June 18th
In the morning, wake-up call out of bed
Rushing to get dressed, maybe even wash up!
In the morning, wake-up call out of bed
The kettle is whistling!
We learned that in a basic music course at Helsinki OKL back in ’76. For some reason, it came to my mind this morning in the shower. I left that humming in the shower room. It was a nicer sound to hear around.
Last night, we moved Tellu right next to the office building to get the internet connection working and update the blog. We woke up to the rather tranquil atmosphere of the campsite. For some reason, on the way to the sanitary facilities, I encountered several gentlemen who did not greet me (or rather, did not respond to my greeting). In the washroom, I carefully looked in the mirror at the person staring back at me. What was it about me that made people turn their gaze away….! I didn’t notice any significant changes in my reflection. I had to conclude that today I met those types here on the British Isles who are quite the grumpy sort. People here generally do have the habit of greeting and even striking up conversations if given the chance. Let it be so that the exception proves the rule!
After our morning routines, we got ourselves moving southwest. The plan is to reach Jette’s place in Cawood before June 20th, which means we should be there tomorrow. Eva planned us a route that avoided the main highways and circled around the larger cities. Thus, we drove most of the way on smaller two-lane roads. We stopped in the town of Dumbarton for refueling. How convenient, there was a tire shop at the gas station. We had been pondering for a while about the possible balance issues with the new tires we had put on in the spring. After fueling up, I asked if they could check the balance of the tires. The quick young men got right to it, and half an hour later, we had balanced tires with the correct air pressure. While watching the process, I noticed that each tire needed quite a few adjustments and all had too high tire pressure. The recommended pressure is 3.2 in the front and 4.3 in the rear. All of our tires had over five bar pressure! We’ll have to ask the place where we got the tires put on, what might have caused this!
Back home, I don’t shop at Lidl except in extreme emergencies. I’m a cooperative store man! Today we did go. I’m willing to shop in other stores abroad, not just cooperatives. Our modest purchases didn’t significantly fatten the wallets of Lidl’s German owners.
For the evening, we needed to find an internet-connected place to eat. Eva’s phone had frozen, and we couldn’t search for accommodation. There was a Subway at the service area, which we knew would provide us with decent food and a working internet connection. There, Eva scoured the options and found us a suitable place (=far from all the noise and commotion). We found one in the countryside. The last ten kilometers were so narrow that we were particularly pleased not to encounter any oncoming traffic.
This Red Squirrel Campsite happens to have the exact same name as our previous lodging. We’ll have to ask if there’s any connection between the two.
One thing to say about this place: PEACEFUL! The only sounds I hear now are a chiffchaff and some other bird calling from the bushes. No other noise whatsoever! That’s good. We are guaranteed to sleep peacefully and wake up to the monotonous song of the chiffchaff. Until then—goodnight!