… is not the best song to have stuck in your head when you’re surrounded by Malaysian waiters, servers, stewards and so on.

We went on our summer holidays! Which, due to financial and temporal constraints, and the limits of our joint skills at organisation, ended up being a day-trip to Holland, in December.

But first, cast your mind back to Dave.

** scooby flashback **

The AA guy showed up and took a look at the car. After a jump start he reckoned it was the alternator.

“I’m just gonna try something” he said.

“Special tool number 1?” I asked.

He nodded.

When he found the implement, he gave the alternator a smack and the fan belt started screaming. He explained that that was because it was actually bothering to charge the battery now.

“How far have you got to go?”

“York.”

He considered.

“It either will do it, or it won’t. There’s a couple of brushes in there that are on springs and they can get stuck. A smack loosens them up. When you do that it usually either completely goes in the next hour or it keeps going for years.”

He recommended that we set off and see how far we get.

As it turned out, we got all the way home. But the next day it conked out giving Rach’s Dad a ride to the club, and I had to whack it again with a wheelbrace. It seemed to get the hint that time. However, our confidence was waning in its ability to get us all the way to Maastricht and back in a day. Before the departure day I chickened out of replacing the alternator (you have to prop up the engine and undo engine mountings for crying out loud!), but did replace the alternator belt, getting rid of the wailing screech that did nothing for the car’s image as a reliable little runabout, and pumped up the tyres (three were at 26PSI and one was at 11!). The reinflated tyres had a palpable effect on the car’s handing.

So we set off for the Hull ferry with the list of problems on the car vastly reduced to:

• gearbox leaking oil
• engine drinking oil
• possible air leak from rear tyre
• alternator possibly about to fail utterly
• handbrake not effective
• left indicator does not cancel
• cracked headlamp
• a big scratch on the windscreen where the wipers have been
• only 15% of the dashboard illuminates, allowing you only to read speeds above 75MPH in the dark

Incidentally, I reckon I’ve taken hundreds of risks like this in my life and only come a cropper a dozen times. On balance I think I’ve done alright out of the policy.

We packed tools, jack, axle stands, torch, blanket and a spare alternator, and headed off on holibags…We took the overnight ferry Hull to Rotterdam, which is highly recommended. We ate an all-you-can-eat buffet/carvery (but we couldn’t eat it all), watched the bingo and the house band, slept and awoke in Holland. The ferry practically drops you right onto the network of E-route dual carriageways, which meant apart from overtaking, I didn’t really have to think much about the side of the road I was on for the next 200km. The car delighted us by starting up straight away after spending the night in the chilly cardeck, and we slowly wound up to a very civilized 100kph, and surfed the radio for a suitably Dutch station. I Believe In Miracles followed by Kung Fu Fighting and some adverts in pleasingly guttural Dutch set the tone for the journey.

I chickened out of my first opportunity to speak Dutch, when the woman at the garage asked for dertig euro achtenzeventig and all I could say was “uh, sorry I’m English”.

At Maastricht, after about two and a half hours’ problem-free motoring, we hung a left for Valkenburg, parked up and followed the pedestrian signs to Fluweelengrot Kerstmarkt. I got Rach to have a go at translating the sign, which was the first time she knew where we were going. Pancakes were had, I stumped up the courage and told the lady, in Dutch, that I didn’t know the word but did she have a “Stadtplan”, thus obtaining a Plattegrond and also the knowledge that that’s what one is called. Then we headed up to the only Medieval Dutch castle on a hill, and spent a few hours in the Christmas market in the caves underneath it.

After the cave, we had about 4 hours left to make the 2:30 journey back to the ferry. We decided to head off sooner rather than later, in case of complications en route. The car started fine, and took us all the way to Dordrecht, near Rotterdam, where we came off the motorway looking for food. And did about three laps of the town. And got lost, and asked a random how to get away again.

That used up all our dinner time allowance, so we headed back up the Europaweg to the ferry and ate onboard, which cost about double what it had cost to book the meal in advance on the outgoing leg. We had all-you-can-eat buffet/carvery, accidentally singing Kung Fu Fighting a few times, glimpsed the House Band, listened to the Sky Lounge pianist murdering a couple of old favourites, slept, and woke in Hull.

Where the ferry broke down and had to call the AA.

Another two hours later the tug boats had shoved us onto our berth and all the pedestrians had been shuffled through the car deck, and we were allowed back to the cars. The cinq started first time, and took us down the ramp, where I was pulled over and breathalysed, and told that my tyres were bald and would result in fines and points if someone stopped me. I thanked the police support officer for the heads up and added it to the list.

Back in York, we went to our local German Christmas Market and had Dutch Poffertjes.