New Wheels, an honest advert and a minor fire..
Oct 13, 2017 20:40:20 GMT
ponymum, catkin, and 1 more like this
Post by Toaster on Oct 13, 2017 20:40:20 GMT
Accidently setting fire to my ancient and failing horsebox was a new low, even for me. It had taken to refusing to start and I had been shown how to breathe life in to it using a spare battery and some 'bargain' jump leads that a friend had bought at auction. Wiring everything up I was distressed to find that the box still refused to start, I opened the bonnet saw flames and quickly shut it. I screwed up my eyes, counted to five then opened the bonnet again, still flames. Looking up at the neighbour standing disapproving in their window I nonchalantly grabbed the jump leads and pulled them sharply away from the engine. The flames went out and I calmly phoned the riding instructor to let her know that pony and jockey would unfortunately not be attending their lesson that evening. Sinking down on the doorstep I put my head in my hands amid a cloud of smoke and was found by a very panicky husband ten minutes later.
Luckily despite the melodrama on my part the box was unaffected by the fire however it simply had to go. That evening I sat down and wrote an advert for the horsebox, the horsebox that had been a money pit but that had given me three years of laughing and crying alternately, had got my stories in to print and that most importantly was ranked in the heady number four position on Google Images when you put the words 'rusty horsebox' in to the search field.
I made my advert long and so terribly honest including all of the various missing and rattling parts which made an impressively long list. I was therefore astonished to be inundated with messages expressing interest. Despite my asking price being under a thousand pounds I was entertained to read the long list of varied questions that arose, did it have a cooker? a satellite dish? its own butler? a fully functioning engine? I laughed till I cried, replied to a few of the messages in the negative trying to keep a lid on my sarcasm and ignored the more bizarre ones.
Leafing through the better messages one caught my eye, someone from West Wales wanted to ride to me on a motorbike and drive the horsebox home. I mulled this over, looked at his location on a map, giggled an awful lot and replied to say that I didn't think the horsebox would make the 230 mile journey but strangely this didn't seem to put him off and he arranged to come and have a look
For someone who thought that my 30 year old wreck of a horsebox could drive somewhere that may as well be on the moon the chap actually seemed pretty normal. I laughingly told him the various quirks of the box then for good measure straightened my face and told him that I really wasn't joking as he stuck his head under the bonnet and came back out with soot on his face
We went for a test drive and I kept listing the quirks of the horsebox chuckling at the memory of the time I could do my party piece of removing the key from the ignition with the engine still running "but of course we got that particular quirk fixed" I quipped as I pulled the box back on to my drive and removed the key from the ignition with a flourish. Of course the horsebox made me out to be a complete liar as the engine still chugged away relentlessly. The silence was deafening.
But still.. twenty minutes later I was standing on my empty driveway as my horsebox drove away extremely slowly along the road with the madman and his motorbike on board, I got a message at 2:18am to say he had arrived home safely some seven hours after his departure and was surprised that he didn't mention anything about flames or breaking down
The following day I went to see a 20 year old van style horsebox, this one was still a bit rusty, it was green with a fetching blue stripe along it, every light lens had a crack in it, not all of the doors locked and technically I couldn't really fit my vast bulk behind the steering wheel but it was a definite step up in the world and so a deal was struck.
I sucked in my stomach and squeezed behind the wheel. The journey home passed uneventfully with just a minor panic when I thought the box was overheating but which turned out to be heat actually coming from the heater, something that I was quite unused to as the previous box only ever warmed one of my knees and even then didn't do that reliably.
And so this new slightly less rusty van was installed on the driveway much to the dismay of the neighbours but at least it covered over the burned gravel....
Onwards and upwards!
Luckily despite the melodrama on my part the box was unaffected by the fire however it simply had to go. That evening I sat down and wrote an advert for the horsebox, the horsebox that had been a money pit but that had given me three years of laughing and crying alternately, had got my stories in to print and that most importantly was ranked in the heady number four position on Google Images when you put the words 'rusty horsebox' in to the search field.
I made my advert long and so terribly honest including all of the various missing and rattling parts which made an impressively long list. I was therefore astonished to be inundated with messages expressing interest. Despite my asking price being under a thousand pounds I was entertained to read the long list of varied questions that arose, did it have a cooker? a satellite dish? its own butler? a fully functioning engine? I laughed till I cried, replied to a few of the messages in the negative trying to keep a lid on my sarcasm and ignored the more bizarre ones.
Leafing through the better messages one caught my eye, someone from West Wales wanted to ride to me on a motorbike and drive the horsebox home. I mulled this over, looked at his location on a map, giggled an awful lot and replied to say that I didn't think the horsebox would make the 230 mile journey but strangely this didn't seem to put him off and he arranged to come and have a look
For someone who thought that my 30 year old wreck of a horsebox could drive somewhere that may as well be on the moon the chap actually seemed pretty normal. I laughingly told him the various quirks of the box then for good measure straightened my face and told him that I really wasn't joking as he stuck his head under the bonnet and came back out with soot on his face
We went for a test drive and I kept listing the quirks of the horsebox chuckling at the memory of the time I could do my party piece of removing the key from the ignition with the engine still running "but of course we got that particular quirk fixed" I quipped as I pulled the box back on to my drive and removed the key from the ignition with a flourish. Of course the horsebox made me out to be a complete liar as the engine still chugged away relentlessly. The silence was deafening.
But still.. twenty minutes later I was standing on my empty driveway as my horsebox drove away extremely slowly along the road with the madman and his motorbike on board, I got a message at 2:18am to say he had arrived home safely some seven hours after his departure and was surprised that he didn't mention anything about flames or breaking down
The following day I went to see a 20 year old van style horsebox, this one was still a bit rusty, it was green with a fetching blue stripe along it, every light lens had a crack in it, not all of the doors locked and technically I couldn't really fit my vast bulk behind the steering wheel but it was a definite step up in the world and so a deal was struck.
I sucked in my stomach and squeezed behind the wheel. The journey home passed uneventfully with just a minor panic when I thought the box was overheating but which turned out to be heat actually coming from the heater, something that I was quite unused to as the previous box only ever warmed one of my knees and even then didn't do that reliably.
And so this new slightly less rusty van was installed on the driveway much to the dismay of the neighbours but at least it covered over the burned gravel....
Onwards and upwards!