Lesson and a half in the University of Life

Rattletrap's engine did start yesterday so Toad set off in it along the coast road. He feared diesel spillage and an airlock in the fuel pipe if he drove up steep hills, plus the automatic transmission has been a bit iffy for a while. In short he didn't want to be in a remote place if he broke down.

I opted to 'follow' in BlueCar by taking what we call the "over the hill" route via Glen Fruin over to Loch Lomondside.

We were heading for a scrap metal place called Carberry over Dumbarton way. I think it should be Car Bury.

I got there first and there followed a lesson and a half from the University of Life.

BlueCar took me down the road just before the turn off to the metal yard. I realised this straight away as I drove down a street with permanent caravans either side. Then I saw a couple of men and two little kids so I stopped near them to ask for directions. Perhaps what one of them said was not our family name but it sounded like it (and not many names do!*) so I thought they must be expecting the Landcruiser. The guys offered to get in the car with me and show me the way! I said:
"Hang on a minute! And what about the kids?"
They, decently, stepped back and went to get their own car with which they'd lead me to the yard. It seems it was perfectly safe to leave the kids (two or three year olds, I reckoned) running around on the street. That was quite nice to see, there are so few places where kids can do that nowadays.

During our conversation both then and later in the yard (called Dennistoun Forge so I wonder if there had been an old forge there once), these guys, who had soft Irish accents and not the local Scottish one, were asking me questions about the Landcruiser to establish, so I thought, what parts would be usable. Their story was that they did off-road driving in old 4x4s and there were three old, battered and muddy ones with raised chassis at the top of the street that would seem to back up that claim.

I got to the yard/forge and waited for Toad. Toad didn't arrive. I rang him and it seems he was stuck in a traffic jam in Dalreoch, from which jam it would only take him two minutes to get to the forge. Fine. Two minutes passed and quite a few more. Toad still didn't arrive. I decided to drive back along the lane a little way as I felt BlueCar was taking up space in the yard that might be needed for something else.

Shortly after I parked at the side of the lane, the two guys I'd met earlier drove up with Toad and dropped him off. They had bought Rattletrap from him. They'd apparently given him the same story about needing spare parts for their off road adventures. They were apparently interested in the wheel axles in particular (one of which was replaced a few years ago, though with a reconditioned rather than brand new one). Still, I could tell that Toad wasn't entirely comfortable with the deal he'd just made because I saw, as he came round BlueCar to get in the passenger seat, that he was verbally memorising the registration number of the Irish guys' rather splendid and new looking Range Rover and tapping it into a phone note.

Toad had some cash but no piece of paper to prove that we were no longer the legal keepers of Rattletrap. He had witnessed one of the guys signing the relevant bit of the Registration Document but had no name or address. Uh-oh. I drove off. We pondered and considered. We decided to go back to where I'd first met the guys. In the drive opposite where they'd parked their Range Rover was Rattletrap. We parked across this drive and Toad went to knock on the door. I stayed in the car and saw the man who answered raise his hands in a classic "I don't know nuffink, mate" gesture. Uh-oh again. Except that at this point, it turned out, Toad had said "Okay, in that case I'm going straight to the police."

At this point it seems Guy3 remembered who had just sold him the Landcruiser and where he lived, which was across the street. He told us to wait and he crossed the road and "acquired" the part of the registration form, including a name and address, that we need to send to DVLA. When I saw the rather illegible signature of the guy who'd bought Rattletrap from Toad, I thought it looked like the name Lawless, which was an amusing touch.

Guy3, who did sound Scottish, said he'd bought Rattletrap for his wife because she has lots of kids. It wasn't clear whether he had lots of kids too. I mentioned the chassis rust for him to be aware of. If he can fix it himself, good luck to him. We just didn't want to spend the amount of money on Rattletrap that the chassis repair plus others was going to cost at our local garage.

So it seems the axle blarney was just that, blarney. We are such innocents in the world of eloquent hooey!

Goodbye, Rattletrap. You served us well.

*I use my maiden name for this blog, mainly because when I started it I didn't know how public I wanted it to be.