OOOooohhh - Priceless
Family Holiday to Whitley Bay - Check.
Mum, Dad, and Five Kids, including one under the age of 6months - Check.
Mashed up 14 year old transit van/minibus conversion (painted in gloss paint) - Check.
Homemade curtains held in place with clothes pegs for aformentioned transit minibus - Check.
An Green Flag membership - Check. (You can see where this is going).

20miles up the M11 and our beloved 'minibus' breaks down. I mean smoke, fumes and oil leaking everywhere. Phone Green Flag (who at that point had only just started their 'we'll get you to wherever you're going' offer.) -

The poor recovery driver was torn - my Dad [in all his usual smugness] was insisting the policy meant that he tow us all 260miles to Whitley Bay and how could he deprive his poor kids of their wonderful holiday - even though we were about 20miles from home, but on the other side, as he was a contractor, he could claim all the milage and expenses from the recovery company....

So we all got a ride in a pickup tow-truck, all 260miles with orange lights flashing, the recovery driver got a sizable tip from the parents AND the garage owner in Newcastle where the transit ended up for some surgery (all paid for by the recovery people) and we spent two weeks visiting relatives and visiting the local landmarks.

I was disappointed that Byker Grove didn't actually exist and my 3 year-old brother nearly had us all lynched for questioning the number of people wearing 'those silly black and white striped shirts everywhere..'. Still - Good times.
( HSDriver was probably still at work on, Fri 3 Aug 2007, 22:44, Reply)