I've Been Unfaithful

And I feel really bad about it.  She did everything I asked of her, with a minimal amount of groaning.

She's done nothing wrong, and as adulterers always say, ".............. it was me and not her."  It's no excuse, I know, but the spark just wasn't there anymore.  I didn't even have the decency to tell her what was going on, though she must have suspected something was up when I took my personal number plate off her.

Mandy is no longer part of my life, and I feel a little guilty about it.

It's all the Caravan Club's fault. I though I was done with 4x4s, but ever since I won that competition with them before Xmas and they loaned us a Nissan 4x4, I've been trawling the pages of Autotrader for something with a little more grunt.

Two weeks ago, herself and I set off on a mission to look at as many 4x4s as we could in South Wales in one day.  It soon became apparent that there are a lot of people oit there trying to charge a lot of money to sell on heaps of shit.

We looked at X Trails, Pathfinders, Rav4s, Outlanders, Freelanders, XC90s as well as Captivas.  Herself had had enough and wanted to pack it in for the day, but as we were close I insisted that we take a look at one last 4x4.

In the bitterly cold wind I trudged through the lines of used vehicles for sale, not holding out too much hope after the many disappointments of the day, when she appeared before my eyes as a vision of loveliness.

All highly polished black and a lot of chrome.  I was immediately taken.  She comes with full leather interior and enough toys to keep Richard Hammond busy for months (and me confused for years).  I took her out for a test drive and she'd already got her claws into me.

When most men trade in their women for a new model, they usually go for a slimmer more nimble model.  Not me though, I have fallen for a German Shot-putter!!!!!!!

Meet the new lady in my life ............. Miranda.

And then we had a mover!!!!

Isn't it nice when some things go smoothly with no hiccups?  This doesn't happen to us very often, so I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts.

On the first day of the show at the NEC we walked the halls looking for a good deal on a motor  mover for the caravan.  We had been thinking of getting one for a while.  I'd seen how easy Mr Shag moves his caravan around and have been looking on longingly for quite some time.

Our drive is on a slight slope and the gap between walls to get it in is rather tight.  It's a real team effort to get the van on and off the main road where we live, and in the last 12 months we've had two mishaps in doing so.  The first resulted in me putting a deep scratch down the side of the van after loosing my footing pushing it back wearing flip flops, and the second rather unfortunate (if rather amusing) episode resulted in herself getting a nice juicy bruise on her forehead after losing her footing trying to push it back wearing flip flops!

Maybe we could have saved ourselves £000s and just ditched the flip flops???

Anyway, back to the NEC.  After a few hours trudging around and haggling, we put down a deposit with the very nice people at the Powrtouch stand.

Within a week arrangements had been made for delivery, and their local fitter had been in touch to arrange fitting.  On Friday morning the mover arrived, as promised, and sat in our living room until Sunday, the day of fitting.

Sunday morning dawned cold and windy (but at least it was dry), we manhandled the caravan out of it's parking spot in readiness for the fitter who arrived bang on 9.30am as promised.  In no time at all the front end had been jacked up in the air and the rather expensive and heavy looking units were being clamped to the chassis.

What a nice man. Turns out he is living in the next village to us, and a fellow caravanner so he must be a decent bloke.  Once the fitting was complete he gave me a full demo before handing me the control to have a go myself.

I was happy to play around with it in the open space, signed the paperwork, shook hands and killed time before attempting to get the caravan back through the very tight gap. I don't mind telling you that I was bricking it, but never the less, the van is now parked up (with the rollers disengaged and isolating switch turned off - see I did listen!!) without any major incidents occurring.

When we go away for Easter, Mr Shag and me are going to have a race around the site!! It'll be like Wacky Races.

I have to commend Powrtouch, the process have been smooth and painless all the way through with no hitches what so ever.  Customer service and communications have been excellent from start to finish.  It's a pleasure(and a refreshing change) to deal with a company these days that values it's customers.

And so to Paraphrase the ... ahem .... Great .... Max Boyce "And then I had a mover!"