Tuesday 30 April 2013

A Night Alarm

Well we are back; I expect to the dismay of our neighbours.
We flew into Marrakesh and had booked a hire car. As it was a cheap deal it was through a firm which did not have a bureau at the airport but operated a "meet and greet" service. No-one was waiting. After a phone call two people met us and our paperwork produced a flurry of concerned arabic. They had several clients yesterday evening but we appeared to have dropped off the list and they had to ring up for a car. The upshot was that although Easyjet managed to land us early at 7.45 we did not leave the aiport until 10pm. It's a 3 and a 1/2 hour drive and we had to get petrol and stop to buy milk. Beloved was a hero driving us over the Atlas in the dark but we only got here about 2am. We then had to open and close the garage doors which are metal and clunky and involve lots of bolts so I' sure the neighbours could have done without it. Beloved had managed to lock the car whilst we closed the doors but I needed the suitcase with my "evening" medications so he turned the key in the lock and opened the door; the ALARM went off. We'd no idea how to turn it off and so were very relieved when after 30 seconds it turned itself off. Less so, when after another 30 seconds it came back on. This repeated several times as we got more and more frantic.we had propped the bonnet open and were just about to try disconnecting the battery ( it's a relatively old model) when it stopped miraculously and we still don't know why. I'll avoid the neighbours for a few days.