Insurance, Tax, Tom Toms and Phones

Friday July 9th
Today we three little kiwis and the two big people should finally get to meet Hemi. Well that is once the big people sort the insurance and the tax. Heard them all talking and planning this last night. Sounds all very complicated. Sounds like the plan is to chill out, do the washing and sort the stuff in the morning while Mo is at work and then do all the important stuff in the afternoon on Mo’s phone. Mobiles need to be got up and running today as well.

Later...
Getting the insurance and tax is not straight forward and simple, but luckily Hamish had got Mary into the system and was able to quote a magic number he had been given. Walkabout were prepared to insure both Mary and Alan to drive with some restrictions on which countries they could enter. Hamish will be able to drive as well. All handled over the phone at great expense and the paper work to be emailed but not today! To put the tax disc on you need the insurance papers, so no driving yet. ( To insure Hemi for 4 months is going to cost 3 times what it costs to insure the campervan in NZ for 12 months!)

Hamish suggests the big people go and try to buy a new Tom Tom as the one they bought last time they were over and left for him to use has died. Look online and they have the one at Hayes so they set out. In China the pressure to buy is nauseating. In England you have to beg them to sell you anything. There is no service. After walking to the back of the shop to find a shop assistant, he immediately tries to palm the job off onto a colleague. It’s very hot you see and no one really feels like working. Turns out Halfords don’t have the one they want here, the website isn’t up to date. Says he’ll check Uxbridge which is a 20 min drive away. Oh yes they have 10. But wait a minute it is 5.00 on a Friday and the traffic is horrendous. All attempts to buy a Tom Tom abandoned and go to TESCO to buy sim cards for the phones. We come back to Hamish’s room and try to register the cards online, but they need a postcode and street address where our bank statement is sent. Fine we give them our Wanganui Address and postcode where the HSBC account is sent. The computer does not like this. It can’t recognise it of course. They fail miserably. Alan has brought his TESCO sim card from 2007 and it works and is in credit. So at least there is now a working mobile phone.

Hamish suggests that we go and try start Hemi.
Hemi takes up the story.
This is my blog after all. Mo brings them all out to meet me. Now it is a long time since I went anywhere or was even started up. You guessed it. I wouldn’t start. Fortunately Dave is parked handy so Alan and Hamish push me over alongside Dave and Hamish gets the jumper leads out. After several attempts my engine fires up and Hamish suggests Mary take me for a drive around the base. As I have no tax disc, I can’t go on the road yet, but there is plenty of road here. So off we go. Alan has a problem trying to find a place to sit in the back as Hamish has been using me as a shed. He has an old bed base in the back that needs to go the dump, once I am able to be driven on the road.

Once Mary sorts out the gears I have a great run around the base, except she manages to stall me the 2nd time around. Mo groans, it is 32 degrees and if we can’t start again he is going to have a long walk back to get Dave. But I start and we are off again. They park me right up close to Dave just in case I won’t start tomorrow. I just can’t wait for a good long run on some real roads soon.

Mo and Lou are off out, Mary and Alan are shattered so go back to the house and get themselves tea and an early night.