Wanda’s First Adventure

Today was a non productive day of getting up late, milling around this morning before heading out in the late morning towards the new carcassonne town. We took the beautiful river walk watching the ducks and herons before arriving at the old bridge and crossing over into the city centre. First stop was the market for some french street food for €1 euro each, none of knew what it was but it was battered and it was tasty. Then we walked the city’s back streets admiring the old doorways and shutters on the windows before heading back to the city square for a jambón & fromagè panini. From there we took a slow walk back along the old back streets to Wanda set the co-ordinates and off we went to Carcassonne airport.
Yes, today was the day Ben left us as he was missing his girlfriend and mates, and his car and he had decided to go back home. He’ll move his girlfriend into our house and live there and look after the dogs, leaving Russ’s dad free to go home, and we both cried when he had gone. Wanda seems a little empty now, without his hat and back pack taking up a seat, his 2 pairs of shoes in the middle of the floor and leads draped from one end of the motorhome to plug his computer in. On the plus side we now have no need to go home so our trip could last longer and we’ll be able to see the things we wanted to see with no time restrictions.
Getting back to Wanda after the airport our first real problem on this trip happened. Water dripping from underneath the hot water tank and on closer inspection we realised it was the over flow pipe.
Russ, can fix most things, or atleast have a go. He’s good at electrics and we have all the necessary tools to fix electrics, we also have a set of screwdrivers, sockets, Allen keys, and spanner’s. We have pipe cutters, plumbers tape and electrical tape and even gaffer tape and we have spares of lots of things for that just incase moment. What Russ isn’t good at is plumbing, He hates it and will freely admit both facts, stating that he always gets wet!!
And trying to fix the leak he did get wet......very!
We first stopped at Mr Brikolàge, the french equivalent of B&Q, picked up an end stop and some hose clips to put on the leaking overflow pipe. Russ popped underneath, it took him about 30 minutes to get the end stop on laying in the wet patch on the gravel that had formed while we shopped, with water running down his arm and into his armpit and pooling. When he came out from underneath the air was blue and the leak still wasn’t fixed.
We returned to the campsite we had last night at it was now 5pm, parked up, put Wanda on the chocks and resorted to plan B. Take the end stop off, fold the pipe in half and screw a hose clip around it. This took around 5 minutes and immediately Russ thought he had fixed the leak. And standing there covered in wet gravel, with a wet patch running down his back from his shoulders to his knees he said try the pump.
We turned the pump on, the pipes then forced water out of all the joints flooding the floor because the water couldn’t go out the overflow because Russ had just sealed it.
Yes, Russ still hates plumbing.
After doing a little research (about 2 hours), we realised the pump might be set to high so Russ turned a screw on the top of it and hey presto..... it seems to have fixed it, so far.
To calm down we went for a walk back along the river just as the sun was setting, took some great photos of carcassonne lit up and then went back to Wanda for a well needed drink. Let’s hope tomorrow is better as we will be attempting our first foreign LPG refill.Read more