One down, one to go

Problems, that is. As I said I was going to in my last post, yesterday I was off back up north again in Victor’s Citroen that he’d kindly loaned me for the journey. I left home at 7.00 am and the first job was to clear out my car which at the time of writing is still in a garage in Villeneuve la Garenne in the northern Paris suburbs, where I arrived in the early afternoon. The drive around the Paris Péripherique was the usual mayhem but fortunately my little satnav didn’t let me down and I got to within 500 metres of the garage before missing the right turn, going straight on and having to go around the block in chaotic traffic.

As well as doing the usual tyre, brake and suspension work, the garage was stacked up with vehicles like mine awaiting more major repairs and after I’d emptied it of my stuff and transferred the ladder and board on its roof to the Citroen, I was disappointed to be told that I’d be lucky to get any news on its repair this week, but more likely next. So my breakdown assistance were more or less right about the leadtime, except if I hadn’t intervened and got the Kia moved from the breakdown company’s yard to a garage when I did, the leadtime wouldn’t presumably have started until they had got around to arranging it themselves some days hence.

But anyway, I’ve just got to bite the bullet and be patient until a message or email drops into my inbox from the garage with the vital information that I need. So then I could turn my attention to the next problem, namely that of the Savannah’s damaged slat. Readers may wonder why I was originally heading north with a ladder and board on my car’s roof, and here’s the reason.

I reasoned that many French Savannah owners who go for the slat-to-VG wing conversion wouldn’t do the job themselves but would instead deliver their aircraft to Centre Les Noyers, the Savannah distributor, to do the work for them. Afterwards they’d have little or no interest in having their old slats returned to them, especially if based some way away from Les Noyers when the transport costs would be prohibitive and the chance of having them delivered undamaged would not be that great.

I therefore thought that Les Noyers must surely end up with a pile of old slats in the back of one of their hangars which might otherwise end up only going for scrap, so gave them a telephone call to find out. The answer that I received was, ‘Yes, what colour is your aircraft?’ and to cut a long story short, I ended up doing a good deal with them for a second-hand white one. And that was the reason for having the ladder and board on my car roof as a means of holding the slat safely and securely for transit during the 7 hour drive from Les Noyers, which is situated between Beauvais and Pontoise in northern France, and the Dordogne.

So after leaving the garage in Villeneuve la Garenne behind me, I headed off to the north-west and Les Noyers, where I arrived in the latter part of the afternoon, by which time the day had become scorching and airless. The journey was also not helped by the fact that all French roads that don’t have a central ‘separator’ between the opposing traffic flows have now had a 80 kmh speed limit slapped onto them, further slowing things down, but eventually I found myself outside the Les Noyers offices and hangars waiting for the lady who runs the office but was working from home because it was so hot, to arrive to open it up for me.

Les Noyers have a very neat and tidy setup which is surprising in one way in that there is no approach road to the office or a car park. Instead everything, the office and hangars, is set in the middle of neatly mowed grass which you have to drive over as the lovely lady also did to greet me shortly after I’d arrived.

After re-emerging into the back of the office from an adjacent hangar with a white slat she and I enjoyed a conversation about this and that while I drank a welcome can of cold Perrier and it was then time to load the slat onto the car roof. I turned down a kind offer of help because with the long drive that awaited, I wanted to do the job myself so I knew that it was done exactly as I wanted, and it took me over half-an hour in scorching sun before it was loaded to my satisfaction.

It was then time to start heading homeward. After my experience the week before, I’d already decided that I’d spend the night in the Première Classe hotel at Orléans West, where I arrived at around 9.00 pm. By then stormy weather was threatening and I kept my fingers crossed in case it did start to rain heavily and weakened the duck tape that I’d used to secure the slat to the wooden board. Luckily that didn’t happen.

On this occasion I found the hotel to be disappointing compared to the one I’d stayed in at Nenterre the week before. For starters the evening and night were hot and muggy and unlike the hotel in Nanterre, this room didn’t have any kind of air conditioning or cooling even, so although very tired by this time, I slept rather fitfully.

Also, you hear some nightmare stories about these budget hotels and I have to say that when I inspected my bed before getting into it, although the bed was well-made and the sheets etc were neat and tidy, I found that they contained a few black hairs which could have meant that they hadn’t been changed after the previous guest. I have no idea however, if this was actually the case.

After taking a quick breakfast in the hotel, I eventually got away from Orléans this morning at about 7.30 am. With the slat on board, I took the drive back very easy, never driving over 105-110 kmh and averaging around 100-105 kmh so as not to expose the slat to any excessive air pressure that might have caused it to bend. The journey therefore took a bit longer but I was rewarded by arriving at my house dead on midday with the slat in the same condition in which it had left Les Noyers.

I was also delighted to find on inspecting it closely before taking it into the hangar that it’s actually in better general condition than the one that it’ll be replacing, so once again a minor disaster will result in the aircraft being improved. And now that the slat’s in the hangar at Malbec, it means that that’s a problem solved, leaving me immediately with just that of my car repair to resolve.

I just hope that that goes as smoothly as getting hold of the replacement slat did, but I can now only wait and see 😉