps of the previous day and by late afternoon had ensconced ourselves in a cheap and cheerful (and fortunately sound-proofed) motorway hotel on the outskirts of Winchester.  On Sunday, our provincial exploring will begin!