8 days until departure. It's raining, I have a flat tyre on my bike, a snapped caliper bolt, battling PayPal for £270, no sat-nav and my unshakeable optimism that everything is going to go smoothly is starting to get a little frayed at the edges!
Our attempt to trundle down to Bournemouth last weekend to scrub the new Tourances in ended in a Salisbury car park with a pancake flat rear tyre (probably a pinched tube when fitting the new tyres). Since we'd fitted our spare tubes into the new tyres and left all the tools scattered at home, we didn't have many options and just got recovered home by the AA, after a few hours spent eating food from the nearby Waitrose deli counter and watching movies on the mini-laptop (supplied by work so I can connect remotely, but currently loaded with music and movies).
So I'm currently waiting for new inner tube and some caliper bolts, one of which sheared off while I was replacing the seals on the front brakes, before I can get back on my bike. Fingers crossed it all goes smoothly this time!
As for the story of PayPal and the duplicated sat-nav payment, I'll just give you some advice: if paying for something using paypal beware there is a risk that their system will double the payment you make. Usually not a problem, but paypal have the worst system and after hours of phone calls over nearly 30 days, the only way I could get my money back was for my bank to force it back. Shockingly crap for supposedly the safest way to pay online!!
All challenges to be overcome, but hopefully nothing show stopping yet. We have our Euros and with just 4 days work to go after today it's all becoming one big exciting feeling of "holy &$^* we're really doing this"! I guess I'd better start brushing up on my French then! ..
-Mark
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