Day 26 - Technophobe or Handyman

I work up feeling really sad. I had spent the night watching the last few ever remaining episodes of the utterly brilliant - The Office (US) on Netflix.

To improve my sadness, I received an email to say that I had yet again used up all my eSIM data, my first mistake of the day was streaming Netflix all through the night, instead of downloading all the episodes and then watching the downloads.

Unsupervised, I decided it would be cheaper to revert back to paying the EE roaming charges for the last 4 days of our trip. This wasn’t as easy as it should have been, because I had previously requested a block on my EE account to stop me running up a big roaming bill.

Firstly, I had to tether on to Jackie’s Hotspot, then I had to log into my EE account and amend my settings. So far so good.

I then had to go to my phone settings, then into mobile services to switch SIMs back to my EE sim. No drama, I did this and saw a button to delete the eSIM. I wrongly assumed it was the one that had just expired.

Before I could think about it. I pressed the delete button and my EE sim disappeared from my phone.

Without getting even more boring, I had to log into my EE account on line, then have a message conversation with Nisha that ultimately lasted about 90 minutes. I got logged out of the conversation on my phone and luckily was able to continue the conversation on my iPad all the time using Jackie’s dwindling data. This was while I had Jackie ‘helpfully’ advising me what I should have done and what I should do.

Ultimately, because I had deleted my EE sim and the fact that I was abroad, Nisha informed me that there was nothing that could be done until I returned to the UK. However I was thanked for being a loyal customer for the last 6 years. How heartwarming!!

After the stress of the previous couple of hours had subsided, we realised that the sun was out and beckoning us back to the beach.

Dead on midday we took up our usual position on the beach in almost perfect conditions. At 2.30pm the few other remaining people on the beach packed up and left much to our bewilderment. By 2.45pm we were the only people on the deserted beach.

There was nothing for it. We stripped off, ran down to the sea and went skinny dipping in the decidedly chilly water. With a combined age of 120 years we should know better!!

By 3pm, spots of rain started falling and we abandoned the beach intending to return as and when the rain cleared up. We drove to the local Lidl and purchased another 12 bottles of wine to secrete under the front passenger seat.

Back at camp we sheltered under our tent awning, but the rain got heavier and the wind blowing the rain into our awning got stronger. We eventually accepted we were getting wet and retired to our spacious tent living area. After a couple of wines and some cake, the sleeping pod seemed the obvious option, where we watched Netflix and dozed.

At 8pm, I was forced to get back up because the now gale force wind was blowing under our tent forming a massive bubble in the floor of the tent and had caused a table to tip over. I rearranged the tent to limit the damage by moving the heavy fridge immediately inside the front door.

It was only partially successful, but we were able to have our tea of inferior Lidl baguette with cold meats, cheese and wine before hibernating in the sleeping pod.

Well I was just preparing to get into bed, when we were invaded by Germans. I heard Bernhardt’s wife outside our tent shouting “Hello, can you help us“. I called back to her, but she started unzipping our main front door which was like a wind tunnel that I had already secured shut for the night. I hastily opened and dived out of our tent side door to stop her.

The zip of their attachable tent to their caravan had burst open and they couldn’t re-zip it. I spent the next 5-10 minutes scrabbling around on my knees in the wind and rain repositioning a couple of guy ropes and ultimately fixing their zip. As I zipped them in for the night, Bernhardt called out “Thank you. I’d buy you a whisky, but we don’t drink”. Cheeky bugger, I’ve seen them quaffing wine with their meals!

The bizarre thing is they have a daughter and son-in-law just a couple of pitches away and now the other in-laws on site, but I seem to be their go-to handyman.

It was at times like these when you have spent several hours sheltering from the wind and rain in your tent praying that it doesn’t disintegrate that you question your life choices!

Song of the Day - Times Like These by Foo Fighters.Weiterlesen