(Putnam, Thursday 15th August) For many years now, Alfie has been pulling the wool over our eyes, presenting the facade of a highly intelligent man. It saddens me therefore to shoulder the burden of revealing the truth....that he is, in fact, a complete buffoon.
When Daisy and I left Rodders in his care in January, everything was just so. Over the course of 7 weeks and 10,000 miles it had evolved into the perfect overland machine. When we had a need, Rodders would solve it. There was a place for everything, and everything had its place. Alfie didn't bring all the things:
1) The coolbox: I almost could have understood if he'd packed in a rush and forgotten it, but when questioned he actually said "why would you need a coolbox?" The familiar association between camping and beer and meat is clearly not one he has made.
2) The chairs: If anyone's passing through Veranda and needs a nice sit down, there are two very comfortable camping chairs on Alfie's veranda. However, there are no camping chairs in the back of Rodders.
3) A big piece of plywood: This one is harder to explain to those not accustomed to overland Landrover travel. A large piece of wood creates an accessible space underneath it, on the oddly shaped floor for jerry cans, tools and spares, and a flat surface on top of it for bag, food etc. I have tried to no avail to make the best of this bad situation in terms of car packing. Alfie packed the rest of the gear into several equally miscellaneous boxes which makes it very difficult to make e.g. the cooking equipment more accessible.
*I do appreciate, as Alfie has kindly pointed out, that my particular-ness over car packing may well be a sign of aging.
For the record: the coolbox was mouldy, the wood was useless and the chairs, well, i left very early in the morning.
ReplyDeleteTypical Alfie... you could have replaced the coolbox!
ReplyDelete