Phnd md qtuhgick!

The ‘good’ start to last week continued: On Tuesday, the Renault 5 needed to go to the garage for a service. I don’t know the way there so Rob said ‘Follow me’. It worked really well until I had to wait for 10 cars to go by before changing roads. We hadn’t discussed where I should head for if he went too far ahead. No signposts to the part of town where the garage is. I pulled in it call Rob, but it didn’t help me much as I didn’t know where I was. He advised me to head into town and go to the garage from there (I know that route).

So I was in the middle of town in heavy traffic slowing down and the car stalled. I kept calm, turned everything off, put on the hazard lights and checked that the car was out of gear ready to start up again. The car refused to start. With a lot of impatient drivers whizzing round I started to panic. A nice young man offered to push me onto the kerb, which just happened to be an empty parking space. I was so grateful. He then ran off to help a young woman who had fallen over (‘Tomorrow’s News’ or a Guardian Angel ?). With shaking hands I sent Rob a text message, the title of this post is what I wrote. He realized something was wrong and phoned me back straight away from the garage. The garage manager has been looking after us for 25 years now, so he listened over the phone while I tried to start the car again.

They both came to rescue me and our garage man replaced the spark plugs and took the car off to service. When we collected it the following day he presented us with the bill – no charge for coming out to fetch the car.

It does pay to build a good relationship with your local garage, even if you don’t know where it is. Unfortunately he’ll be retiring at the end of the year.

Yes!!

In front of the post office is a handicapped parking space with plenty of room to get in and out of a car if you have difficulties. Rob and I sometimes sit drinking our coffee and watch people drive into the space, often they pull out again when they realise. Some of them that stay look very fit and sheepish. This morning there were two gendarmes in motorbikes (gasp), I think that they were doing some training as they were going quite slowly. A people carrier drove into the space carrying two well to do middle aged people. The gendarmes stopped and asked if they had a disabled sticker. They said they were parking there because there weren’t any other places. The main car park is about 10 meters away from where they were. They had to move – poor things.

We’ve got the brocante (think boot sale without cars) in the park this weekend. If you’re thinking of coming there will be less parking space than ever. Four houses are being built on the field that was used by the stand holders and the one way street now has a foot path along with a wooden fence to protect walkers from the traffic and parked cars. To add to the chaos as from tomorrow (Tuesday 15th) all junctions will be priority to the right (more gendarmes on motorbikes!!!).

Looking for Jack

I spoke too soon. Yesterday afternoon Olivier’s friend phoned him as he had a flat tyre and couldn’t find the jack to lift the car. So we very kindly lent him ours. Olivier came in an hour later with a bent jack.

Today, minus the half hour lie-in I was looking forward to, I have been out looking for a new jack (I should be so lucky!). Nowadays they make what I can only describe as a camping stove look alike. Rob phoned the Renault dealer and all he could offer was a new jack at 200€ and told rob to try the scrap merchant. There is one nearby so I dragged Olivier along with me and we got one for 10€ cash. Rob will collect it this evening as I didn’t have any cash. The nice man remembered that we used to have a Citroën 2 CV… twenty years ago.

BANG

If your husband offers to drive you somewhere and drops you off in the car park. If you come out half an hour later with your purchases and get into the car. If your husband has parked by a concrete edge because there is a cute baby tree that offers no shade at all. Then if he drives off in a straight line and hits the concrete: It rips a hole in the tyre.

We then spent another half hour changing the wheel (I read the instructions). We nearly had to call out the garage because we couldn’t undo the screws, eventually Olivier did it by kicking the winder thing with the bottom of his foot. Fortunately the spare was okay, though it’s not the same make.

The car has to go for a service soon anyway so we now know that we must buy a new tyre, if not two or even three…

Another week etc...

Another week passes by and we’re almost at the end of May. Looking at the weather over the past couple of days you wouldn’t think so, high winds and storms. I was supervising exams every morning last week which meant that I wasn’t getting home until early afternoon and then I was out giving lessons, not to mention the postcards. Rob and I are probably going to an auction in another town at the beginning of June. We’ll make a whole day of it which will be nice as we haven’t really been anywhere for a long time.

On Wednesday we have to collect Dom from Poitiers, she had 16 in her exams but I’m not sure what it’s supposed to mean. I’ve emailed her so if she replies before I post this I can give out the information.

Olivier had a bottle of Actimel in his room, shook it up, took the lid off, put it down, forgot he had already opened it and shook it again; it went everywhere! His room smelt of pineapple yoghurt for a while.

A car company in Columbus Ohio wants to sell me a Cadillac – I should be so lucky.

Neutron started it.
This is an awful picture of me with my first car. It was taken in 1975. The car was an Austin A40 registration AOK104B (Anji’s OK) called Bertha. I had to let her go in the end because she wouldn’t pass her MOT (Ministry of Transport Test).

The photo is at a funny angle because my boyfriend at the time thought he was David Bailey (remember him?).

How about your first car?