A patch of blue Revin

We both woke up this morning.  That is always a good thing.

Then, without even waiting for coffee I checked the Royal Mail tracker and it said the package was in Paris and they’d get around to delivering it sooner or later.  That was not quite so good, but rather than dwell on it we made plans fill in the day by cruising with Dave and Ria to Monthermé and riding our bikes back.

So we got all excited and one of us hurriedly cut lunches while the other jogged to the post office “just in case”.

If we’ve ever been as disappointed to receive a package that we’d been desperately awaiting, we can’t remember when it was.   We couldn’t bring ourselves to entirely abandon our cruise aboard Max so hitched a lift as far as the first lock, bade our sad farewells and walked back the couple of kilometres to where the greasy mess awaited.  Max had not disappointed, although having to leave him did.  For just a moment, without a tinge of jealousy, we found our gratitude for our own lot wavering ever so slightly, but we soon recovered.

Of course mid-waver, as if to throw fuel onto some smouldering ember, there was one nut in our repair process that wouldn’t come undone without a special tool.  There always is.  Despite the best effort of the gardener in the park next door, who threw his mower repair shed to our mercy, we couldn’t find a Perkins injector undoer for love or money.   He didn’t even have a bigger hammer than the one I already had hit it with.

So we called for help from the guy in Charleville with the special tool (and perhaps a bigger hammer) and now we wait once more in Revin, until the dawn of a new day, full of hope and promise, although with no need to check the Royal Mail tracker.