The Secret Diary - Day 10

Wednesday, 30th October

0700 Police car and taxi arrive to take Katy to court. Brian goes with her. Boris, the taxi driver, speaks good English which he learnt watching films on TV. Every road into Ptui blocked by long queues of traffic, so Boris decides to drive against the on-coming traffic on the wrong side of the road. Police insist he stays with Katy in court. Not an open court, just Katy before a judge. With a mixture of English and German, Katy learns that she is to be fined the equivalent of £50 for driving without due care plus £25 costs. Boris leads way to bank, Brian looks for bread No joy though as they don't want DM, but eventually Katy arrives with local shrapnel. Back to the rest at about 0930. Total cost of taxi - £9. Meanwhile, Bill has persuaded the restaurant to sell a loaf of bread and taken Brian's mobile phone charger to the garage for repair. Hardly had the right tools, but has done a job for no charge. Meanwhile also, discover that Brian did do some damage. He broke the outer skin of the side window on the camper. Doing well, aren't we?

0950 On the road again.

1030 Slovenia duty free shop. Roy leads the way at the trot. Brian's phone charger has packed up again.

1050 Near Spielfeld, on the Slovenia/Austria border. Camper and artic through OK. Katy stopped for check on court appearance and fine payment.

1140 All clear. Wonderful scenery as we travel through Austria. The snow is now lower on the mountains, though, so we feel that we could not have left this trip much later. Still passing through the tolls free. Tunnels? asks Manda. What are they? And that was after one five miles long.

Anived at Linz in time to visit Roy's agent, who has loads for both lorries. Roy will have to go to Innsbruck, while Katy has 3 pick-ups around Linz, or so they say. Now the exhaust on the camper has practically fallen off. Luckily it only needs a screw to put it right.

We head towards town in the camper, stopping at an electrical shop to get the phone charger repaired. Eventually find a reasonable-looking restaurant. We are just having a pre-dinner drink when Roy's phone rings - VDG Bill. "Have a drink on me", he says. Cheers, Bill! Can you ring again tomorrow?

Feeling very happy as we head back to the lorries, but Brian's navigation lets us down again. Half way to Prague before we realise that we have taken a wrong turn on the motorway! Back at the lorries we decide to read the limericks now as the party will be splitting up tomorrow. The bottle of wine in the fridge is opened and all have a good laugh at our sometimes inept efforts. Impossible to decide on a winner.