June 24th – The Dawning of a New Awning

An utterly frustrating and annoying day was spent having a sit-in at the motorhome repair place waiting for the delivery of the awning (three days late) and then waiting for someone to be bothered to fit it. When the thing finally turned up, it became apparent that there was no-one available to fit it, so they enlisted the reception man to do it. As it turned out, he had no qualifications or relevant experience for the job other than being about 7 feet tall (which at least meant he didn't need a ladder), and being in possession of a cordless drill which he seemed desperate to use by drilling into any object he could find.

Tracy was tearing her hair out trying to stop the Stretch Armstrong driller killer from turning our precious new awning into gorgonzola, and to get him to actually read the manual. Finally, we managed to pretty much fit it ourselves and then have the elongated receptionist/repairman turn into the company accountant and try to charge us €100 for labour! At this point, Tracy got militant, and even though it was going to be (hopefully) covered by insurance anyway, she refused to pay and we had an hour-long argument with the head of the company. These people might not care about customer satisfaction, but they've maybe not come up against someone of Tracy's terrier-like determination and obduracy before. By the end of it, I think they'd have paid her to go away.

Anyway, we are very happy to finally have a new awning, and are ready to continue our odyssey of German precipitation.