Ghost town - recession bites!

The Specials 'Ghost Town' is a track I have liked since the day it was first released but I suppose we thought it's meaning was something now behind us, consigned to a decade that was probably best forgotten and the economics and difficulties of which none of us relished the prospect of going through again. Fast forward 28 years and here we are again....it's lyrics becoming frighteningly pertinent once more!


The little town in Cambridgeshire in which we live is a beautiful place, we are lucky. Set on a river it boasts period architecture, countryside, wetlands, wildlife and a market-town center, that whilst it may not be a hub for big designer shopping expeditions, offers just about everything one might need on a day to day basis....and it's reasonably affluent, and that's the worrying aspect!

Why is it worrying? Because even with all that going for it, the last few months have seen it begin to slide into very obvious economic decline as the recession bites and before very much longer and if the situation doesn't improve it's going to begin to resemble an 80's ghost town!

In the last few weeks more and more units have become empty shells, we have lost Woolworths, a shoe shop, a gift shop, our book shop, and an independent department store that has withstood decades of economic up's and down's is now teetering precariously on the edge of disaster. With each closure comes a gaping empty hole where not too long ago there was a working business, a constant reminder like we needed any more reminders of the real impact on people's hard worked for lives, of businesses built up and lost and of employees now facing the uncertainty of unemployment and how to pay next months mortgage.

If it can happen in this affluent little town it can happen anywhere and at the current rate of closures, before very much longer, what was a busy market town will all too soon begin to resemble The Specials vision of the 1980's! Empty retail units seem to be dotted along every street all too obviously and already something of the vibrancy seems to be missing from the day to day bustle.

What was an economic crisis that we listened about on the news has suddenly become all too apparent and real......

This town, is coming like a ghost town
All the clubs have been closed down
This place, is coming like a ghost town
Bands won't play no more
too much fighting on the dance floor

Do you remember the good old days
Before the ghost town?
We danced and sang,
And the music played inna de boomtown

This town, is coming like a ghost town
Why must the youth fight against themselves?
Government leaving the youth on the shelf
This place, is coming like a ghost town
No job to be found in this country
Can't go on no more
The people getting angry.

Flooded!

Remember the snow pictures of a few days back? Well these images are all taken in the same places as those were. What a difference a few days make!

In actual fact it's not quite as serious as it might appear, we have a pretty funky flood control system going on in this little part of the world and when the water levels get too high all the fields are purposely flooded to save the nearby towns suffering. It is controlled to within an inch or two by a complex system of sluice gates and other paraphernalia that I have absolutely no understanding of! It works though, the water gets to within inches of us a few times a year and is then backed off. Pretty amazing stuff.

....and though I don't like to blow my own trumpet too much, I can't help but show off just a little that some of these pictures made it onto the local BBC website yesterday! Hey, it might not be Getty Images but beggars can't be choosers and all that! :o)






(Clickable)

Women drivers and mad bikers!

Nothing has made me laugh so much as this first video for along time, albeit it does nothing for the defence of women drivers. Watch to the end for the previously mentioned (here and here) Cambridge rising bollards!


And this one is for anyone who has ever ridden a bike. Again, watch to the end or you'll miss the gtruly demented best bit....and hold on to your hat, or should that be helmet!

Bloody bollards - redux!

So, just in case you were in any doubt as to what these things are all about, I thought I would enlighten you further with a little clip I took yesterday on my travels! Hell, I'm good to you lot! ;o)


Try being behind that....you can't see infront of the first approaching vehicle and by the time you get to them yourself the damn things are back up! Ack.

Bloody bollards!

Necessity dictates that today I venture into the big city, not the big city of course, I'll be damned if I'm driving 100 miles just to pay the congestion charge, I mean the closer to hand big city, Cambridge, that of beautiful architecture, historic interest and top end seats of learning but also sadly a million life threatening push bikes and a traffic system straight from the depths of hell!

You might deduce that I am not keen to be making this trip and you would be right. Cambridge might be famous for all manner of things intellectual, highbrow and beautiful but I don't like it one bit, or at least not in the practical sense and I rarely venture anywhere close. Truly, the place is most definitely not a number one destination if what you need to do is get in and out and do a little speedy practical shopping, so much so that usually I prefer to not shop at all.....and that's quite something!

It's an odd place altogether, it has a strange 'transient' unfriendly feel about it that doesn't endear it to me, maybe it's because most of the population is made up of students who are only there for a few years or tourists who are only there for a few days, maybe it's because the place is so spread out and scattered or maybe it's just because everyone is in as much as a hurry to get back out as I am before they become embroiled in the spokes of a speeding bike or have the front of their vehicle annihilated by a 'rising bollard'.

Rising bollards, now there's a thing, the traffic system is controlled by these items of engineering and they are just that, large bollards that rise and fall controlled by sensors on buses, taxis and other 'allowed' modes of transportation, sounds a clever idea? Well it might be aside from the fact that should you fail among the melee to notice a dropped one (and believe me they are easy to miss if you have traffic infront of you), the speed with which they rise out of the ground again is pretty scary and offers every possibility that you won't get home again without a tow truck!

Maybe the drive into London isn't such a bad idea after all.....

Boing!

What can I say? Probably the less the better would be the wisest but you know me, never one for using one word where ten will do! ;o)

Christmas came and went in a blur, Christmas day itself was lovely, my entire immediate family managed to all be in one place at one time, a feat in itself and much noisy merriment was made, much good food was consumed and much good wine quaffed.

Christmas day over though and with the arrival of the sad news on Boxing day morning that Fletch's Aunt was critically ill, the person, who having never known his grandparents he considers the closest thing he has to a grandmother, life became pretty hectic as we beetled our way first back to Cambridge, then down to the south coast to collect Fletch's mum and then up to Yorkshire and back again. I think our main memory of the last few days is of one or another motorway. We covered well over a thousand miles and finally arrived home yesterday, with his brother in tow for a few days.

The Aunt is holding her own for now but to be honest it's not looking very positive in the longer term and stress levels and tiredness levels are running high, I feel like Zebedee, (yes, I'm showing my age!) wound up like a spring about to uncoil wildly, as does Fletch and having not stopped in one place for longer than twenty four hours all thoughts of a relaxing holiday seem to be long gone.

Tomorrow, theoretically at least, we plan to go out to welcome in the new year with friends but if we have learned one thing this week it is that plans aren't the best plan!

'Boing said Zebedee'!

Best weekends and best friends!

What can I say? Amazing might begin cover it! I don't really have the words for just how it felt to finally get to meet Lisa after so many years of solely electronic communication but to those who suggest you can't actually know someone via the internet etc. one word comes to mind...codswallop! Lisa is Lisa, just like I knew she would be. :o)

The weekend was fabulous, it began with a manically excited woman (er...that would be myself), who having caught sight of Lisa and Ian pulling into the car park three floors below, shot out of the door, took the six flights of stairs four at a time and raced across said car park 'whooping' loudly to greet them! Hey, I waited over four years for this moment, there was absolutely no chance of me waiting any longer! :o)

After lots of hugs all round and some effort on my part not to dissolve into tears we made our way (only slightly more sedately) indoors....where almost immediately Hammy disgraced herself by greeting Lisa's finger with a bite sufficient to require a ten minute effort at stopping the copious bleeding! Me and this hamster are going to have a little talk on the issue of 'appropriate greetings' later!

First aid and band-aid having been administered the weekend progressed in a blur of chattering, laughing, eating and drinking....believe me Lisa and Leffe make a very amusing combination, I don't think I have laughed so much in my life as we tried to prop one another up in our efforts get to the bathroom in various establishments.....and really, you just don't know how difficult it can be to work out how the hand dryer operates!

Now Lisa will tell you it was she that was a little worse for wear....but it was me who spent five whole minutes trying to get into the wrong flat when we eventually returned home and I was only persuaded it was actually the wrong one when the resident on the other side of the door became concerned and I actually looked at the door number!! Ok, ok, I got out of the lift one floor early!

We talked and laughed late into the night, it felt like we had always been together in 'real life' but I couldn't help but keep wanting to pinch myself to believe it was actually happening!

On Sunday morning Lisa made us all the long promised breakfast of American pancakes... which were to die for. I don't do breakfast but I could change the habit of a lifetime for those. If anyone ever tells you pancakes, bacon and maple syrup aren't a good combination they are very wrong!....and yes, 40 years of vegetarianism has begun to slip a little I will admit. I blame Fletch...I was tee total too until I met him, the man has a corrupting influence! ;o)

We spent the afternoon wandering around Cambridge city center in true British fashion in the pouring rain and then all too soon it was time for them to leave. Where did the weekend go....surely that wasn't two days?? It couldn't possibly have been!

For logistical reasons we accompanied them to their next 'port of call' and then it was time to say goodbye :o( ....but not for long, we get to hook up again later in the week sometime :o)

Like I said at the start of this post...what can I say? Lisa is Lisa, my best friend, my 'sister', my confidante, the same person I have known for almost five years online...only better and it was just so special and so much fun to spend some time together and to meet Ian at last.

How do you say 'America is much too far away'?

We have to hatch a cunning plan.....

Europe part one - Cambridge to Positano

Where to begin, you are going to be sooo bored by the time this is all done, we seemed to fit so much into our two weeks away I really don't know what to include and what to leave out but I will endeavour not to be too long winded! (yeah I know, famous last words).

So...the purpose of the trip was in the main to attend a family wedding in Positano. We 'did' Western Europe last year on the bike and had intended to do the East this year but circumstances resulted in the re-visit and though we were on the dreaded four wheels and covered way less miles (yes, less is bad) than last year it was fabulous.


We left the UK via Dover early on the Saturday morning after very little sleep. Fletch's flight home from work the previous evening was as ever delayed and by the time we had booked our crossing and sorted out some insurance (plan ahead? Nooo, never, that's all part of the fun) it was already well into the wee small hours.

The crossing was sunny and uneventful but somehow in my ignorance I had imagined a small rest at that point....but no, we were straight onto the road for the 450 miles to Strasbourg and a utility night in an Ibis hotel. Fed and watered we slept like babies and continued on again early the next morning to overnight stop #2 in Florence. Another Ibis, no time for sightseeing, just sleep and dinner and off again at the crack of dawn for the final 600 mile haul to Southern Italy via Vesuvius (thankfully not erupting), Napoli (OMG the place looks like a shanty town in the sun), Sorrento (No opinion it whizzed by in a blur) and finally our destination, Positano.


What can I say....HOT, HOT, HOT about does it!

Positano itself is beautiful in a kind of upmarket way, the only campsite (tent remember) however was what I can best describe as not beautiful though it's great saving grace was a private beach within 20 meters, the reason I assume they felt it appropriate to charge extortionate fees for otherwise low grade facilities! It was by now late afternoon, we were very hot and dusty from erecting said tent on parched mud so we hit the beach and I had my first ever swim in the Med. Fantastic, I really never believed it could be so warm and clear....things were however about to take on something of a challenging nature.


Our tent is a two man (yes, very small) four seasons affair, built to withstand the worst the Himalayas can throw at it, our sleeping bags suffice down to minus 20 degrees...this is soooo not good in 40 plus degrees! I thought I might expire, despite leaving every doorway wide open and not venturing into my bag there wasn't a breath of air or breeze to be had and the temperature inside the tent soared well into the 50's. Add to that we had pitched under a tree for a little shade, only to discover at night something we had overlooked in our desperate search for shade. It was a fig tree and the ripe figs continually 'plopped' noisily onto the tent roof all night long.....most of the night I just drifted around outside in the dark and waited for the sun to rise.


Which of course it did, with blistering heat. Let me tell you, trying to get suited and booted into wedding attire in a small tent in that heat is probably not the best experience of my life....it was however very funny and in my usual less than discreet way I gave up, abandoning any sense of decorum and just quit the tent and got ready outside. Hell, everyone else was in bathing gear, what difference is under-gear?!

And onto the wedding. A stunning affair, the bride looked the most beautiful I have seen any bride look, the small relaxed ceremony took place on a balcony over the sea with the sunlight dancing like a million bright stars on it's surface, a soft breeze finally came from nowhere and the sun shone on in all it's glory against the backdrop of the hills. Perfect.



The reception was held at a fabulous hotel high up in the cliffs a few miles across the bay, the only reasonable access to which was by motor cruiser, which very kindly took the longer route to our destination while we gently rode the swell drinking champagne and listening to soft music. Probably one of the most relaxing and soothing experiences of my life.


Everything was beautiful. The celebrations took place on another balcony overlooking the sea and the cliffs, the long table was set beautifully, the glass, china and linen were immaculate, the service was almost faultless and we ate drank, laughed and listened to some of the best wedding speeches I have ever heard, as the sun went down on the sea and darkness fell into candlelight.

When the celebrations were over we had a moonlight trip back across the bay where a taxi picked us up to whisk us to what was to be our next two days accommodation....the most amazing villa set into a hillside, complete with frescos, pool and cats!


But that's a whole other post!

(Images clickable)

Asking for trouble?..... and heros

Tomorrow evening we get to go punting on the river in Cambridge, courtesy of Fletch's employer. It's the annual summer beano when colleagues and assorted guests, in theory at least, get to chill out together away from the pressure of work. In reality of course what happens is that they all spend the evening talking geek shop whilst we, the amassed clique of miscellaneous hangers-on try and follow at least a fraction of the conversation!

I of course am not complaining, this is an opportunity for Champagne (well it would be if I weren't the designated driver) and dinner at the companies expense and I can think of worse things to do than spend the evening being chauffeured along the river by candlelight.

I do however have just one reservation....the idea of Fletch, a punt, lots of water and a gaggle (what is the collective for intoxicated men incidentally?) of inebriated guys I suspect could be asking for trouble..... and has a higher than average possibility of resulting in any number of practical jokes and/or a very wet ending!

**And on an entirely different subject and more serious note, My Hero, pop over and add your support any way you can please.

Quick turnaround

I'm back but only very briefly, for the previously mentioned job interview that inconveniently is scheduled for early tomorrow morning. After that I'm off again, back south until whenever, to carry on with my necessary 'duties'.

I feel like I have spent most of the last week on the M25 or the M40 and an extra trip back here to Cambridge I could have well done without but hey ho, I have to give it a shot at least. Quite how I am going to get my head into any reasonable state of even apparent intelligence for an interview I'm not sure at this moment, but you never know, maybe pigs do fly! ;o)

Sleepless in Cambridge

Doesn't have quite the same ring about it as 'Sleepless in Seattle' does it?

Last night was another of the now annoyingly and far too frequent sleepless nights, I thought I had it cracked having managed to sleep much better the last week but apparently not!

Last night was different though not the usual 'I'm just not tired because I don't work' nights but one of those nasty nights where every worry that usually resides somewhere at the back of the mind suddenly sees fit to come full force to the front and harass you unmercifully. Ugh. I won't bore you with the details, we all have our fair share but why in the dead of night do they have that damn infuriating habit of seeming all the more insurmountable? On the up-side however I did finally finish the book I have been reading for weeks instead of abandoning it half way through out of boredom as is my usual habit.

Anyway, this morning I am fit for very little, there is a distinct feeling of 'bleugh-ness' about me, I have the whole cotton wool head thing going on and a distinct lack of motivation!

Perhaps chocolate is the answer.....

The big storm?

So, are we going to find ourselves lashed by the howling winds and torrential rains, are we going to have to drive with great care to work in the morning (well those of you that work) avoiding felled trees and

the structural damage forecast by our meteorological wizards, or is this storm going to be another in the now long line of overly cautious warning forecasts since Michael Fish made his now infamously understated broadcast back in October 1987?

Weather fascinates me and whilst most I suppose are hoping for this to be another damp squib I am hoping for the reverse, though of course I would never wish for anyone to get hurt. I have been watching now for days this storm tracking toward us, watching the barometric pressure drop like a stone and wishing that right now I was in Cornwall not Cambridge. Who knows, I am far from qualified to hazard a reasonable guess but it's looking like it might happen,if I'm lucky I might see some significant gusts even here and if I'm luckier still a tree might just fall on my car and write the damn thing off.......It is 'strategically' parked under a number of very large specimens as I speak! ;o)

'Moving' on

So, the days of the white van are over, there are one or two more tales from that nasty but occasionally amusing era I will likely regale you with in the near future but for the time being they can wait, it's the weekend and I have other fish to fry (no Lisa not carp! ;o))

Ok, let's be a little more specific here.

Yesterday was quite a significant day in my little life, for more reasons than the demise of the white van.

The job having been dispensed with in relative silence, because once my notice had been given my delightful employer decided to relegate me to the status of persona non grata,(not surprisingly there was a very definite lack of 'goodbye and good luck' speeches) the true purpose of the day got underway.....that of moving house, which might go some way to explaining my sudden state of voluntary unemployment. Really, though it might surprise you I am not quite mad enough to ditch one job without another to go to with no good reason, the reasons just couldn't be blogged until all interested parties were personally informed.

So, 'post employment' I loaded my little car with all my worldly possessions, there are not many, I have moved so often over the years I have learned to 'travel light' and much was left in Scotland never to be seen again, bid au revoir to my parents and hit the motorway en route for a new home and a new life near Cambridge.

Those of you who read this regularly or know me well may draw your own conclusions from the geographical location and will very likely draw the correct conclusion, but I will say no more other than on Monday, the full time occupation of finding a full time occupation begins in seriousness and today a new phase in my life is beginning.

:o)))

The end of the road

It's a Monday, and unusually a good Monday, because this morning didn't involve the regular 4am, 100 mile drive to work from Cambridge and because I have the day off....for a purpose.

The white van from hell is about to become history, decisions have been made and the decision is that I have had enough....today I am resigning!

It may not be the ideal situation to resign from one position without another to go to but it is necessary in this case. I have saved a little money to 'keep me going' and this morning I am off to an agency to begin finding a new employer, one that doesn't run a shonky fleet of white vans and hopefully adheres to a greater degree of current employment legislation than I have had to endure these last fourteen months!

It's all rather unusual and a little of my glee at being able to tell them I am abandoning my van at the end of the week has been tempered by the fact that they have only last week suffered a family trauma, so my timing might not be too excellent from their point of view but hey, when they treat me like crap their 'excuse' is that 'this is business'....so the new (trying to be) braver and more assertive me is merely returning the favour! ;o)

I'm getting too old for this!

Result! It's a Monday and I'm not at work! And I'm not ill! Yayyyyy!

The reason? Fletch's birthday.....and a very heavy weekend of partying preceded by a suitable degree of forethought that today we would require a 'day of recovery' and hence a days holiday leave. It's a good feeling, Monday morning, the world is back to work and we ain't! ;o)

So, the sleepless weekend: A hundred mile drive to Cambridge on only three hours sleep the night before and then a mad night out in St Ives with friends, much beer, much food and much hilarity.

Bed for a few few hours then on the road again to the South coast, another two hundred miles and another night of hilarity, beer and this time tapas. Sunday, the return two hundred miles and finally a whole nights sleep!

It was a damn good weekend, a distraction and relaxation (mental if not physical) from the normal day to day hassles, I even got to sit on the beach (in strong winds and drizzle I hasten to add) and fit a rapid moment of retail therapy in, but really I am getting way to old for all the partying malarkey, or at least for whole weekends of it.

The tell tale signs of this I suspect were that and there were more than a few moments when curling up in a corner for a snooze seemed a very attractive prospect and that despite chastising myself for the reaction I found myself aggravated (just once mind you) by the volume of music preventing any conversation!

Yup....ten years ago I would have been horrified had anyone suggested the music was too loud......definite proof of age!

I'm back....

.... and sleepy. The last week has seen me travel from London to Cambridge, to Sussex, to Seville, to London and back to Cambridge...tomorrow the circle is complete when I drive the last leg back to London again!

It's been fun, we had a lovely Christmas and an amazing time in Seville....more when I've had time to get the 'back home' chores in hand and download whatever I captured on my camera.

In the meantime:

A HAPPY NEW YEARand may it bring you at least some of whatever it is you wish for yourself.

Whoopie bloody do!

Yup, that about sums up my day...'whoopie bloody do' indeed, a fiasco from start to finish. HM and yer man might have had something to celebrate but I certainly didn't!

Let me explain.

It started at 4.30 this morning with a 100 mile drive from Cambridge to hit work for 06.30. The weather was appalling, torrential rain and winds of apparently almighty strength. I was on two hours sleep, with something odd going on in my head (no, not the usual madness, I keep suffering some strange momentary giddiness)trying to vie for position on the already overly busy M25 with what felt like most of the U.K's articulated heavy transport (no one else is daft enough to be out there at that ungodly hour). Visibility was almost non existent and why in the name of idiocy do HGV drivers insist on driving their tonnage within an inch of my boot??!! FFS, if I came to a shuddering halt unexpectedly I doubt the traffic police would find much of me and my little car left!

But I made it...only two minutes late, phew, and it was on with my day.

There was no improvement. I was soaked through courtesy of the incessant rain, within half and hour of hitting the road again, this time in the white van from hell, I had gained a steaming headache (and yes, to those of you who have nagged shown concern over my recent health I have a doctors appointment tomorrow) and an already painful shoulder was giving me more gip than usual. My phone had seemingly given up on it's endeavours to send email and every customer I encountered was grumpy...even by Monday morning standards.

But there was more. My favoured 'coffee stop', the one that gets me through the second half of my day, was closed for a refurb.....that I didn't notice until I had sailed in through the doors to be greeted by a group of workmen, my subsequent detour to the nearest 'Costa' took 10 minutes longer than anticipated and rendered me late for the rest of the day......

....and then next I got nicked for speeding!!!! Approx 34 in a 30!! I got done for speeding once before in my life....35 in a 30, Jesus! Why do I never get caught on a fast bike? Ok, probably best I don't tempt fate on that one! Yeah, I know, 'fair cop guv' and all that, but why oh why did I not realise why the oncoming traffic was flashing me so vociferously and why oh why did I not notice that the white van, secreted halfway behind a hedge, had a lens shining out prettily from a sneaky little window?!! Dippy bitch!

One might think it ended there....but one would be wrong, next I discovered a CV joint on my car has disintegrated....more money, damn car has only been out of the garage for a few days and that was something in the region of it's 8th visit this year alone.

Enough is enough, I've got the hump, I'm off to bed before anything else can fall apart on me, fall on me, fall over me, etc. etc. etc.

Ack...a freaking speeding ticket....whoopie bloody do! Anyone got a spare £60? Oh....and another for the insurance hike....and a good answer for my boss when the ticket lands in his mail.

*Not checked for spelling or punctuation....too miffed to care!

Double take

Friday evening on my usual mind numbing sit in the parking lane journey via the M25 to Cambridge I stopped, as ever I do, to relieve the boredom and acquire a coffee at a the usual faceless service station. Twice a week I stop there, nothing ever changes, I could find my way to the coffee machine and the bathroom blindfold and Friday held no promise of anything different.

So I headed to the 'ladies', usual comatose state of mind prevalent and on walking out, taking a quick glance in the mirror instead of looking where I was going, I walked smack bang into someone. I hastily apologised for my clumsiness and walked away but as I did so I realised I had seen that face before. I turned round to look again at the victim of my clumsiness, to see her looking back at me...it was one of those moments when one does a double take.....we both realised at the same moment that we knew the other and fell immediately into animated conversation.

The woman in question had been a teenager the last time I saw her, about a 1000 years ago, ok maybe closer to ten but it seemed forever! She had been at university at the time and we worked together when she was on holidays, we had been quite good buddies but when she left and I moved to Scotland we lost touch completely.

So, we stood for maybe an hour catching up to the sound of hand dryers and flushing toilets, too riveted in our gossiping to think of moving elsewhere and eventually parted with an exchange of email addresses and a promise to meet up again soon.

I love it when that kinda stuff happens! :o)

Just Don't Do It!

Right so we all know about Global Warming right, (CO2 build up in the Atmosphere blah blah blah)... But have you ever considered why there’s so much C02 up there... Cars? Manufacturing? Energy Production? All contributing factors I agree, but the real reason... You & Me... Think about it... We breath in Oxygen and Exhale Carbon Dioxide... (You're with me now aren’t you? No your wrong it has nothing to do with rain forests! ;o) )

But don’t worry I have a cunning plan. Lets all stop exercising! Makes sense, No? The more we exercise the more CO2 we produce… So just stop it, take your Motorbike everywhere instead (or car if you must, yuck horrible things…)

And phase 2 of the plan... Shoot all Joggers on sight... (FFS their killing our planet!).

And by no means just restricted this to Joggers, we can use this plan to eliminate all those sanctimonious ‘keep fit’ types that really annoy us with their musilli cererals and High Energy Drinks.. (Get a life!). In fact any sport that involves more than just walking should be banned... (So the English Rugby Squad are still OK to play!)

And Lads the good news... Sex will be reduced by law to only quickies... (No more of that "Do that, do this, more of that, some of that, a lot more of that and don't stop until I say so!") ;o)

So today’s moto... Just Don't Do It!

Makes perfect Sense to me...

Take it east Boyz and Girlz... :o)

Ciao Ciao
Fletch
Confused From Cambridge
I BLOG Ther4 I Am

(Guest blog entry as requested by Gemmak!)

Gimme a break!

Jeez....just how many more bits are going to fall off my crap car I wonder, please, just one week without something going wrong would be good!

I've had this godforsaken thing since it was new, 6 years and almost from the day it's warranty expired it began to disintegrate, most of it logged on this blog along the way.

Thursday the exhaust fell off, this evening driving back from Cambridge a warning light on the dash started to flash furiously at me....not just any old oil light, something I could rectify, nope, this was the one the manual stipulates one must stop immediately for should it light. I've been here before, last time it cost me an arm and a leg, so I stopped! Thankfully I was near to a service station so at least I could get coffee....well that was the theory but both coffee machines were u/s so I couldn't even achieve that.

I called the rescue service who promptly attended.... almost two hours later, popped the bonnet and kindly told me he was surprised I had gotten 3 years out of 'this car' let alone 6! Thanks mister. He went on to tell me I would be better off getting a loan and buying a new one....I didn't see the point in explaining that car loans aren't readily available to recently discharged bankrupts.

Heap of crap car was duly hooked up to a pretty funky all weather laptop and a failed sensor on the catalytic converter was diagnosed, along with the recommendation that I 'limp it home' because the rescue vehicle would be at least another two hours. On the upside he told me with a smile (grrr), if I broke down again and was stranded on the hard shoulder of the M25 it would take less than half an hour to recover me......women on the hardshoulder in the dark are not considered in a safe position and get pronto service.....hey, I knew there had to be an upside somewhere.

So that's it, crap car is poorly yet again, back to the garage tomorrow....more money, more aggravation.

Arggghhh, gimme a break here!