Thank you acdii, let's try it.
Well that worked.!
Gentlemen I've had one of those days.
I'd planned to do lots of things but got distracted first thing by reading James Joyce's "Dubliners." In the afternoon I resolved to drive down to the bottle bank and the post office to send a Senior Telemaster Barn Door Wing plan to an English cognoscenti. After that I'd planned to drive over to Bonnat to pay my local tax and to visit the supermarket there where you can buy English tea and marmalade. The van, a 1998 Volkswagen LT28 struggled to start but started and I drove the five kilometres to the post office and nearby bottle bank. After having posted the plan I got into the van and turned the key. Nothing! I would have phoned my pal Roger Aubard but I'd left my mobile phone behind! Now near the post office is a charity shop run by local women who are all volunteers and the salt of the earth. This enterprise is only about a year old but now has three shops: one sells clothes, another sells furniture and the third sells cutlery, china and bric a brac. The lady in charge of the furniture section is called Marie. She has been widowed for nine years and I have been divorced for twenty but dare I say this, there seems to be some chemistry between us! I explained the situation and we tried to phone Roger using the shop's phone without success, so Marie drove me home and I was able to phone him from my house.
He turned up with some jump leads but still nothing. I then used my mobile phone, doubtless at great expense, to phone my best mate in England who is a professional mechanic. He suggested checking the earth, even running one of the jump leads from the battery's earth to engine block. Still nothing so apparently it's the starter motor. Roger phoned up a local mechanic and he'll have a look at it tomorrow. The only problem is that the starter motor is not easily accessible on the LT28.
Thankfully I'm not short of money so we should be able to get it going soon. There were periods in my life when I could not have afforded the mechanic's fees nor the price of a starter motor but let's hope those days are firmly in the past. My 1999 Triumph Sprint ST motor cycle is roadworthy so I'll be riding around on that while the van is fixed.
Perhaps I ought to reward Marie with an invitation to dinner for her kindness.
PS. It's wonderful what a good pork chop with sauteed potatoes, fried onions, runner beans and mushrooms all washed down by a good 2014 Bordeaux can do for flagging spirits.
