Thompson Pet Travel

18/07/2023

18/07/2023

Well, we finally arrived home at 03.30 this morning after a day and night I will remember for the rest of my life. There were many triumphs, but there were also tragedies, and they will be forever with us.

Our first call was to an elderly lady who had 12 dogs and the fires were sweeping down towards her house. Myself, Julie and Diane Chapman headed straight there and amazingly found her to be very calm and not appearing to be in any hurry at all. The flames were closing in and we had to REALLY impress the urgency to Eleni to get these dogs out of there. Most were nervous and frightened, not used to being handled by strangers. But eventually, with the fire just a spit away, every one was loaded and we took all the animals to Rachel’s place where they had prepared space and a safe environment for everyone.

Whilst we were with Eleni at Lagonisi, another fire was raging just a short distance away. The lady who fosters dogs was at the vet with one of them, the other 17 were at her home. These fires are called ‘Wild’ for a reason, my god they sweep through like raging bulls, it’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen. And before this lady, who I won’t name could return, the fire had swept in, by the time she got back through the chaos, just 7 could be saved. These tragedies were happening all over, this particular one is going to resonate for a very long time. One dog that was there called Nellie, had finally found her forever family and was leaving on the freedom bus with us on Saturday. Just a few days before her life was to change forever, her life was lost. Bless you Nellie and every other animal that didn’t make it last night. We are so sorry that you couldn’t all be saved.

We were sent next to 2 sisters who had 24 cats in an outside complex. By the time we arrived ash was literally raining down on us, but they had only a couple of cat carriers, one with a broken door so catching and ferrying them to the van was time consuming, the last 7 were so scared and hiding inside boxes, we couldn’t catch them, and we had to go! We said if the fire comes any closer you must open the door and let them run, they promised they would. If they didn’t they would have no chance of survival. We took the cats we’d managed to catch and one dog to the sisters office in Saronida where at least there were no trees so they would be safe.

Next we were sent all over, but finally we arrived at a hoarders place who was surrounded by fire and refusing to let the dogs leave. We had dispensation to go through the police and fire fighters cordon to get to this place. She finally arrived and was saying she will die with the dogs and screaming and shrieking. Then the flames suddenly were right there, we were terrified at this point, and having to consider leaving without them, but she finally agreed to let us take them. The volunteers from the Hellenic Animal Society went straight into action, they were brilliant. Unfortunately, catch poles had to be used because the dogs were all huge and very afraid, but we had to move very quickly. But once inside the van we settled them and gave them water and big dose of love. When we were finally full and by now almost surrounded by fire we left and headed to Galaţsi in Athens where dogs are taken during the fires. We arrived at 01.30 this morning, with our last load, the volunteers swooped in and we took all the dogs off, this time we could let them do it in their own time as they were no longer in danger. Some were in need of veterinary attention, one setter type had a tumour hanging out of her ear and was so badly matted, god knows what was under all that matted fur, poor girl, but she was a typical Greekie, gentle and calm. She saw the vet, and will now never return to that place and will hopefully now have a decent life, I hope she finds a loving family. Another had a wound that was bleeding, it had been sprayed with the ‘blue’ stuff, but it needed a lot more than that, we got him off first for the vet to examine. The volunteers there made sure the dogs were photographed and listed. Every dog that arrived will be posted and hopefully owners will come forward or families will be found. Another of them, the last to load, was like a sheep, she was so matted, but it was coming off in handfuls! But oh my, this girl was incredibly sweet, she didn’t bat an eyelid when I was removing handfuls of this matting. In the heat, I’m amazed she hasn’t died from heatstroke. There wasn’t another cage left so we left her just clipped to a cage and she was perfect all the way to Athens. I do hope you find a wonderful home you beautiful girl. ❤️

We met some wonderful people throughout the day and night, 2 young guys who were going round to the houses after the evacuation checking for dogs that have been left still tied up after their owners left. All they could do was release them, then they had a fighting chance. I don’t get why they won’t just untie them! We met Alexisis, the amazing policeman and huge champion of the strays, what an brilliant guy and thank you for all your help last night.

Once the last dog was off at Galaţsi it was finally time to head home, we didn’t realise we would be gone for so long. We left our own 5 dogs plus Diane’s 2 inside our home with the aircon. We were not in the fire zone! That was yesterday afternoon, they were shut inside for 14 hours, we had to balance it in our minds, they were safe, cool and had plenty of water. We did leave a rubbish bag in the kitchen that we’d emptied and meant to take with us to the bins but forgot. So we figured that would be ransacked!

When we got home, even after opening the gates and bringing in Liberty, there wasn’t a sound from inside the house. We walked up towards the house and there was still not a sound, 7 dogs and not a single bark, we were getting really worried, I didn’t know what we were going to find, but when we opened the door, all was calm, most were sleeping soundly, none were cross with us, not one single accident, even from our little Percy! And the rubbish bag was still sitting by the bin intact! They all shot out, did what they needed and came back in for their dinner/breakfast. Proud of you kids, it’s like you just knew ❤️❤️

We were just a small part of a huge operation that was put together incredibly quickly. We were guided by Dogs Voice of where we were needed, Marsha Dimopoulou was coordinating a huge part of this incredible operation. The volunteers came from everywhere, they were amazing. Most are just young people who love animals.

There so are many sad and often shocking stories from Greece, and yes, there is still a long way to go. But we were watching a new generation in action last night, and they were a credit to rescue and to Greece. They’re coordinated, passionate and dedicated to the animals, truly making things happen and advocating change. It gave us such heart to see. ❤️❤️❤️❤️

29/06/2023

Good afternoon

Today is a big day for us! Stella Blue has now officially retired to the UK. Not from working, just no more long haul trips!

She’s done 2 more trips than we planned due to a delay in the formal inspection of our new van. All the work required and a whole lot more was completed weeks ago, but it’s taken an age for an accessor to be available to certify her as fit for animal transport. It finally happened yesterday and I’m sure we heard Stella breath a sigh of relief! She’s performed perfectly well and will continue working in the UK and doing airport collections from Paris, Belgium, Shiphole etc and also Calais collections. She can only do this because of your amazing generosity in helping us to get her back on the road after the loss of her engine last year!

And so to the new van and her new name, we raised £100 and the specified charities will receive £25 each. Thank you very much to those who donated and put forward suggestions.

We did say we would put names in a hat and pull one out. However, there was one suggestion put forward that we both would really really like to use.

There were other great suggestions too, Pheonix, Salvatore, Wagapuss, Adeona, Realta are some of them, and Diane’s suggestion of CEV pronounced Kev…🙄😊, we all know vehicles are female Di 😂.

But the one that really resonated with us was from someone who’s name I don’t know but their PayPal name is Penrux. LIBERTY - Libby for short!

Thanks to those who had a go and helped raise a few quid for the Greekies to boot! And a big thank you to Penrux (please tell us who you are) who gave us the winning name of Liberty.

We hope you approve!!

It’s great to have the confidence now in a brand new vehicle that’s under full warranty for the next 3 years. It might have cost us our pensions, but it means we can continue doing what we love.

So, if you’re looking for ethical transport for your cats and dogs, and you want your animals to travel in complete comfort, with space to stand up, lay down and turnaround, where they will be properly rested overnight, where the dogs will be regularly walked throughout their journey, where the cats have lots of one to one care and toys to play with. Where your animals will travel in a caring and compassionate environment with our all female team, then we are definitely the company for you!

Please contact us on [email protected] for availability and a quote.

Thanks so much to you guys who follow all of our journeys, we love that you enjoy them as much as the ‘kids’ on board do 🥰🥰🥰🥰.

29/06/2023

18/04/2023

Good morning! I’m really sorry that we haven’t posted earlier.

As most of you know, we had another issue with ‘Stella’ just a few months after she had a new engine, gearbox, turbo, injectors…..I won’t list everything that was replaced but believe me it was extensive and it was all thanks to the incredible generosity and support we received by so many of you to keep us on the road after we said we had to throw in the towel! You gave us such a boost, you were determined not to allow this to happen, we were at such a low because we really weren’t ready to stop doing the job we love so much, but we couldn’t see a way forward. But after the wave of kindness and belief we received from everyone, how could we possibly give up!

So, you can imagine how we felt when, after just having had another full service, flying through her MOT without even an advise and a follow up check on the new engine (all perfect we were told)….the coolant light came on when we turned her on after our first overnight stop in Italy, saying it was low. It was like deja vu….here we bloody go again! This is where it started before, so, we topped it up using the proper 50/50 mix. Everything else was fine and off we went. Halfway up Mont Blanc the oil pressure warning light came on, luckily there was a lay-by right there so we could pull in immediately. We called Tim, the manager of the garage who did all the work. He said that we had to top up the oil, and keep an eye on it, stop every hour, check the level etc and it will get us back into the UK. Then they can take a look. As our luck seems to go, for the first time ever, we didn’t put the 4 litres of oil we ALWAYS carry back on Stella after we had stripped her down, as usual, cleaned and disinfected everything and rebuilt her. We decided we didn’t need to put the snow chains and shovel back on (there’s been hardly any snow this year) but everything else stays on year round, but when we went to get it, it wasn’t there, and it’s the first time we’ve ever needed it during a trip!!! There was a garage further down the mountain, but to walk to it on the road which is all hairpins going up and up would take too long. Two young Italian policemen arrived, great we thought, they can give us a lift….they wanted to see the animals, made lots of oooh’s and aaah’s at them and just buggered off on their way. I guess we weren’t young enough to warrant any further attention from them! The quickest way to get to the garage was to go over the barrier and climb straight down the mountain to reach it, which was exactly what Julie did. When she got there they had closed for lunch! She waited an hour, they only had 1 litre containers of the correct oil for Stella, so she had to buy 7 of them (for which they charged €240) and then climb back up the mountain with them in a bag slung over her shoulder. Poor Jules was exhausted!

We needed to add 4 litres, we did that and off we went. We were very careful and did exactly as instructed all the way. We actually drove through the night, just to keep her going.

We stopped regularly, checking the oil, walking the kids, moving on and so on. Then out of nowhere, there was a horrible noise, I pulled over onto the hard shoulder immediately, we noticed there was some smoke inside the van. We knew what it was because many years ago we had a hire van from Hungary, just before we reached the Austrian border the turbo blew up and filled the inside of the with smoke, it was much worse than happened this time but still not a great thing to happen. We opened all the doors within seconds, front, side and back which immediately cleared it. We checked all the kids, there wasn’t enough smoke in there for long enough to cause a problem but we had to make sure, especially with the kitties who tend to be more sensitive. But they were all good.

But now we knew there was no going forward, less than 2 hours from Calais. We were devastated, as you can imagine! This time we had no choice but to call in the cavalry, on French motorways you always have to call the police who immediately send a recovery vehicle to take you to their nearest garage compound. Obviously, the next move has to be to arrange for the kids to continue their journey as quickly as possible. Rachel kicked into action immediately and arranged with Animal Couriers to hire their biggest van and a driver for come to Laon.

It took most of the day to arrange, plus, because of the Health Certificates all being under our vehicle and licence, we couldn’t take them through Calais. The only answer was for the named people on AHC’s to come to Calais to take them across in person. These were for the charities, Greek Animal Rescue and Friends of the Strays of Greece. The ones where the owners had flown were fine and stayed on board with us. So Diane Chapman and Mandy Cohen who was the adopter of handsome Prince, came over to Calais for GAR and so did another lovely person and her husband for Strays of Greece, both vets, who are usually very private so I won’t name them unless they say I can.

These volunteers were marvellous, they swung into action, despite the appalling weather conditions which affected the number of available ferries, which in turn meant travelling in the early hours of the next morning. So Trevor had collected Julie and I and all our incredibly relaxed kids after spending the whole day going for lots of walks and the kitties having loads of attention whilst we waited. All aboard the new bus and heading for Calais from our side whilst ‘international rescue’ were the other side heading across the choppy channel to Calais from their side! Dogs and cats had to be moved to the appropriate organisations own vehicles to be allowed to continue through customs and board the return ferry, which we ended up waiting even more hours for having just missed one! During all of this, spirits were amazingly high, everyone involved was so positive, calm, laughing, caring and generally just bloody amazing!! Mandy had snuck Toto upstairs on the ferry as she didn’t have a sky kennel and would have been loose in their vehicle. She had all our coats bundled up and this little head kept popping up looking for another cuddle, it was really funny and despite spotting Toto several times, none of the crew said a word, they just smiled. We all arrived safely at around 4am (5am before we gained an hour) where all but one of the kids new and existing families were patiently waiting for our arrival! Also, showing amazing patience, kindness and understanding. The kids could not have been cared for better than they were, surrounded by people who truly loved them. They were all incredible, everyone around them was so calm and gentle with them, so as far as they were concerned, nothing had changed. Which just reinforces that the most important thing these kids need is love! When they feel that (many for the first time ever in their lives) they just know they’re safe, and will give over to complete and unconditional trust in each and everyone of us!

So, thank you very very much Diane, Mandy, Trevor, S & T (the lovely vets) Rachel and Animal Couriers for making this happen, and with such good grace, patience, kindness and laughter!

No, the story isn’t yet finished….

Back to the here and now, Stella is now back with the garage who fitted everything new, she arrived on Wednesday, but they haven’t even looked at her yet. I can’t say I’m happy about that, they fitted everything and something has gone catastrophically wrong….again!! So we need to know what the hell happened!

The engine has a 12 month unlimited mileage warranty, the Turbo is under warranty, as I assume are the other parts. But after talking to the manager Tim, I’m not so sure!

I have undertaken my own research, I found that there is in fact a fault on these VW Crafters with this particular engine. If I can find this out, why the hell hasn’t any garages done this?
I’ve also found out that VW are very well aware of this fault. Apparently, they export quite a lot of Crafters to Australia, where they have fixed this problem free of charge. But not here or even in Germany. The issue originates from the EGR Valve, the problem mimics a head gasket issue. One of the first things that happens is a coolant problem, is loses it, it overheats, this is exactly what happened on the last one….and the first issue we had this time was low coolant. But it doesn’t explain the loss of oil? I couldn’t find a leak anywhere, so where did it go. Like we always do, all fluid levels were checked before leaving Greece.

Anyway, we’re not quite back to where we were at the back end of last year. But we are in a situation where we are not able to work or fulfill our commitments.

After everything everyone did to get us back on the road last year, we simply cannot and WILL NOT give up!

So, full disclosure, this is what we are going to do.

Stella will be fixed (we also found out what needs to be done IF it is this reported problem) one way or another and hopefully under warranty by the garage who fitted everything. However, even though we are positive this time the actual problem will be properly fixed, after the series of breakdowns that have happened, no matter how well she’s looked after going forward, I’m sure you will understand when we say that we have lost confidence in her.

Travelling such a long way with a very precious cargo, you can’t be on tenterhooks all time, worrying constantly incase something happens.

So Stella will stay in the UK, and once she’s on the road again she will be our back up transport and also will do airport collections of animals flying into Paris, Brussels etc as well as local pet taxi journeys in the UK.

In the meantime, we need a new van to continue our trips from Greece and it’s up to us to find a way to make that happen! We need a lot of money to do that, more than £50k when you take into account a new van AND the refit to make it fit for our fabulous passengers and to be issued with our Welfare in Transit Certification.

Julie and I have discussed it at length and made our decision of how to do it…..we’re ‘ladies of a certain age’ with no intention of ever retiring (we’re not at that age just yet) anytime soon. So we’re cashing in our pensions and buying the best bloody van you’re ever going to see!!

Watch this space….we will be back on the road very very soon!

Lynda & Julie
❤️❤️

25/01/2023

Good morning and a huge thank you for the donations we’ve had so far for the Mum and her puppies. Diane Chapman from GAR is currently here in Greece doing what she does best helping and supporting volunteers with their rescuing amongst many other things but we spoke to her last night and she was able to do a quick add up of your very kind donations.

In the meantime she’s asked me to change the bank account number as it’s not so easy to find the names of individual people on that particular one, I’ve changed it on the other post as well.

You have raised just over £2,000 so far!! That’s extremely generous of everyone, thank you so much!! This will pay for 2 months at Frances plus good puppy food and good food for Mum. Plus most of their blood tests too! Pip Grey-smith has kindly offered to pay for Mums sterilising when she’s ready, after babies are fully weaned, her milk has gone and her hormones and body has returned
to normal.

As you know the family are at a really good shelter in Oropos but just until Friday. They very kindly helped us out in the short term due to the urgency of the puppies plight. Julie and I will go and collect them on Friday and take them to Frances Doggy Den. We’ll take lots of photos of course!

It’s been quite stressful for the Mum and at the moment we’ve been told she’s rejected the babies. They’ve taken her out for now but she’s going back in for shorter periods when she does allow some feeding. Two of the babies haven’t eaten for a couple of days. This is often what happens when these poor babies are stressed and just don’t know what’s happening. But also Alexia told us that she had noticed scratch marks on Mums belly and teats so it could also be that she’s just too sore at the moment and needs a break from sharp little claws and teeth.

They’re being extremely well cared for where they are and they’re keeping a very close eye on them.

It’s a shame we have to move them again but it can’t be helped, however, Frances has a very relaxed and calm environment for them, once they’re with her they’ll be able to settle in for a longer period.

We think Mum already has a home offer which is fantastic news. But I will update a little more on that once we know it’s definitely confirmed. She will of course stay with her babies for now in the hope that she will settle down again and allow the little ones to finish feeding from her. They were just starting to wean, Alexia was giving them puppy kibble softened in water when they were still on the mountain. So they are able to eat by themselves. Babies have all been wormed and will have panacure worm treatment next week.

It’s just brilliant that so many of you are supporting these very lucky babies.

When we collect them on Friday, we will take individual photos of each of them, looking for distinguishing marks and then you have a job to do! We will need 6 names for the babies and another one for Mum.

Once the photos are up I’ll ask everyone with suggestions to write them under the actual photo of each pup, then perhaps we can have a vote on peoples favourites!

I’ve posted the payment details again below incorporating the new account number Diane gave me in case anyone else would like to donate, ideally we would like to raise enough to sterilise the babies too, but that will probably need to be done after they leave Greece as we can’t sterilise them when they’re too young.

If you are interested in giving an adorable puppy a loving home, or perhaps you’d like to foster for now, please can you complete a pre-adoption form here:

https://greekanimalrescue.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/PRE-ADOPTION-FOSTERING-QUESTIONNAIRE-JAN23.pdf

If you would like to donate:

https://secure.nochex.com/charity/default.aspx?cID=E09665833A28

Or

30-99-86
00014087

Or

PayPal: [email protected]

PLEASE DON’T FORGET TO WRITE THE REFERENCE: HALKIDA PUPS

The very best one if you’re a tax payer is via Nochex for the extra 25% paid by HMRC on top of every donation!

https://secure.nochex.com/charity/default.aspx?cID=E09665833A28

05/11/2022

I cannot tell you how excited I am personally! It’s been a year since I’ve done a trip and 2 years since Julie and I have done a trip together. I can’t believe I’m in the van with precious passengers to pamper and enjoy! 🥰🥰🥰🥰

We asked Petros the pet taxi to bring all the cats to our house today because there were 9 of them, so we decided we would rather handle them in our own safe environment. These cats brought a couple of firsts for us, one, this is the very first time we have taken kitties out of their carriers and they’re ALREADY purring!! Can you believe it 😁😁, it was wonderful! Little Lillie one eye, Tabitha, Merlin and Finas omg how gorgeous they are!! None of them we upset or a bit scratchy. The second to last kitty to transfer was Keftas, and then came our second ‘first’, just as he we were putting him inside his comfy little pad, something happened outside, a noise, one of the dogs barked, I honestly can’t remember, but he jumped and dived behind the the rear cages before we could even blink! The entire van is shut down when we’re handling the cats, security gate closed, all windows and front doors closed, so there’s nowhere to go apart from to squeeze yourself into the smallest, most inaccessible space you can find! And that what Keftas did. Ah well, it meant we were going to be late as we would have to do a lot of dismantling, but he’s fine and comfortably sleeping on his soft bed now. Sorry for being late to our next couple of pick ups but they’ve been very understanding…thank you!

The youngsters I swear are STILL purring, I can’t wait to get in the back with them and take some videos of their happiness.

The only kitty that’s not purring is poor Simon, he’s such a frightened little man, he has a face only his mother could love due to a very tough paper round, it just makes him all the more endearing. His new mum Liz will give him the best life ever.

Rafi joined us at Aspropyrgos, what a very lovely dog 🥰, he’s come all the way from Aegina Island where a very kind Julie found him and can’t wait to have him home.

We just collected Baronaki, omg what an absolutely wonderful boy. He’s so gentle, he trotted off with me so happily, then we had a little cuddle and he went into his very big cage which he definitely needs. He’s not really a great big dog, he’s just very long and very tall! 😍

Next stop Patras to collect another 5 beauties joining the bus!

More later ###

22/09/2022

Good afternoon!

Finally…….after 84 days, 12 weeks or 3 months….whichever you prefer…..

STELLA CAME HOME!!!!!!!WOOOOOHOOOOO!!!!🎉🎉🥳🥳👏👏👏👏👏😅😅😅

Now the work will finally begin!

The relief is incredible!!!!

😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁 — with Paul Thompson and 5 others.

20/09/2022

Good morning, finally Stellablue is on the move 🥳🥳🥳🥳 we can’t thank you all enough for the donations and support, Stellablue is due to arrive in the U.K. on Friday and will be going to A&S Motors Ltd in Gosport ❤️❤️❤️ — feeling excited with Lynda Thompson.

16/08/2022

Good morning!

Thank you so much again to everyone who donated to both the CARAT fundraiser and the Crowdfunder and to everyone who shared and supported this, we can’t wait to get started and be back on the road bring amazing Greekie cats and dogs to their new families.

Being given the opportunity to carry on with our job is just amazing. This ‘job’ (it doesn’t seem like a job) does come with a lot of stress, particularly when it come to paperwork in Greece! As many of you are well aware, many of the Ministry/State vets in Greece are reluctant to provide the Animal Health Certificates that they are legally bound to issue under the EU Directive. It was a struggle when it was TRACES and it’s the same struggle now. However, now that animal welfare no longer sits with the Ministry of Agriculture (perfect place to oversee the welfare and all that entails of domestic cats and dogs…NOT) things are looking up! This is now under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Minister (who’s name unfortunately escapes me) is so much more focussed in this area and has been proactively helping to uncomplicate the process and make it easier for rescuers to apply AND actually get the AHC’s needed to transport cats and dogs to the UK.

So maybe this area won’t be quite so stressful going forward, although there is still a way to go ‘untangle’ the mess that was made of it before in order to deliberately stop people getting the required paperwork. If you are a rescuer in Greece and your MV still refuses to issue you an AHC, you MUST ask him/her to email you the reason why they are refusing, it must be in writing. You then send it to all 3 of the email addresses (in the photo at the bottom) at the Ministry, who will respond directly to your MV explaining and supporting them through the new process. It’s important to note that most of the MV’s (not all I know) are either afraid of losing their jobs if they get it wrong, or they just don’t have a clue how to navigate the new NT system…and don’t want to admit this. The document issued in March explains most of it (not the system) but despite this, many are still refusing. Please go back to your MV’s, no matter what they’ve said before, ask for the AHC again, they have ALL had the document, get their reasons for refusal in writing. If they refuse to put them in writing, send an email to the same address in the photo and let them know.

This is the time to really push for this to stop being such a battle, it shouldn’t ever have been like this, I won’t go into all those vile reasons why many of them refused, but that was then and hopefully most of them have stopped throwing those accusations at all of us and can start doing what is legally required of them. In the UK, if you don’t already have a passport for your pet, then you need an AHC if your dog or cat is leaving the country. So, you go to your vet, who will arrange it via your local Officially appointed Veterinarian. They won’t question you about where your dog came from, is this your own dog, are you selling it to a laboratory etc…they simply say ‘yes of course, when are you leaving’? That’s how it’s supposed to be, I dream of it being like that in Greece one day!

Anyway, where are we with Stella? Did she arrive in the UK on 12/8 as promised and is she being worked on as I write this at the garage? NO and NO are the answers to those questions!! When we called a couple of days before she was due to arrive, the person we spoke to said ‘why are you calling’! I said, for an update on the progress of my van because no one ever calls me to advise what’s happening, ‘it’s not our policy’ she replied. Really? It’s not their policy to keep their customers informed of the whereabouts or progress of their vehicle? Is it me? Are my expectations too high? She told me it was NOT on its way, she said it as if me actually believing them when they told me Stella would be back in the UK on 12th was ridiculous! On further questioning, she wasn’t prepared to say when we could expect to see our van again? So we played the AA version of Truth or Dare…will it be in the next week or so? ‘Unlikely’ OK sometime in August - silence came the loud reply….September? ‘More likely’, ‘probably’. She was on speaker phone (I wish we’d recorded it) when she said this, Julie just cried.

So we spent 3 solid days on the phone, we called every specialist vehicle hire in the UK. We found a company from whom we could hire a 7.5 ton recovery vehicle. It has to be the big one because Stella is a long wheel base so she measures 7 metres. They said ‘but’ you must have an operators licence to take it out of the UK. No problem there, we have one. Next ‘but’, you must provide your own insurance. Ok, we’ll contact our own commercial insurer and add it on. Nope, apparently they don’t do short term temporary insurance. It seems no one does now hence these hundreds of ‘pop up’ companies offering temporary cover ‘for an hour or 3 months’. They don’t insure specialist vehicles like this. We called so many insurance companies and brokers, we had some success with Adrian Flux Insurance. They DID find an insurer prepared to underwrite the risk BUT they could only offer 3rd party due to its value (£66k). We asked the hire company but we already knew the answer. I wouldn’t have agreed to it if I was them, they were very nice about it and really sorry they couldn’t help….unlike Southern Self Drive SSD in Portsmouth, who actually laughed at me when I said what I wanted. Some young, jumped up little git who couldn’t possibly believe that any woman our age was capable of driving a vehicle like this, or driving it ‘all that way to Italy’. Seriously, we have both driven 7.5 ton trucks many times, and we don’t have any worries at all about going and collecting our Stella with it! He started laughing and taking the ‘p*** out of me with his friends before I had even put the phone down! Don’t ever use this place…idiot.

Anyway, eventually we had to accept that hiring wasn’t going to happen, so we got quotes from companies to go over to Italy themselves
and bring her back. We had the most outrageous quotes! The first one was £4,500 + VAT to do it within 8 weeks! Or £8,000 to do it within 2 weeks 😂😂. The last one was £8,000 + VAT to do it within 4 weeks and…..wait for it……£12,500 plus VAT, to collect it within 3 days. OMG 😱, that’s totally outrageous!

So, after a very very frustrating few days we find ourselves back at the drawing board and in the incapable hands of the AA. They have been really good before, I can’t deny that we’ve had excellent service from them over the years, but this time it’s been a very unfunny joke from the start.

Not being the kind of person to ring my hands and do nothing, I decided to take positive and direct action. The ONLY people at the AA now that you can actually speak to are the same people you get when you call about a breakdown. Doesn’t matter whether you ask for a manager a supervisor, anyone, it’s not an option. I feel sorry for the operators, they must feel frustrated themselves not having anyone they transfer an irate customer to. But they can’t always hide away….

As enraged as I was I set about getting the direct email addresses of EVERY executive board member at the AA from the CEO Jakob Pfaudler to the Chief Financial Officer Tom Mackay (who blocks his emails btw) Chief Risk Officer, Briony Horvath (who doesn’t block her emails and neither does the Jakob Pfaudler CEO) Martin Fleming Chief Operating Officer (blocks his emails) along with Mark Felix and Rick Baythornthwaite, neither of whom block their emails. So 4 of the 6 all received my email, which I sent late Friday afternoon. At around 11am yesterday I got a call from the AA. She said, ‘you’ve caused quite a stir at this mornings executive board meeting Lynda’! Well there we are! The agenda was scrapped and Stella became the focus of the AA executive officers board meeting! 😁. She said she was calling to reassure me that they are working on it, that there was an awful lot for them to address but she acknowledged that from my perspective, all I want is Stella back! But they will contact me again very soon. I gave them absolutely everything from being left stranded on the side of an Italian motorway in an extremely dangerous place and nearly 40 degrees, with domestic animals on board, being told there’s no one available to help us, calling a recovery vehicle ourselves and paying for it, finding a suitable garage to be taken to ourselves after 3 HOURS…from that, the continued horrible service over and over again to the final phone call with Alice who couldn’t have cared less that Stella wasn’t on her way….I think things are going to happen now!

The problem is that the board members never get to hear about the real complaints, no one goes to them and says, oh by the way, we have royally messed up this one and that one, so they don’t really know what’s going on at grass roots….they do now! 🙄😁.

Watch this space…..x