The trip back to Germany was interesting. First of all, when we left Maidstone, we encountered snowy roads. It was me, Rob and Leo, who is a friend of Rob’s. And we got to the motorway, and were trying to make time for the ferry. But as I got onto the outside lane, the car started to slide all over the place. I thought this was a bad idea, but I managed to get back onto dry road. Then I noticed that the outside lane hadn’t been used at all much. By judging by the tyre marks in the frost, they didn’t stay on long, either.
Anyway, we got to the ferry on time about half ten on the Monday morning. And it was a rather rough crossing, a couple of times, the ferry got hit by huge waves and sent a loud bang and made a few people jump up from their seats and stuff. One or two screamed.We wandered around the ferry for a bit, and found this arcade games room type place. But what amused us most was this rogue door. This door was without a lock or latch. And due to the roughness of the ferry, it kept swinging in and out all the time. And occasionally, it would smack against the walls quite hard. It was so much fun, that Rob decided to make a video of it. Though I’m not sure if I’m able to upload it on here (sometimes, it even has trouble managing a photo).
We got to Calais and had another wander around the supermarkets, but didn’t get any alcohol this time. But we did visit this Buffalo Grill diner across the road. Due to the things that were not on the menu, we ended up having bison and chips. And a salad. It was really nice… that’s the bison and chips, not the salad. And the waitress wrote a note saying thanks and hope to see you again soon and stuff… it was nice. Bless.
My car needed a clean due to the crap that sprayed up from the snowy slushy wet roads, so we found a carwash. The drive-in one was kaput, so the jet wash would just have to do. So I parked up and got out. The instruction diagrams were rather confusing. For some reason, it had some stupid French-talking dog showing me what to do with a jet wash. So, the washer was sat in this tube thing that holds it, and I put some money into the machine.
Now… as far as I knew, I put the money in and then press a trigger or something on the washer-nozzle-handle-thing. But being French, it was a bit different. As I put the money in, I heard this whirring noise. It sounded as if something was starting up. I turned my head to the washer-nozzle-handle-thing, and realised… it’s going to shoot out and squirt water everywhere. It’s like what you see in cartoons, as Rob put it, when the character is jumping out of the way and running from a hose, which is out of control and gushing out with high-pressured water.
And that’s exactly what happened.
It was much to the amusement of Rob and Leo. And to be honest, I found it funny, too. But after I cleaned the car and attached the headlight deflectors on, all was set to go.
On the Autoroute, the crappy weather and the spray made my windscreen dirty. So dirty that I ran out of washer fluid. But it was not an easy task to find any Scheibenwasser to clean it. I needed water and this antifreeze stuff because of the climate and such. But I eventually found somewhere that sells it and put some in. However, none of us were sure whether or not this stuff was diluted. But I put about a bottle’s worth in along with sufficient water. And tried it out. It took a while (also due to the ice forming around the washer nozzles), but all what happened was just one nozzle was working. Just a small trickle was making through. It wasn’t a spray, or a seep, it was the same as when you squeeze liquid from a bottle, or take a piss.
Unfortunately, that was the last time it worked for a while. So every now and then I get a little but lonely and you’re never coming around, turn around bright eyes… *ahem*… what I was meant to say was… every now and then I had to pull in at services or parking bays along to Autoroute to clear my windscreen over and over again. The next time it worked was a couple of weeks later, when the weather was a bit warmer and the water had time to mix in with the fluid, which probably formed a funky-gunky blockage in the pipes. My odometer light was temperamental, too. But it works fine now. The only thing that isn’t working is the display light on my radio. But at least the sound works through all the speakers!
Along the way, we listened to some of Rob’s and my music, depending on whose battery was strongest. But when they failed, we switched to German radio. I can’t remember the station or the title of the song, but there was this particular track, which was just unbelievable. It was a terrifyingly bad crossbreed between rap and country. Maybe creating the new genre of ‘crap’. It was so bad that we found it funny. It just had to be listened to. It was one of those songs.
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