The Epilogue: A Baldrick Moment

So, while Sheila and Richard were off to the airport, Ian and I were tracking down the local Nissan dealer and relieving him of a radiator. Richard had taken the old one off – I just had to fit the new one. Five minutes for a competent mechanic, so 45 minutes for me.

Finally said goodbye to Doha around noon, and an hour or so later I was in the Magic Kingdom, missing the entrance to the first petrol station because a truck was parked across it. No problem, I thought, there will be another.

There wasn’t. The fuel light came on and Udaid was just within reach, 15km away. Udaid? Must be a village, probably camels, a mosque, perhaps a few shops and certainly a petrol station. Wrong. There’s a quarry, and bugger-all else. Now it’s 45km to the border (and the next known fuel) and I have about a teacupful left in the tank. What to do? Press on and pray, and possibly end up empty and immobile? No, there was a better way. The words ‘cunning’ and ‘plan’ hovered, unspoken, in the balmy afternoon breeze.

Park it at the side of the road. Somewhere flat and not too squidgy (rain having fallen there also). Swap the cars round, and problem solved. Sounds like another five-minute job when you say it quickly. Unlash the Beast, tilt the trailer deck, drive it off, drop the jockey wheel, move the road car, swap the ball hitch onto the race car, play car chess, manhandle the reluctant Beast into precise position (without, dear reader, the benefit of power steering or a spotter), load up the road car, lash it down…..so that’ll be another 45 minutes, then. But we’re good to go, and the Beast is more than half full.

Two minutes and 3km later we reach a petrol station, fuel up the road car and do the whole rigmarole again. I could have spat.

Truly, a plan worthy of Baldrick himself.