Some weeks begin well. The world seems a good place to be, the sun shines and the sky is blue. Today was not a good start to the week.
Physio at 8.30 a.m. meant an early start to get to Edinburgh. The traffic was bad thanks to a selfish lorry driver who ignored the twenty car tailback behind him for eight solid miles. When I got to Edinburgh I parked up and managed to burst a tyre on the kerb. Bad enough?
No! Modern cars don't come with spare tyres. Knowing I had to make my physio appointment I fed the meter and resolved to sort it out an hour later.
The physiotherapist is a sadist so the session did not go well.
Back in the car I tried the "repair kit". It involved removing the tyre valve, squirting milk into the tyre and trying to reflate the thing with an air compressor that looked like a 1960's transistor radio. All that happend is that I pumped the milk through the tyre and out of the hole in it onto the road.
I rang the Royal Automobile Club (RAC) to arrange for them to pick me up. After ten loyal years of being a customer and not bothering them I figured it was time to collect. I didn't. The RAC it seems are pretty picky about which car you are in when you burst a tyre and they explained that they wanted to fleece me for money. I refused.
A traffic warden turned up at this point and explained, to my relief, that she couldn't book me while I was trying to get my car recovered.
Finally I arranged for a local firm to pick me up and take me to see my chums at Kwikfit. With an hour before pick up I wandered off for a coffee. I should add that I took the precaution of putting a note in my windscreen explaining to any passing traffic warden what had happened.
I got my coffee and ... a parking ticket!!!
Surely it could get no worse???
Having been safely taken to Kwikfit two hours later, having moaned to everyone I met about my parking ticket, I was told it would be a good hour to repair the damage.
"is there a cafe nearby?" I asked.
"Round the corner, Cafe Nine." said Jim, the Kwikfit fitter.
I went to Cafe Nine. Bought another coffee and a bacon roll and sat down at the back. All was well for ten minutes and then the really big guy who had sold his arse to Satan went to the loo behind me. I didn't know there was a loo behind me until he came out again shame-faced. making no apology!!!!
Off to bed!
