The upshot of this was that at 06:00 on Tuesday morning I was in my car, praying it could make the journey and heading off for my all day meeting.
As it happens I was pretty much the only person on the road because I'm guessing everybody had made the most of the long weekend to take an extra day or two off and make a proper break of it. This meant that I ended up arriving at my destination an hour earlier than expected and a good hour before the building I was going to would be open. However, on a positive note my jallopy made the journey with no issue.
Near to the place I was going was a 24 Asda, whilst it wasn't the most exciting destination I decided to make the most of discount chocolate day (first Tuesday after Easter) to buy copious amounts of Easter eggs to give to my colleagues.
It was a difficult meeting, not just because one of my favourite colleagues was leaving later in the week, but because it was a day of internal political revalations that literally had me with my hand clamped over my mouth to stop me from screaming out loud. The tension in the room was immense and the meeting was 6 hours long - that's a lot of time of tension!
Having said goodbye to my colleague I also promised we'd catch up in the summer. I'm terrible at keeping in touch with people, but I'm determined, so by the end of the week I'd sent them some potential dates. With their new role it's difficult for them to come back until they start the job proper because they will likely work some weekends, so fingers crossed when they have the detail they will get back in touch.
After that I headed home, this made it a long long day. By the time I got about 10 miles from home I was really struggling with tiredness. However, the car and I both made it home safely - yay.
Weather this week has been really sunny - EXCEPT - for when I took the dog out for a walk. It would literally be bright sunshine with clear blue skies (but freezing) and I would take the dog out and it would still be a clear blue sky with one tiny black cloud - that rained on me! This happened for 4 days in a row.
It brought to mind Doglas Adams' book 'So long, and thanks for all the fish'. In this book is a lorry driver who didn't know he was a rain god. He always had a rain cloud over him. He thought it was depressing, but the rain clouds loved him and followed him everywhere to 'cherish and water him'.
I mentioned this to husband saying that I was officially a rain god. He pointed out that it might actually not be me - it could actually be the dog that was a rain god. He then went on to accuse me of being self-obsessed!!!!! I pointed out that when it was 'all about me' it was very difficult not to become self-obsessed. He had to agree. #WINNER. Honestly I don't know where he gets this self-obsessed accusation from. Rude! :)
On Friday I finshed work a little early to claw back some of my overtime. Not a lot early, just a little - which turned out to be fortunate'ish. I whizzed to the nearest supermarket to get some party food, I wanted the family to play Trivial Pursuit on Friday night and I knew the only way to achieve this was by bribing them with unhealthy fun nibbles.
On the way back from the supermarket I was in a queue of traffic and there was this horrible grinding noise. I was pancking about what was wrong with the car and then rationally - because car was going ok - I told myself that I shouldn't assume it was my car there were other cars around me and it could be any of them.
The noise stopped and at the junction I turned right and all the other cars turned left. There was no sound of the grinding. I breathed a sigh of relief, then as I went further I could hear a mild scraping noise. Still quiet enough for me to pursuade myself it was in my head because I was on high alert. This continued all the way home.
Once I'd parked I looked under the car in case I'd picked up a bag or something on the road (not as mad as it sounds - I once drove through Brighton with every car flashing me - when I got to my destination I discovered I was dragging a small tree behind my car - I was oblivious - and to this day have no idea where the small tree came from). I could see something under my car so I went around to the other side. There's a plate between the two wheels that is hanging down. I think maybe it was removed for my MOT and not put back on properly.
I don't know what it is about the local garages. Every single time I take my car in, within a fortnight something goes wrong with the car because a screw wasn't tightened properly. Husband has had the same with his car recently and that is a completely different garage.
I rang my normal garage and they couldn't see until the next Thursday. I tried a different garage and that one had an even longer wait. In the end I found one that's about a mile from home. Why I don't use it I don't know. Our other garages are a bit of a drive away and so every time we go there we need one of us to come and pick up or drop off the other.
So we'll see how good this garage is. Hugely annoying to have to do it. The main problem with the closer one is that somehow I need to make it over 4 huge speed humps. I'm going to have to do it at about 4mph. Be sure if there's a disaster I'll tell you about it next week. If I don't mention it then I was fussing about nothing......... Fingers crossed this isn't the death nell of the car - always a worry.
Oh and if you're wondering why it was goodish news - basically because I'd finished a bit early the garages were still open and I didn't need to wait until Monday to try to book it in - it's a very small window of good fortune, but I do love a silver lining - even if it's proves hard to locate!
Son continues to struggle with the pins and needles/itching thing that happens when he gets hot. Now the sun is coming out it's really impacting him. He can't even practice his driving and his test is in a few weeks. I honestly think he'll either have to cancel it or take the test and probably fail because it's during the day and he'll lose concentration. It's all getting a bit desperate. I also worry about how he'll cope with his mock exams. It really doesn't feel a possibility he'll be able to cope. We keep taking him to the doctors and they keep doing blood tests, everybody is trying to help him out, but so far nothing is working. It's not much of a life for him at the moment and it's breaking my heart.
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