Yesterday’s bubble gets popped – big-time. Today’s start has a topsy-turvy beginning. Usually, waking up brings relief from a nightmare. Today’s waking up brings on the nightmare . . .
The direct route from the shower block presents me with a confusing vision. As I get closer, it seems the grass around Beastie’s driver’s side front wheel has grown an inch or two overnight. On closer inspection it most certainly hasn’t.
Mrs S suggests, as we’re covered, we call FIAT Europe Assistance. I’m up for having a go at changing it. It’ll be good practise. First, to make it easier to jack Beastie up, I decide to lighten his load. I remove Scoot and all the other paraphernalia from the garage. However, the weather worsens – quickly. Within a few seconds everything is soaked. A frustrating two hours later it subsides. The sun returns, but doesn’t blow away the squally wind.
During the storm I’ve had chance to read the manual. There’s a bit of a knack to removing the spare, which is fitted under the chassis, towards the rear. But other than that it all looks do-able. My only concern at this point is that the torrent will have softened the ground.
I get down to business. After thirty minutes scrubbling around on my back, I am still knackless. I’ve got the wheel down and on the floor. It’s big and heavy. It’s still attached to Beastie’s underside by a phantom umbilical cord. Its metal placenta won’t pass through the centre of the wheel. According to ‘the book’ I need to slide part ‘E’. It won’t budge. I drench it with WD40. The same. Get a hammer to it. Let it know who’s boss. It continues to play stubborn. Two can play that game. Then, on second thoughts, I resist the urge to smash the living daylights out of it. Come up for air. Time to refocus. Sneak a look on YouTube. That usually helps. The world’s full of know it alls and done it alls. Not this time. It must be me. Again Mrs S ‘suggests’ a call to FIAT would be best. I become deaf and determined. Take another look. There is a knack after all. It’s called using your eyes. A certain twist at a certain point releases the wheel from its mothership. No sliding necessary. A manual re-write in order methinks.
At this point Robbie and Heim, the two German campers opposite, are starting to take an interest in proceedings over the way. They come and join me. I express my concern about the now soft ground. Robbie returns with five 5″ squares of plywood. He very kindly suggests I can use these to prevent the jack from sinking. We’re then joined by Peter, a Scotsman. He’s from the next row of campers back. Seems I’m going to be the afternoon’s entertainment. Better not disappoint. With three pairs of eyes staring down watching me it becomes difficult to concentrate. You know that nervous feeling in the pit of your stomach, just before you turn over that exam paper? And when you do, you go blind and senseless. I look for the wheel wrench. I need to loosen the wheel nuts. Select the wrong tool. Foolishly try it. Idiot! At this point conversation is exchanged between the onlookers. “You can always tell who the office workers are” (Ha, ha). And “Has he loosened the wheel nuts?” And “Does he know to loosen the nuts alternately”. It’s like I’m not really there. I’ve become that invalid in the wheelchair, who gets spoken about rather than to. “Tell me, how is little Johnny feeling today?”
Beastie gets jacked up and the useless wheel removed. Heim decides to give me a hand with the spare. He can see it’s heavy. The ‘consensus’ is that it should go on quickly. There are two off-centre aligning prongs. But it’s like trying to thread a needle with one person holding each. We’re not really working as a team. We keep missing. Suddenly, the jack slips and Beastie’s front axel is now being supported only by the inner rim of the spare tyre. This looks very ominous. It’s easy to understand what Mary-Ann’s face is silently saying.
At this turning point, disaster is close. The ‘Team” springs into action. Or rather, ambles into action. (They are all older than me.) We need another jack and support. Peter has a longer plank of hardwood. He also knows Jurgen, who has an identical jack to mine. Me and Heim take turns holding the spare wheel in place. We daren’t let it slip. Robbie re-jacks Beastie. Slowly but surely and with a big sigh of relief all around we do it.
I know how these feel . . .
This puts paid to our planned Scoot into Pula – that will wait until tomorrow . . .