A rather different New Year

John was able to get most of New Year's Eve off work - just had an hour to do in the morning. He had a part day of holiday left since he began working only 3 days a week. So we headed off to the caravan around 2pm. Bit of a grey day until we got past Conway, when the sky brightened, and by the time we reached Pwllheli we were in glorious sunshine... But bitterly cold! I was very glad of the heated seat in the car!

We arrived at the caravan while it was still fairly light, John got the central heating going (and lit the gas fire as well!) and unpacked the car. I was very tired after the journey, so climbed into a nest of duck down quilt and slept for a while.

I woke up in time to see most of Jools Holland's Hootenanny, and we saw the New Year in together. John was pretty tired by then so went to bed, I began to watch the Kath and Kim Christmas Special. Suddenly around 3am the lights went out, everything went off (including the central heating- urgh!) and everywhere was pitch black. Drew back the curtains, but only starlight. In other words, very dark!

I couldn't remember where the candles were (note to self, in future put ready when arrive in caravan!), so shouted for John, but he was really fast asleep. Eventually he woke, and between us we found the night lights and got one lit. We could see the lights were on in Abersoch, but none by us in Bwlchtocyn, so we both went back to bed. I lay and looked at the stars through the front windows, and eventually fell asleep.

Woke early to a beautiful dawn.

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Power back on, but only on low voltage. Enough for lights, and to boil the kettle (though that took ages!), but not enough for the central heating pump or the television. Lovely morning though, just awful cold! We were both really glad that we had the gas fire, just wish it was easier to get lit and turned up to full. But we got there in the end.

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Power came back on fully around 3pm, after another total outage - presumably for final work on the system. We were really glad to get the heating back on, made the bathroom much more bearable!

John got in a couple of walks, but since he started his own blog I'll let him write about them.

We enjoyed looking at the new decking - Tim has done a fantastic job.



I just did one gardening job - pruned the oregano. I cut it back really hard, we really hope that it will grow back as it did last year, as an almost perfect part sphere... until the wind changed its shape and it became more wild.



We had intended to come home on Sunday, and had packed the car ready to come home. Had a variety of error messages come up, and car wouldn't start. Called RAC Motability number, and they could arrange transport. But by then I was so knackered was almost asleep.

So we deferred travel till Monday.

With one thing and another (mainly the freezing weather so lots of accidents happening) we didn't get our tow till about 2pm. Our rescuer, Jasper, told us that it was incredibly snowy in Beddgelert and around, he'd had some scary rescues to do with folks sliding on the ice as well.



Took some time to load the car onto the trailer.



Our driver was Jasper, and he had lots of interesting stories to tell us - he knows the area well, and many local people and places. He came from the North Wales Recovery service who I highly recommend as being friendly and helpful.

We got towed on the loader to Conway. At the office there we were offered a very welcome cuppa tea, and then were then given a courtesy car to drive home. We got home about 7pm, unloaded the car, and I went to bed while John headed for Tesco to get some food in.

Today I've handed back the courtesy car (collected by a very cheerful chap), and taken delivery of a hire care (delivered by another very cheerful chap) from Motability. I have this for 2 days, if repairs on Big Blue 2 take longer than that we must contact them to extend the hire. While the whole business has been a nuisance, it has been mitigated by the helpfulness and cheerfulness of everyone I've been involved with.

Am so glad I went for another Motability car - wonder if the care and service we have been so fortunate to have would have been so good otherwise.