Some journeys can bring a smile to your face no matter how many times you make them. For me these include crossing from Dover to Calais, any trip on a Mediterranean ferry, or standing in the international lounge in some far flung spot staring at an arrival board that lists places I've never heard of, like Funafuti (capital of Tuvalu) or Madang (a Papua New Guinea regional airport). Realistically we are not going to do the far flung spot thing anytime soon. However, yesterday we crossed the Alps heading southwards, this too is a 'sweet-spot' journey, just doing it cheers me up.
The small site we are on at Merlano on the shores of lake Lugano has the potential to be idyllic. This is the view from our pitch.
The emerald lake lapping gently on the grassy shore, a promontory with a clutch of cypresses, a vista of forested hills across the quiet water, so beautiful. The site itself is simple, informal but well appointed.
However, it's a somewhat disrupted idyll on offer here, because what a photograph cannot capture is the sound of passing trains, passenger and freight, on the main Milan to Lucerne railway about 200m away. Any quiet interval between the trains is filled by the roar of traffic as the A5 motorway towards the San Gottardo tunnel runs parallel to the railway. So the place may look like the cover of a Tui 'Lakes and Mountains' brochure but it sounds like the middle of New York. Still, it's a handy stop-off on the road to Italy, popular with Dutch travellers particularly.
Our arrival yesterday was enlivened by a slightly bizarre incident. If we find ourselves on a short pitch with some hazard or other close to rear of the van I have a habit placing our ramps at the back of the front wheels and reversing up onto them. It means that when we unpitch I can ease forwards, rather than roll backwards and risk slamming the bike rack into the hazard at the rear of the van, in this case - a tree. I always make sure the brake is full on and leave the van in gear so there is no risk of us rolling off the ramps accidentally. It makes sense to me, but it outraged the single oldish guy in the campervan opposite us.
He tackled Gill initially, jabbing his finger at the offending wheels and gibbering away excitedly in German. By the time I arrived he had realised we could not understand a word and so switched to an impromptu piece of street theatre to express his profound anxiety concerning the peculiar Anglo-Saxon ramp practice he had witnessed. He was good, because I managed to glean that he had concerns around the brakes failing - I suppose he had a point he was pitched directly opposite, though the likelihood of the van rolling more than 10m towards his pitch seemed remote. However, his concerns did not end there, be bent down, touching the lower part of the van while making strange gyrations, trying to convey that my ramp malpractice would result in the van's chassis becoming twisted irrevocably.
It was clear that he was not going to shut-up or go away until the ramp situation had been normalised. Sadly, it was equally clear that he had concluded that I was a dangerously incompetent Englishman who required exact instruction in how to correctly mount a pair of levelling ramps.
I rolled back off the ramps, Gill placed them in front of the wheels. He moved them into a more correct position and making slow motion gestures especially honed so even the most moronic foreigner could follow them he guided me back onto ramps. So far so good.
The driver's door was half open. He watched me carefully as I pulled on the handbrake (it's positioned on the door side of the driver's seat). Then I switched-off leaving the van parked with first gear engaged. It was at this point that a potentially fatal misunderstanding occurred. Immediately my advanced parking instructor began gibbering away excitedly and pointing towards the gear stick. I presumed he wanted me to disengage the gears, so I did. Then he leaned into the cab and released the handbrake. Of course the van immediately rolled forward off the ramps. I can only surmise he thought I had put the van into neutral and he wanted me for some reason to leave it in gear but with the handbrake off. At the exact moment Herr Rampenfixer let-off the brake Gill was leaning into the rear garage, only a lightening reaction saved her from being brained by 3.7 tonnes of metal.
I re-mounted the ramps, still the pillock stood in front of me directing matters, entirely oblivious to the mayhem he had caused. Satisfied we were parked to his liking he returned to his seat and carried on reading a newspaper. Surreptitiously I took his photo through the windscreen. Partly because I felt the entire performance deserved a memento, but mainly as a warning to others.
If you spot him on your travels through Switzerland, leave the campsite immediately, indeed head for the nearest international border, he is a Germanic Mr. Bean, catastrophically well intentioned and for the sake of your mental well-being to be avoided at all costs.
No comments:
Post a Comment