Hopkins the Bonk Legged

A week long holiday in Butlins Minehead had been booked. The kids were more excited than a bucket of wasps.  The “sunshine, lollipops” advert had whipped the kids into such a frenzy it was like living in a musical, every sentence that came out of their mouths was sung decibels above the comfort zone, while simultaneously dancing as if  busting for a wee.

Team Hopkins Mobilised

Friday the 7th August 2009 eventually came around. The kids seemed like the were bouncing to my eye level (our plan about tranquilising the kids failed when Alison missed with both tranquilizer darts when they were eating their cereal, this left the cat with a spaced-out meow).

We packed the car up and off we went. At 1pm the kids were fast asleep, we turned off at junction 24, 29 miles away from Butlins. Thinking we would be greeted by Billy Bear at 2pm, in hindsight we had more chance of getting to Slutlins Resort on the Dark Side of the Moon by 2pm.

Team Hopkins Immobilised

Just as we turned off the ramp from Junction 24 my heart stopped. The car stalled, the steering went and warning lights came on. Simultaneously my missus kept the situation under control by repeating “oh  my god, oh my god, oh my god”.  As I know as much as about cars as goldfish know about the early works of S Club 7, I  wanted to park it up before the giggly pin fell out and decarbonated the foofoo valve.

Grahams Transport Cafe – Bridgwater

I turned into Grahams Transport Cafe in Bridgewater 29 miles away from Minehead. I phoned the AA at 13:18, I was assured that a driver would be with us by 14:30. Slightly miffed with the breakdown, I got the kids out of the car and Alison took them into the very friendly cafe. At 14:24 I gave the AA a little reminder that me and my young family were stuck in a strange place (the cafe had now shut), I gave them the post code and address again:

Taunton Road,
N. Petherton,
Bridgewater TA6 6PR

The Black Hole

It was at this point that unbeknownst to me, where I was situated in Britain’s second oldest  transport cafe   3/4 of a mile off one of the major motorways in the UK had slipped into a parallel world, and as my luck would have it the car park was also surrounded by a cloaking device which blinded “Britain’s Fourth Emergency Service” to my stranded family (also my boy had diarrhoea, the fun we had shooting bum gravy all  the side of the road as the toilets had shut, anyway, I digress.)

Mr Magoo who was my driver for the evening, couldn’t find us. Instead of telling the rest of the team swinging on tyres back at HQ that he couldn’t find us, so they could send out an able sighted driver, he went through another time portal to fix the A-Team van or Thunderbird 3 or the Millenium Falcon.

Is this the end?

Luckily enough due to what I can only imagine was an intervention by a Timelord, we became visible to the people of earth because after four and a three quarter hours waiting, a different AA man (who travelled 60 miles from Salisbury) managed to find us. He told us that the fan belt had worn away and needed a new part, which he didn’t have. To my joy he told me that he couldn’t tow me as I had only had roadside not, relay. Being caught firmly by the short and curlies I had no option but to upgrade the £61 to relay. It was crazy to think he could tow us. He had to phone for another driver haulage firm to to tow us. We were given a time of between 60 and 90 mins for the driver to pick us up but by they may as well said “He will pick you up between fartkeg and slurgup parsecs” it would of been closer to the truth. An hour after he left my faith in human kindness was restored. The owners of Grahams Transport Cafe came back at 20:00 with pasties, chocolate and coffee which they gave us for free. To say we were grateful would be an understatement. It was one of the nicest things anybody has done for us.

No It’s Not

After a few more increasingly angry phone calls to see where the tow truck was I was infromed that the M5 was shut both ways and the driver couldnt get to us. My sanity was creeping away when at 20:45 the driver of the pickup truck rocked up to the car park. I nearly kissed his oily, 19 stone, ass. He hooked up the car to the back, and off we went down the windy roads to Minehead.

I just looked out of the window thinking “why does this always happen to me” but the feeling soon changed to a feeling of pride, I was proud of my family.  They kept it together in one of the most stressful, disappointing days of their lives. They harldy whinged, moaned or argued and basically kept it together which admirable for an eight year old and a four year old excited to go on their holidays. However this feeling soon changed when me missus turned around in the cab of the tow truck and jumped, grabbed my arm and said “Math, that car behind us is right up our arse, is he nuts or what”. Holding back all my frustration, I calmly pointed out that the car that was “up our arse” was our car being towed. I thought she would of recognised it after we had been stuck in it for 11 hours, god bless her, nothing is ever boring.

We got there just in time to pick up our keys. We had a lift to the chalet. Once settled I sat down and savoured my bottle of wine while the kids went to sleep with weary smiles on their faces.

Find out in Part 2 how Clark W Griswald (me) and the rest of the tribe got up to in Bultins Minehead.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 18th, 2009 at 10:02 pm and is filed under Daily Opinions of the Bonk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.