Life wasn't meant to be easy

Well Allan's birthday has come and gone and we all had a good day culminating in a barbecue tea in his son Bob's annex. The weather was a little unkind and the rain fell and the breeze was "chilly" and we all huddled up in borrowed clothes. Lucky Bob has lived down here during a winter and he his lots of spare jackets. Allan's phone rang non stop all day from family and friends and there were a "few" emails from club Forum and Chapter members.

The cake was great and no doubt there is enough left over to keep us in morning tea for a month or two.

Now Allan's 80th day was an auspicious occasion but his 80th year plus one day was a rather inauspicious day and no doubt one he would prefer to forgot. It all started with him getting out of bed, BIG mistake. While he was packing up preparing to travel he was loading the car on the trailer and I was giving him a hand to guide him into the right position on the ramps. Allan will no doubt tell you a good story about how it happened but suddenly the car (all by itself) leapt forward and rocketed itself over the loading ramp to sit on the spare tyre with the front wheels resting on the A frame. Somehow Allan had managed to jump the car sump over a bolt which was sticking up and the car could not be moved backwards without ripping the sump out. How he managed to get it there without damaging the sump in he first place is a miracle.

Much head scratching later and with a few miracle tricks with hydraulic jacks and blocks of wood, two hours and much effort we managed to somehow jack the car high enough so that it could be extricated without ripping the sump apart on the offending bolt. To add insult to Allan's injury he had to be towed backward by the trusty Toyota Coaster which we used to snig the while rig backwards. We even took photos to ensure he never forgets this one.

 

NOTICE WHO'S DOING ALL THE WORK WHILE THE SUPERVISOR LOOKS ON.

Anyway the rest of the day was pretty uneventful except for me getting Allan lost taking a shortcut through Hobart, the second gear goat track we had to take to get back to the highway and the "little" incident when Allan hooked up the trailer on a stump while setting up camp on Bruny Island. Bush panel beating has fixed that one.

Now I won't mention the fact that the Coaster has dug a hole in the sand with a set of duels while I was putting it up on ramps tonight. Sure hope I don't have to get towed out by a Hino in the morning or I'll never live it down.

Gee this holiday stuff is fun.!!