We had a couple of issues last night.....No 1, the boiler seemed to be overheating (no, not Janice)! No 2, we ran out of gas (well only on one cylinder).
No 1- we noticed that some hot water gushed from the overflow pipe underneath the boiler. So, we checked the boiler. It was working on a hot setting from the gas system. The boiler seemed to be extremely hot. Additionally we have previously had an intermittent leak from a pipe over the top of the boiler and it was leaking a little again. The top of the boiler was soft and disformed. We were a bit panicked and turned the boiler off straight away. The water was piping hot and we quickly showered to use up some of the very hot water....we were concerned that the boiler was over heating.
No 2- At the same time as the above was happening the gas bottle ran out of gas. No problem really as we switched from the 6kg British Calor Gas bottle to the 13kg French gas bottle......we are bilingual with our gas bottles, we use British gas in Britain and French gas abroad. The only problem is that their seems to be a national shortage of 6kg bottles of Calor gas.....I don’t know why? So, we knew we had to go in search of a new bottle.
This morning we awoke in our beautiful wild camp car park overlooking Harlech Castle, next to the beach. It was even better because it was nice and quiet in the morning. We had breakfast and after 8.30am Janice started calling gas dealers and I called the boiler manufacturer to report the problems. It seems that the boiler may not be quite as bad as I thought. They say it is very hot to the touch and normally releases some water to relieve pressure. The deformed cover is only cardboard and is probably due to the leak!
Janice (after three negative calls) traced a dealer in Porthmadog (Port Mad Dog as Janice calls it) that didn’t have any 6kg cylinders but we’re expecting a delivery at 11.30am but still couldn’t guarantee that they would get 6kg cylinders because of the shortage.
We carried on with our morning plan which was to visit Portmeirion. If you don’t know it’s an Italianate village on the Welsh coast. It was used to film a 1967 TV series called ‘The Prisoner’ starring Patrick McGoohan. For most people younger than me that information will mean nothing. To tell you the truth, it’s at my limit of memory. I think it was a weird psycho, thriller, spy series that I won’t even try to explain, but it was rather different to other programs of the era.... so quite memorable. Maybe the setting was the star rather than the storyline. Anyway, Portmeirion still trades on the connection to the Tv programme as well as a fairly dated style of overpriced pottery! Am I selling the place to you? Don’t be put off it is a very pretty place in a stunning location. I will let the photos do the talking.
It is rather surreal. We had a good walk around. Including the coastal footpath and the woodland footpath. It is a must visit location in this area. We don’t particularly like the pottery but I admit to having a Portmeirion butter dish. The views of the estuary and the Snowdonia mountains make it even more special. I could have managed being a prisoner here, I think.
We were away before 12 and headed straight to the Calor Gas garage which turned out to be a caravan dealership as well. Whilst I spoke to the lady in the shop the delivery van arrived and......yippee.....it had 6kg bottles of gas. Job sorted. Also, I had a little chat with one of the caravan engineers (I don’t know what they call them really) and he checked the leak on pipe in the boiler and he gave it an extra tweak that seems to have stopped the leak. Double whammy! I decided that we would continue to use the boiler and keep an eye on the water temperature.
Hope I haven’t bored you too much with the minutiae of our boiler and gas but these things are important.
We moved off to our new CL for the next three days. It’s between Criccieth and Pwllheli (there should be a competition for pronouncing it properly)! We had a sunny afternoon of doing very little and a couple of G&T’s later.
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