We're all going on a Summer Holiday....

 

The Storyteller wobbled back and forth in his newly rented bright pink Robin Reliant.  His grey curls glistened in the noon-day sun and his wobbly glasses shone brightly in the rays.  He turned his head this way and that as he admired the view.  At the back of his mind was a faint worry about how the heck he was going to get moving again.  Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw a blurred movement.  Something grey and hooded was up on the fell to his left, creeping about and looking really quite sinister (or trying to anyway!)

Where was he I hear you asking?  He was balanced precariously on top of Hard Knutt Pass in the Lake District was where he was.  One of the humps you have to drive over had proved too much for the RR (short for Reliant Robin) and it had come to a wobbly halt.  He had chosen the Lake District for his holidays quite simply because he had never been there before (he was beginning to wish he wasn't there now if truth be told) and various friends and relations had said how wonderful it was. 

The Storyteller hunched forward, then threw himself backwards in the RR in a desperate attempt to dislodge it from the hump.  His bright yellow hat fell over his wobbly glasses as he did this and his long red coat rode up over his knobbly knees (have I never mentioned his knobbly knees before?  Ah, well then...that's a whole new story that is!)

Desperately he threw himself around inside the pink plastic car when suddenly he grew still.  An enormous thump had rocked the car and it lurched over the hump with a screechy, creaky sound.  Slowly, the Storyteller pushed his bright yellow hat back up to the top of his grey glistening curls and looked through the windscreen.  There, looking straight back in at him, was the grey hooded figure who had been creeping about on the fell.  The pasty face peering out through the hood was smeared with bits of chocolate and crumbs and the dark green eyes stared fearfully at The Storyteller.

The RR, meantime had started off down the steep hill and The Storyteller, who couldn't see where he was going (view blocked by said grey hooded, chocolate becrumbed figure) gently applied pressure to the brakes. 

The car went a bit faster down the hill, knocking the banks as it went.  The Storyteller shouted at the grey-hooded pasty-faced person to get off the blooming bonnet (yes, thank you very much Reliant Robins DO have bonnets - they may not have much else but that's one thing they do have) but, by this time, the creature was terrified by the gathering speed and uncertain directions of the bright pink car and was clinging ever tighter.

Finally, The Storyteller, curls flying straight out behind him and his wobbly glasses plastered to his face by the sheer force of gravity, reached out through his window, grabbed the grey hood and hauled the creature into the car.  He wasn't that much better off I have to say as the windscreen was now plastered with chocolate crumbs and smears where the creature's pasty face had been pressed so hard against it but at least he could get a pretty good idea of where he was going.

The brakes were still not working but the road came to a deep dip, the RR started the upward path at 90 miles an hour (what?  An RR doing 90 miles an hour?  Well it had been hurtling down one side of the hill you know beforehand.  Oh, OK, more like 30 miles an hour then!).  Gradually it slowed.  The Storyteller breathed a sigh of relief.  He turned toward the creature who was sobbing pitifully in the seat beside him.  He was just about to ask him what on earth he thought he was doing when...

...yes, you realised it and I realised it, and quite possibly the grey-hooded creature realised it, but unfortunately the Storyteller hadn't realised that the fact he had no brakes meant that once the car had stopped on the upward path it was just going to run back down backwards to the dip and start up the other side again.  Once there, it would come back down...and so on...and so on.

Once the Storyteller realised this, he thought about it for four and a half seconds, understood that there wasn't much he could do about it and turned to the grey-hooded creature again.

"What on earth did you think you were doing out there?" he asked.

"Snnn..ii...ffff.  Snnn...iiii.vvvvlle." said the grey-hooded creature.

"That's not an answer," cried The Storyteller as they set off up the upward route for the third time.

The grey-hooded creature wiped his pasty nose with his pasty hand and explained.

He had come on holiday with his pasty-faced family from the big city (he was the only one with a grey hood though I have to say) and, on arrival in Windermere they discovered that the holiday cottage they had booked was a "non-chocolate biscuit eating" cottage (you know, like they have no-smoking and no-pets holiday cottages).  Now Aubrey (yes, sorry, that WAS his name) was a total chocolate biscuit-aholic and was forced to roam the fells munching and chomping in order to keep his addiction at bay.  That's what he had been doing when the RR had become stuck on the hump and his flying leap onto the bonnet had, in fact, dislodged it quite successfully.  Just a shame the brakes had given up really!

By this time the RR had gradually come to rest in the dip.   It was also gradually filling up with chocolate biscuit crumbs as Aubrey continued to munch and chomp.  He didn't even offer one to The Storyteller either which was annoying but then he WAS addicted to them so I suppose we shouldn't be surprised.  The Storyteller was though.  Surprised I mean.

Before he drowned in crumbs, the Storyteller leaped from the car.  He looked up and down the hill but could see no-one approaching who could help.  A mist was forming over the tops of the fells and was gradually creeping down to where he stood.  Oh dear, what to do?

Aubrey clambered out of the car (now completely full of crumbs and no more room for him) and whispered something in the Storyteller's ear (he also whispered  a mouthful of crumbs into the Storyteller's ear but a quick scrunch round with his little finger soon sorted that one out, even if he felt a tad disgusted by the experience).

ANYWAY...it turned out that, whilst roaming hill and dale (and fell), Aubrey had befriended quite a few of the sheep who lived in those parts.  They tended to follow him around you see hoovering up the crumbs he left behind everywhere he went.  So he went off into the wild blue yonder (well, misty yonder actually) and soon returned with four sturdy rams.  He whipped out his cord from his grey hood and neatly fashioned some reins and a tow rope. (What?  How could a measly hood cord fashion all that?  Don't ask me, for the sake of this tale it had to - is all!)

They attached the four sturdy rams to the front of the RR, cleaned out the major part of the crumbs from inside and the Storyteller got it.  Aubrey went ahead, still munching steadily.  The rams followed him, licking up the crumbs as they went and, eventually, they reached the top of the hill.  They untied the rams who were supposed to run off gaily into the mists but who, unfortunately, had taken a great liking for Aubrey and stayed where they were.  The road was on a very gentle slope from then on and they could see the lights of a garage at the bottom so off they set.

Imagine the garage-owner's surprise when confronted with a bright pink RR containing:

The Storyteller told the tale (well that IS what he DOES after all), the garage owner was so entertained by the whole thing he repaired the brakes for free and lived off the tale in the local pub for quite the next three weeks, and Aubrey?  Well, Aubrey was returned to the bosom of his family, together with the four sturdy rams who had become inseparable from him and whose support and love for him helped him overcome his addiction to chocolate biscuits.  He spent the rest of his holiday cavorting around the Lake District with his family, free as the air and becoming less pasty-faced and unhealthy looking as each minute passed.

Now...how's that for a happy ending?