Water water everywhere

April 14th.

We pulled into a supermarket to restock the essentials and as usual, before we could go shopping, the Gf had to go to the loo......it's a Pavlovian thing. When she emerged, I realised that the water pump was still working away, which it sometimes does after a journey involving steep hills etc which seems to create an airlock somewhere, and you need to run a tap for some time to pull the water through again. However, this time no water was comng out of the taps but the pump was still running. To edit the events, the Gf went shopping and I investigated the problem. The pump is housed under the wardrobe and whilst accessible, it is not the best place to work....and involved removing crash helmets, emergency lighting,scarves,hats,glove,umbrellas and other assorted clothing that is dumped in there. My first mistake was not removing the entire pump to begin with, which involves 4 screws, 2 pipes and disconnecting 2 wires. So when I removed 2 bolts and the motor housing came apart, various springs holding the carbon brushes flew out and I was getting hot and sweaty......and Julian rang to see if I wanted to go Spa in May....great timing again...
I now decided to remove the whole pump as getting the brushes back on the commutator shaft (?) was impossible in situ. It proved almost impossible out situ as well until I dismantled a bit more of the housing and found I could wedge 2 slices of matchstick to hold the brushes against the springs whilst I lowered it down over the shaft and reassemble. This took up an hour and I was now back at square one...the Gf had gone and sat up front well out of the way with a sandwich. So we drove on to our next stop, CANDAS, where I dismantled the pump, found it to be working OK, reinstalled it, and still didn't have any water at the taps. Eventually, on Wed morning, I found the manual for the pump, with diagrams, took it apart completely, down its absolute basics whist the GF held the screws and watched which bits went where, cleaned everything and put it back together again. AND LO WE HAVE WATER. Perseverance is the name of the game out here. And Candas is delightful, this campsite, Perlora may be the best site we have ever stopped at as we are perched at the cliff edge with a beautiful view and the sound of the waves on the rocks 20 feet below to send us off to sleep...smelling sweetly now that the water is pumping..(poetic licence as the showers here and all facilities would not disgrace your own home,the views are magnificent and the town is a 10 min walk along the very nice prom. which makes it our No.1 site of all time)
A great place to end our journey.....we shall be going to San Sebastian on Thursday, Biarritz for Friday & Saturday then through France to Le Touquet for Tues.night prior to taking the Shuttle on Wed morning......I may keep you informed.....