The clearing fog could well be a metaphor for the beginning of the end of the extraordinary run of luck with Mr Perkins. After a couple of days of fitting, re-fitting, bolting and unbolting then bolting again, we had found the cause of every one of the several leaks in the fuel system that had been plaguing us all year.
Each one was maddeningly intermittent, which meant that as soon as we thought we’d found one it would immediately stop only to reappear after an hour or a day or two. Replacing all of the parts with new should have fixed all that with no fuss, but when the microscopic crack in one of the new castings made itself apparent, we all felt as though we had been beaten. But this was just a battle, not the war, so we fudged a couple of the old parts to keep us going until the replacement arrives sometime over winter.
Eventually the jigsaw was reassembled and dear old Mr P was running even better than at the beginning of the year. We looked at our calendar, and realised with a tinge of disappointment that we’d have no chance of catching Rob and Janet on their arrival in Lagarde, so made an executive decision not to launch off at a mad rate of knots.
Tomorrow would do, there’d be no fog at all by then.
So we hastily changed Trev’s travel plans and wandered off to the station to meet him.
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