Wednesday 27 April

Last night we enjoyed a meal and some beers with friends on Mersea Island, and the walk back to Mavis sobered us up enough to get a good nights sleep without recourse to clambering up and down the ladder to and from bed too much. 

This morning we took Mavis for her first MOT, which we got to after a couple of wrong turns, at one point into an alleyway masquerading as a road, causing Alison to execute a faultless three point turn with a calmness that Ray's erratic navigation didn't deserve; especially since we were in his adopted home town of Colchester! 

Fortunately Mavis passed the MOT with flying colours and on the drive back we realised we'd both been anxious about it and tried not to let it show to the other. Still, to celebrate we went shopping in Colchester for odds and ends and Alison popped in to see her former colleagues at The Youth Enquiry Service. Popped in, by the way, is Alison speak for any time just shy of 60 minutes and probably a bit more - and when she finds you standing outside under a blanket of snow with a parking ticket stuck to your forehead and asks if you've been waiting long you will say "on no, just got here honeybunch light of my life."

Anyway everyone was hunky dory, so with a cheery farewell to the good folk at Y.E.S we went to a motor home and caravan supply shop in Weeley for even more stuff, passing an advert for an inventively titled raggae gig as we went. We brought some LED bulbs for the 12V system so that we can live longer off grid and some of those supplies you never know you need until you see them, like adjustable rails, cup holders and some added security. Which, much to Alison's amusement Ray measured up using the time honoured method of spaghetti broken to the exact (or very approximate if your anyone other than Ray) length required to check if outside and inside fittings will match. 

Back at Seaview we made coffee, grabbed the Hob Nobs and sat on the sea wall in the sunshine as the waves lapped the shore. A wherry in full sail drifted by on the horizon and a dog let off its leash dived into the water and played in the surf for the joy of it, lost in its own happy world. It was all most becoming and in the sinking sun we reflected that 4 weeks and 1188 miles into our travels we're only just starting our adventures. 

Last word for today goes to a bit of a rant on the subject of the amenities here at Seaview. Upon arrival there was a brief ceremony where we were handed a key to the toilets and showers in exchange for a £20 cash deposit. All well and good but the single key is the gateway to four little havens of ablutionville. Firstly for men's and women's toilets with wash basins and shaving points, presumably the later more generously provided for in the former. Then the same key for the adjacent men''s and women's shower blocks. By now you will already be seeing the intrinsic difficulty in, for example accompanying each other for a morning - let us say comfort stop - when one of us has to unlock the door for the other. Now imagine that having finished said comfort stop the person without the key wants to use the showers, they have to rely on the other person returning to unlock them, which of course is unlikely as they are now merrily singing away in warm soapy bliss unaware of Mr Stinky shivering outside clutching his towel and soap-on-a-rope. All this is manageable after a bit of practice for two people but imagine if you had children or grandma along too? 

Oh, and now we're warming to the theme - the gents has a door sprung so hard it could  propel a small child into the next field, the taps are on press down self timers so short you don't get a chance to manoeuvre your hand under the stream before it stops, which is mute anyway since all the taps run cold and the hand dryer is so feeble it like having your cold hands sighed on by a pixie. One further point to make. Why, and I ask in all seriousness, does the gents have a toilet brush in every other stall? What are you supposed to do if its busy? Peer over the wall with an "excuse me, I seemed to have made a bit of a mess, do you mind just passing me the toilet brush...Oh, and I see you've got today's paper - how did Albion get on last night?" Tsk!

---