Run Britain Day 117: More van fiasco

I spoke too soon.

Waking up this morning, I was all ready to set off for another long day up the A816, but the van had other ideas. With the key quite a long way from the ignition, the van turned itself on and then started giving us repeated warning signals. After a while, the horn started blaring of its own accord.

I decided it was best not to set off just yet, for fear of being stranded somewhere along the A-road.

Ford motor recovery were not much help. They assigned us a rescue vehicle that was two hours away and decided that our van would be towed back to Glasgow (another two hours in a different direction). For the first time in 117 days, I really lost my cool.

Our frustration was likely made worse by the well meaning lady whose stables we’d plugged our van into, who insisted that to run along the main road, I should warn the police. Now, I understand and appreciate concern on my part, but this isn’t a busy main road (not like some of the roads further south which we deemed too dangerous to run along). With van frustration still simmering, I didn’t take too kindly to the annoying suggestions of other places that I could run - many of which were not coastal and none of which were linked up.

Our day was helped by the lovely people from Fyne Towing company, who again came out to assess the van and found more than 40 different faults. Open Road Scotland, who we rented the van from, also leapt into action to bring us a replacement which was with us in only a few hours of waiting.

And I even managed to squeeze in 17km before my podcast with the lovely people at Tea and Trails, which is a podcast I have been listening to religiously over the last few weeks.