Trouble in Paradise!!!!

May 31/10
FOILED AGAIN, AND AGAIN, AND AGAIN – and on my birthday too.
Our first mistake was deciding to go to Southend on the Sea to see the town where Peggy White (Larry’s mother) lived. Big air show on today. Stop and go traffic getting in, no parking spaces when we did get in and people and cars everywhere!
So we decided to go on to one of the other seafront towns along the way – no –all busy too.
So we thought we would head London way and go to Basildon. We just got on our way and Emily decided to have temper tantrum and went on strike. NO GPS – NO KNOW HOW TO GET ANYWHERE WITHOUT EMILY. We did have a backup paper GPS however, (a map) but that did us no good at all. When we got to the next round about, and they were every ½ mile or so, we had no idea where to go. Sweet Emily also had the only compass on it.
We tried everything we could think of to get her working and Bonnie (she’s so smart) suggested that maybe it was the fuse in the connector. Joe (in his wisdom) found some foil paper in a discarded cigarette package and wrapped it around the fuse. EMILY worked! For a minute and then stopped again. After going to a number of stores looking a fuse, or maybe it was something wrong with the car??? Bonnie had been playing with all the buttons. Finally a lad in Staples sent us to an electrical shop and we got, not one, but 10 fuses because that’s how they sell them. Oh well, we have enough now to last us and Jim (Emily is his) a lifetime. Put the new fuse in, Emily worked like a charm, for two minutes! Put another fuse in – worked for another two minutes. Joe suggested the tried and true foil wrap again and it worked, but low and behold I could smell smoke. Took the fuse out and it was burning hot!!! Finally we tried another fuse and it worked fine, so far thank goodness.
Now we just had to find a Hotel. Got booked into the Holiday Inn and we are now both having a BIG drink! Large Stella Artois for Joe and a “Pimms , Mr. Parnell?” for Bonnie. Other than that and the drizzle, a fine day was had by all.
Off to the Jury Inn in Croydon tomorrow, which is about 20 minutes south of London, for three nights.