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Remember the early days learning to drive a car with a manual gearbox? Maybe it only happened once or twice but you know that feeling when you were tootling along and the instructor said, ‘right, change into the next gear’, even though you thought you weren’t going fast enough for the engine to keep up, then they would bark at you gain ‘change up!’ So you did and immediately fluffed it! Out of one gear and the clutch pedal comes up, a revved engine and nothing, clutch back down and stir frantically pushing the little gear lever here, there and all over the gearbox gate, desperately trying to engage a gear before the car ran out of forward motion. But could you find that elusive next gear, could you hell as like!
And that’s right where we are now, just a week shy of Christmas and barely four weeks since the family arrived in
Australia. Hectic is quite a good description but it doesn’t quite sum up the anguish and plain worry about all the things still to do, or even those things to start in order to smooth the settling in process. It’s a period of uncertainty, questions to be asked, souls searched and time to just take stock. We have to acclimatize not just to another country, the third in as many years, but THE country, the one in which we’ve decided to pin all our hopes for the future. There’s trepidation about what lies ahead for us and the children in the coming months.
The motor of transition that was started back in the closing days of a northern hemisphere summer therefore is currently being revved away with no real motion, like the missed gear phase, all the energy seems to be converted into frustration. Our friends in Australia rather generously allowed us to stay at their house as we tried to secure some temporary accommodation and when that looked like not happening they let us hang on for the three weeks until our house was available. It was a godsend, we had a house to be in and things like a TV and toys to entertain the kids. They have a young dog and she got walked everywhere at least twice a day. There were tables and chairs, furniture and sofas to sit on and those oh-so-comfy Coleman blow-up beds, and of course the pile of ironing that two young lads can generate vanished.
Now we find ourselves in yet another empty house, devoid of all homely feel despite us filling it with little lives and voices so loud. We could rent some furniture but for the few weeks we’d need it until our chattels arrive on the Bangkok Express it would work out more expensive, although there are some items that we really do have to replace after selling off a fair bit in order to pack it all into one single container. So, with a trestle table, one of those finger-trapping picnic table-in-a-case sets, a couple of fold-up camping chairs and a single white plastic one from a patio ensemble we are making do. A wonderful term coined by less fortunate people from years gone by and covering many aspects of life not quite how you’d like it. And it’s not.
Although I must add that overall it’s pretty good and a better start than some of our more ambitious projects! Lack of toys and kids entertainment is a bit of trouble but the Boys’ borrowed box of Lego is a constant source of unending creativity as Ted drags me to build hot rods, jet planes and airports but we really need more than this as poor Scarlett misses her books and drawing time, thank goodness Santa’s on his way. The pool is a luxury we’ve never had before and already our three littlies are finding their water wings. The lack of TV is not really a problem except perhaps for our teen but she’s missing her daily internet fix more than any dopey cable TV programmes. We too had our fill of Discovery re-runs and Nat Geo documentaries on ancient civilizations while at the Boys’ house simply because it was all in English for a change!
It’s early days yet but the neighbourhood seems to strike a good balance between activity and peacefulness. One of the infuriating traits is the prevalence of street racing all over the world. Spurred on by outrageous films about going fast in a furious kind of manner the young P-platers love to race all over the place, preferably late at night and definitely if you live in a cul-de-sac in Bonnet Bay. I do know how they feel; as I did it at times myself but never along populated streets with houses and kids. Fortunately we seem to be in a quieter place and I don’t mind the odd appearance of a bit of tuned motor metal. There are kids of all ages everywhere and we wait to see if that is a good or bad thing. The neighbours on one side have an amusing method of communicating with their mates in the houses behind us, a trampoline. Sitting one night with a friendly bottle of red suddenly a young man appeared in mid-air above the fence and shouted his mates name, he disappeared only to reappear almost instantly to call out again and again each time progressing the conversation further instead of using the phone to see if they were ready to join them all for a day out on the boat. Hilarious and far more street cred than using MSN.
I can’t really put my finger on what is causing this lull, this dud phase in the process, perhaps it is just the fact that it’s all sinking in. We’ve really gone and done it, we’re really here and I think somehow there’s just a little hint of homesickness for the place we called home. It would be foolish to ignore the fact but I think it will pass and so we’ll have to wait a little longer before we’ve really and truly shifted into 3rd gear.
One of the endearing things about Mercedes Benz cars is the wonderful bonnet mascot they’ve carried for many years. To symbolise their engineering dominance of land, sea and air they chose to divide a circle into thirds. The resulting border lines formed an equidistant three pointed star sitting in a ring that is nowadays probably on a par with Shell’s famous cockle for instant global brand recognition.
Not all models carried the free standing star but every single one has the emblem somewhere on the bodywork. Even when political hysteria and total road safety prevailed the clever engineers in Stuttgart got round the threat of abandoning the standing star by placing springs inside its mechanism, so that in the event of a careless pedestrian throwing themselves at the driver the delicate star would gently lay down, preventing injury and gracefully stand up once the offending pedestrian had fallen off the bonnet.
On my 230TE I noticed the star had a certain lopsided look to it and as soon as I could get under the bonnet for a look it all became clear. The safety springs were all twisted and stretched in an earlier effort to re-align the star, presumably after yet another attempt at removal by the dregs of society. With nothing more than a crude borrowed toolkit I decided to set about straightening things out. Before I go on, does this sound familiar? Inexperienced Mercedes technician attempts repair work on car without proper tools or reference guides…
Fear not, for this time the outcome was successful, even if it did take an age to do. First I had to work out how the bodge repair had been carried out, which was was easiest by simply taking the whole star assembly out of the grille. Then it was clear that no amount of secondary plier work was going to sort things out satisfactorily so the whole thing had to come apart. There are at least nine separate parts that make up the whole emblem, although there could be more as I’m sure my one has bits missing and once the pieces were all laid out I started to fathom out exactly how it should actually fit back together.
In my case the star had at some point been wrenched out of its mounting, probably as an attempt at theiving it, thus stretching the outer spring which appears to be the one that holds the whole thing locked into the grille aperture. There is second spring of a smaller diameter that sits inside the larger outer retaining spring providing the safety fold down feature mentioned earlier. There are two metal retainers for the springs that have a twist-lock action to allow for authorised removal by qualified Mercedes technicians, or in this case, me. However in this case a number of thick washers had been used to pad out the stretch in the spring with a self-tapping screw jammed through the hooped end of the retaining spring against the also bent retainer. Using the pliers I set about reforming the stretched outer spring to shorten it, thus ridding it of the need for the multiple packing washers. As anyone knows this is never entirely successful due to the fact that a spring is a spring partly because of the natural spring afforded by unstretched treated spring steel. Still with me? Never mind, after much futtering with the pliers we had fashioned a new ten millimetre shorter spring that had just about enough boing in it to live another day. Further manipulation of the plate steel retaining spring holders that were also bent out of shape had something resembling a proper fitting emblem mount.
With a bit of clever positioning and by using a large diameter shortened nail, the correct roll-pin or whatever probably left the project during the previous attack, to secure the springs to the star, to the retainer, to the grille we now have a star that stands at the correct angle once more proudly on the grille.
It has also brought back that wonderful gliding effect of steering the nose of the car round corners by sighting the star at the surroundings.
At last! After the past five weeks flashing away at the speed of light, even if it didn’t seem like it at the time Papa Bear has Mama Bear and most of his cubs all safely back in the fold and to describe the feelings of joy would take many lines for sure.
Thanks to the wonders of modern technology the big 747 brought them all into Kingsford Smith right on time, having spent two weeks on tour round the UK visiting friends and bidding farewells to the family. The details of the actual flight will remain a blur for the littlies although Zoe didn’t find it too bad probably because it was the first time she’s spent nearly a whole day on a plane. The huge gap in time covering our separation meant some reluctance to show any familiarity from the youngest member but Lottie already has an independent streak several miles wide, so she’ll come round when she’s ready.
As soon as she realized she could run free Scarlett was the first out of the arrivals dribble of tired travellers to greet me and she hasn’t really let go since. Young Ted was somewhat more reserved and he is currently re-establishing the trusted bonds we have with some testing behaviour, as due to work, I have several times before temporarily deserted him in his short lifetime. As for the sheer joy and relief at having Mama Bear back… it’s always better when we’re together.
The not-so-sterling service provided by the World’s Favourite Airline had been shown up by the famous Kangaroo tailplane line but the helper who brought the second heaped baggage trolley out was soon just a shadow leaving us to move our platoon’s supplies to the car. Ted wrestled with a wheeled suitcase that he would easily rather have sat on and driven all the way to the car as we stood a while contemplating the enormous pile of luggage.
For the pick-up a hired people carrier was pressed into service and true to my” last minute wonder” style it sat in the car park with its boot full of the weekly groceries. What I wasn’t anticipating was the population boom that had occurred in the luggage department. Something to do with the Swiss climate meant the Samsonites had been at it and trebled in numbers. It didn’t stop there as the rucksacks had also been in some kind of breeding frenzy increasing their numbers by two or three at least and there was also that wheeled suitcase that Ted had manhandled. As Mama had two weeks experience of dragging this lot round the UK I thought it wise to leave the entire packing affair to her.
Besides the tiredness, excitement and general scramble to wear out my name had started in earnest with everybody talking at once. Oh how good it feels to be back into parent mode.
It only took two or three re-packs to get all the gear stowed and this turned out to be easier than shifting Ted from the front seat, which was ultimately occupied by the baby buggy. Ticket paid and after a much needed long, hard, lingering hug with Mama we made for the car. Darkness had fallen as we left the car park so the wonders of the place would have to wait until the next day.
