Molly to Invicta Caravan Services

... and back.

The first part of this blog was written on Thursday and then left as a draft so that today, when I got back from collecting Molly I could upload in one blog!

Thursday 8th August

To get Molly up to Staplehurst for a 9am arrival meant leaving home around 8am. It's merely 40 miles max buty it would be during the morning rush hour.  With the M20 currently deployed as a contraflow, called Operation Brock, and a reduced speed limit, I let Max (Satnav!) choose a non motorway route. Not a non-toll as there aren't any toll motorways around here.

The route on paper and on screen didn't look too bad.  It was.

Once off the A20 after Ashford the route to Pluckley and Headcorn was on shitty little roads. At one point I had to avoid a lump of tree hanging onto the road. It was around a blind bend and luckily nothing came the other way. Car drivers that have no idea which side of the painted centre line they are supposed to be on! 

Once in Staplehurst Max took us to where Google thinks Invicta Caravans actually are. They aren't.  It shows them in the middle of a lane when in fact they are right at the end. As we crawled along, Claire following in the car, I overshot the real entrance. That's when I backed into a road sign trying to turn around a 7 metre van on a 7 metre road!  And broke even more of the nearside (left) bumper off. So much that the light block was hanging down. I taped it up.  

This meant that of course, the job was bigger than estimated originally. That means it is more expensive.

🤬🤬🤬

Cathy let us in and we surveyed the extra damage.  She assured us that it was fixable. So off we went in the car towards Maidstone, forgetting the M20 is closed for the above mentioned Brock! We had to take the A20 back to Ashford before joining the M20 after Brock ended.  We were in no hurry.

Saturday 10th August

To save me driving to Invicta Caravans and Claire driving back I checked that I could get the train to Staplehurst and Cathy would pick me up.  I needed to get the 8.46am train from Sandling, the nearest station to Hythe, and it would be four stops on the "slow" line towards London.  The timetable says 32 minutes.  Claire dropped me off and as a miracle occasionally happens the train arrived on time. And, there were seats vacant! That cost me the princely sum of £10.30!  Gulp.

Cathy was there to meet me as it wheezed into the station at the scheduled 9.18am.  Of that journey 8 minutes was used up when they joined our train to the back of another that was waiting at Ashford!

Overnight I hadn't slept all that well. There was always the niggle in the back of my mind that repairing rather than replacing the broken parts might not be the best solution. In the end I needn't have worried.

The job is exceptional. You would never notice that anything had been done at all to the original.  It was pieced together and plastic welded and then a gel coat put on it then painted and the seals redone to stop water getting in.  

It certainly wasn't cheap, but I guess having a real artist work on it was worth it.  

The other jobs that needed doing haven't been done as the extra time to put right the extra damage meant they ran out of time. I had offered to leave it there but they are fully booked up and booking jobs in three weeks ahead!  Cathy is going to sort the part needed for the Truma BBQ point.  It looks as though the whole surrounding thing needs replacing so she will order that on Monday. They will do the fresh water drain at the same time as I have the tap already.  So more expense! She suggested August 27th as a possible date and they will come to us at home.  Now to wait until Monday 12th for confirmation.

For the drive home I used MyRouteApp with vehicle set to Motorhome to create a route back home that avoided Maidstone, the M20 and of course the accursed BROCK! That went into https://plan.tomtom.com/en/  and synced to Max. I had to make a change as part of the route that Max made was different. I wanted to stay on roads wide enough to pass oncoming trucks and buses without diving for the left of the road!

Why the heck didn't TomTom choose my route? It was 2kms shorter and didn't involve any shitty little roads.  I was back home in about an hour. No narrow roads! No brushing the left mirror into roadside bushes! No stress!

So here we are.  All fixed and our bank accounts are a little more empty.