To get into the holiday spirit!
Last week I received a holiday story from a couple of loyal Adrem customers: Pauline and Jac. They have been hiring a van every summer for years to go on trips around Europe. I'd like to share Jac's story with you.
‘Last year, on a Sunday, we took a trip from the campsite in Corrèze. It was a sunny day and we enjoyed our holiday.
As we drove through a village, Pauline noticed that the steering was a bit more difficult. She decided to drive to a lay-by to check if there was anything wrong with the van.
Oh, a flat tyre! We weren't keen on fitting the spare tyre ourselves, we've never done it before.
Don't panic, there was a café with a terrace. Let's have a drink first.
Then it began to dawn on us that we had a problem.
No garage in the immediate vicinity. We could have called Adrem – we always have the emergency number with us. But we had the feeling they wouldn't be able to help us much either, there in the South of France.
We called the campsite – they couldn't do enough to help guests. They said they'd call a towing service. But wait a minute: we had a flat tyre and we were certainly 100 kilometres away from the campsite. Now, Adrem never makes a fuss, but this seemed a bit too expensive for a flat tyre.
I decided to go inside (the bar) to hear if they could come up with a solution. The whole village (a bit tipsy by now, it was around 3 in the afternoon) gave advice in the local dialect (which I didn't understand at all).
The girl behind the bar spoke the most understandable French. She even seemed to know a solution: her friends (6 lads of about 18, 20) were sitting on the terrace and they looked after their own car fleet. They would be happy to help.
The barmaid walked with me to their table. From the looks in their eyes, I could see they would do anything for this barmaid. I decided to let her do the talking.
Yes, they did want to help. If they could just finish their chips and finish their drinks first.
But of course! We were perfectly happy sitting on the little terrace, after all. I decided to go and get the accompanying booklet from the car.
Laughing, they announced that they couldn't really read Dutch. No worries, one of them simply looked up the French version on his mobile phone.
Before long, one of them was under the car and another came to ask if the jack and spanner might be somewhere else in the car than under the seat.
Stunned, I asked: ’Does that have to sit under the chair?' Yes, they had seen that on their mobile phone.
The jack was also under the seat, but one part was missing, making it unusable.
No, there wasn't another place where the missing part was located.
No worries, one of the lads conjured up almost half a workshop's worth of car tools from his own car, including a jack. They changed the wheel in about fifteen minutes.
Apparently, they didn't have much faith in us as ‘car experts’ (and rightly so), as they repeatedly urged us to go to a garage as soon as possible, since we were driving around with a flat spare tyre and something else needed to be done. Using a translation app, we found out that it needed to be ‘aligned’.
They assured us that we could drive back to the campsite safely. Thrilled that they had helped us so much, I offered to pay for their chips and drinks. They wouldn't hear of it.
In the end, they did accept the €50 I offered. If you want to connect with the locals, my advice is: get something wrong with your car and it's sorted in no time.
So this year again a Van ’Ready for our camping holiday!’
Jac and Pauline have already reserved their van for this summer.
There are still a few other (company) cars available.
