Best laid plans

I had everything ready.  The new stage legs adapted so they didn’t wobble in their poorly crafted sockets, a few things given a ‘cat’s lick and a promise’ of black paint, trailer packed and double idiot checked that nothing was forgotten.  (How did I become such a proppy performer?)  I had moved the lorry so I could use my car to engineer the trailer out of the workshop.  All ready.  Back into the lorry to hitch up and go.  Turn the key.  Nothing but the ominous click of a stuck solenoid. It had happened a couple of times earlier in the year but had then become magically, mysteriously, or probably just fortuitously unstuck and allowed me to carry on, foolishly ignoring the obvious need for further investigation, remedy and repair. This time it didn’t unstick.

I called Autohome, my commercial equivalent of the AA only to find that the soonest anyone could come would be two hours.  I had previously waited five for them so I couldn’t wait that long.  A six hour drive in prospect and a long day the following day setting up.  I called my doughty guy.  The wonderful Paul unfazed by anything Travis.  From NPC Commercials in Llay who do my servicing and MOTs.  He was there within half an hour, tapped a few things, started it, showed me how to short circuit it from underneath it if it happened again (“Make sure it’s not in gear and be careful of the radiator fan”) and he was gone.  It’s people like that I want on my side.

The uneventful but long drive got me to Portsmouth and my overnight stay of choice - the D Day Museum carpark on the front  in Southsea. A usually quiet and deserted car park at night.

I whiled away the hours listening to Philip Pullman’s The Ruby in the Smoke, with a finely crafted performance by Anton Lesser.  Phillip Pullman is a man of my generation (he’s 71) and also grew up on Dan Dare and Boy’s Own.  His stories have a tension and immediacy about them with chapters like an episode from the front page of The Eagle. The Ruby in the Smoke is a short read by Audible standards, but I didn’t mind splashing out a whole Audible credit on the six and a half hours of solid gold.  Reminiscent occasionally of the world of Dickens’ or of Mayhew’s London, the story took me from seedy opium dens in Wapping to the peaceful charm of the Oxford spires. His characters are either endearing or evil with very little in between, in the everlasting traditions of Dan Dare and the Mekon. I occasionally felt we were about to enter the other world of His Dark Materials, Pullman’s superb saga, but this one remained firmly in the world of Victorian reality. I loved it and it took me completely away from the boredom of the long road to Portsmouth and the worry about starting the lorry the following day.

The nights were particularly cold.  My lovely wood burner had to be kept full of logs and coal and after a while it began to feel at least comfortable.  By 3.00 am on Thursday morning though, the fire was completely burned out and the cold was coming through.  I’ve perfected the art of lighting the fire.  I reckon I can have it done and back in bed under three minutes.  Back to bed enjoying the growing warm as the lorry heats up warm and toasty.

The next morning of course the lorry wouldn’t start so under I went, as warned, out of gear and avoiding the radiator fan, and with pyrotechnic panache it burst into action and I arrived at the dockyard ready for set up day, the first time out for the new stage legs which worked fine despite my reservations about their fabrication. Back to the carpark (this time it started on the key) via Lidl for nosh and an early night.

Just after I fell asleep, it must have been about 1.00, I was woken by a car doing the screechy tires thing around my quiet Southsea carpark.  Testing the testosterone. Bloody idiot. But nothing by comparison with what was to take place the following night.

The first day came and went, always a quiet dress rehearsal sort of day but because I’d been up very early to finish the set up I came back to the lorry pretty exhausted and ready for a great night’s sleep.

I thought it was odd to see the refreshment van set up in the corner of the carpark. Ominous.  I had a meal in the lorry and settled down for a relaxing evening by the fire.  Then it happened.

I have spoken and written a great deal about the romance of living on the road, of the enormous pleasure I derive form living comfortably but simply wherever I find myself.  This was a night to remind myself that it can also be anything but.

With half an hour of 7.30 the carpark was full of cars.  There must have been three hundred of them.  And their occupants had not come to enjoy a pleasant stroll along Southsea Promenade.  No they had come to rev their engines, do screech starts and back fire as loudly as they could to the exuberant encouragement and approbation of all those present. The louder the bangs the more they cheered.   It went on until after midnight.  It was obviously a clandestine meeting of those young petrol heads, but it was also obviously very well organised. I really could have done without it.  Eventually I took a sleeping pill, put in earplugs and tried to pretend, unsuccessfully, that I couldn’t hear it.

The romance of the road.  Hmmm.

All the best from a road near you,

Mr Alexander

Living close to the weather

With the rain drumming on the lorry roof, the wind shaking the suspension, it being almost dark and only three o’clock in the afternoon, I can’t pretend any more that the winter is yet to come. It’s here now and if you’re a regular reader of this blog you will know I don’t much like it. 

There are a few compensations. I do like the sound of the rain which is so much more obvious than from inside any house.  It’s almost comforting so close when the wood burner is crackling and the interior is dry and warm. It means I notice rain the moment it starts (good if there’s washing on the line).  And I know when it stops (good if you’ve dogs to walk). But being that close to the weather also means there is the occasional leak. There’s only about an inch or so all round which keeps the weather away from the dogs and me and there are a couple of places where it does fail, especially in a severe downpour.  I don’t like leaks but they are part of lorry life so I have to deal with them.  I spend most of the long static uneventful winter months in my yard.  As I am here for most of the winter I can spread a little and adapt to keep the worst weather out.  For example, I have the awning permanently open on the side of the lorry just enough to keep the rain out of the leaky middle door, but not enough for it to be rattled around by the wind. I spent a day earlier this month filling the gap between the lorry roof and the awning casing with mastic.  The positive result is that the rain no longer seeps through to the inside of the door into the living room. It never caused too much damage as I could catch most of it in pans and as the wood burner is nearby (nothing is too far away in this tiny space) it all dried again very quickly.  But with the awning properly sealed to the lorry roof it doesn’t come in that way at all now. Things like that give me great pleasure.

I don’t like the long nights. My yard is in the country so there is little or no city glow in the sky.  It means now that early evening walks are very black.  But great skies if there are no clouds and it’s good to feel so close to the extraordinary cosmos.  Great for the imagination. I have recently bought a another LED torch which has a wide and bright beam.  I am like a child with my torches.  Back in the lorry I do occasionally feel claustrophobic for hours in the dark.  It is quite a small space even for one person. But there are some things that help.  Good and varied lighting sources (Mains and 12 volt) that change the feel of the space.  I’ve been playing with different LED lights with some good advice from my friend and ‘ingenieur’ Ralph.  With LEDs I can change the lighting and provide a bright atmosphere at a low running costs and by switching some off and others on I can instantly change the feel and look of the space. I use rechargeable batteries, charged by a 4ft* 3ft solar panel on the roof.  There’s room up there for two more which I am saving up for. I also have a selection of sensor lights all over the place so as I walk around the tiny room in the dark it gives me light where I need it.

I do like the feeling of being so close to the outdoors.  It is there in every view, different colours and vistas daily.  Fantastic when I’m travelling in the summer and even now with the leaves coming down in showers the view changes daily.  

I suspect there are many people who would say that there’s no way they could live this way.  In reply I say that I have had to face many challenges in this strange lorry life of mine and for the most part I find them just that; challenges rather than problems.  There have been times when things get me down, the same as everyone, but mostly I continue to love the life.  It’s remarkably low cost (see previous blog chapters on the Economy of Living in a Lorry); it allows me to live very simply; it suits me and in the spring, summer and autumn when I can travel through the wonderful countryside and meet up with all my perennial pals I love it best.

I’ve now taken delivery of the new stage support system.  I arrived at the maker’s yard last week to find that finally it was all done.  I couldn’t wait to take the trailer away and to look at the finished result.

There were still the unfiled sharp metal edges.  There were details that would need adapting.  The new legs sit far too loosely in their sockets.  The welds themselves are not clean and neat.  But overall it looked as if it might be serviceable and with a bit of extra work filing and cleaning, the new system felt as if it would be at least quicker than the old one to put up, which was the main reason for commissioning it.  It will need some adaptation to make the legs fit more tightly into their sockets so there is no movement.  Once the wonderful Rob, my scene painter, has worked his magic with the paintwork I am sure it will be fine, but I won’t use that maker again and I will always see the imperfections in his making. 

Maybe I should have complained, but those of you who know me also know I am not  a confrontational person.  So I left with the trailer and he went back to his piles of rusting metal, his unfinished restorations and the out of date nude calendar still gazing provocatively down.  I prefer my life, leaky lorry and all.

All the best from a road near you,

Mr Alexander

See the workshop, know the maker.

I have been thinking for some time about re-designing the supports for my stage.  The current system (which I designed) is too ponderous.  It takes a long time to set up and take down and at the end of a long performing day it is the final job I have to do. Finding the energy to do it is becoming increasingly challenging.  In fact I often leave it till the next day.  OK sometimes but at others it is good just to put it all away and hit the road.

So I did a little research and found a local engineer who I had been told took on challenging jobs.  I would rather Tegid had done it but Tegid retired a few years ago.  Going into Tegid’s workshop in the pretty North Wales town of Llanrwst was going in a place where you knew the end result was going to be of a high quality.  It wasn’t that the workshop was particularly tidy. In fact, like many metal workshops, there were bits of metal, tools, a layer of red rust dust on every surface.  But there was an air of perfection in progress about the place and about the man.  A solidity to be trusted.  English was not his first language but he spoke carefully and precisely, his words lined up like two pieces of metal ready for a fine weld.  So before long you knew the end result would be as reliable and exact as he was.  His workshop reflected that.

The new man is very different.  It was his confidence that impressed me.  His workshop was huge with many vast lumbering metal working machines.  Broken vintage tractors stood around awaiting their call to be renovated at some future time. A mysterious and cavernous series of barns and outhouses piled with metal and machinery of all kinds. The man has that same solidity. 

I left the trailer in his yard, an anomalous art statement in all that ferrous ferocity.  I was to hear from him.  I didn’t.  Weeks went by and only eventually after several phone calls, two visits in person to hear reasons or maybe excuses and the job had still not begun.  I sat with him on one of the occasions as he manipulated design software on an ancient pc.  It didn’t fill me with great hope, but at least it was progress of a sort.  The aluminium was to be ordered and while he fiddled I sourced the new telescopic feet.  I sat on a broken chair and flipped through a dust-covered catalogue from a dilapidated shelf unit in his office, surrounded by discarded paper notes with unfathomable hieroglyphics, small fabricated widgets forgotten on every surface and the detritus of years of working just like that.

My next and most recent visit was the most depressing to date.  He told me the frame was being constructed in yet another barn/workshop. I crept into the gloom to find another man welding pieces of aluminium box.  Now I have heard that aluminium is difficult to weld, so an opening gambit was words to that effect. I wish I could remember his exact reply.  They were not the words of a man who loved his work.

The small sockets that would take the new support legs for the stage were on a bench covered with stuff.  Above the bench was the nude calendar. I should have known this would be a workshop where there would be a nude calendar.  The small sockets being welded had not been cleaned up (so their edges were covered with sharp finger-ripping burrs) but that did not seem to be important.  It would have been to Tegid.  I offered to do it and was told there should be a file ‘somewhere on the bench’. I filed the edges with the nude gazing provocatively down. I avoided her gaze.

When I left the welding machine had broken down.  I glanced at the welds which were untidy and uncared for.

I await the next call to say the frame is finished so I can assist in its attachment to my beautiful stage.

I am in a state of turmoil and will let you know what happens next.  Tegid, please come back.  I miss you.

All the best from a road near you,

Mr Alexander