Sunday, 28th October, 2007

One Hundred And Twenty Two Thousand, And Sixty Five Miles

Tow-truck from the A1 to Worksop: £89
Night in a Travel Lodge: £50
New (in vain) radiator for your car: £130
Train from Worksop to Kings Lynn: £25

Seeing two of your best friends enormously happy and in love: priceless

...

Hello. I have had one of those weekends.

I have, obviously, been at Becky and Jane 's wedding. Or rather, at the reception and not at the ceremony, even though I was supposed to be.

I'd better start at the beginning...

To be perfectly honest, I was a little worried as I was heading out of Leeds towards the A1 on Friday evening. I've been boring everyone with stories about my car overheating for a while, so I'll not go into too much preamble, suffice it to say that I'd shoved a bottle of RADweld in it before I left, and had another one in the glove compartment.

But as I tottled down the motorway, carefully I have to adit, I was encouraged by how the temperature didn't seem to want to even hint at going over the middle line on the gauge.

"Hurrah!" I thought. "It's all good, and I'm going to be in Kings Lynn in a couple of hours"

The only thing really worrying me, was that I knew there were serious roadworks along the way, and that I didn't really want to be stuck in traffic with the potential to overheat again.

Thing is though, when I first met lots of yellow signs and 40 mph limits, I was more concerned with the fact that I seemed to have been spit off the A1 and onto weird B roads, than overheating. The signposts were confusing, so I decided to just follow everyone ahead of me — who all seemed to be going home rather than continuing down the A1.

But, just as I was about to pull over and get my Big Fucking Map™ out, I suddenly realised I was on the slip-road back to the A1, and a huge sigh of relief — no, a massive sense of "Ha! See? It all works out in the end" swept over me.

Seriously, things were going so great. The car was fine, I'd negotiated (by complete luck) what I thought were the massive roadworks to be worried about, and I was hurtling along picturing the first glass of wine of many with my friends, and the hilarity that would no doubt ensue.

Then I hit a queue

Truth be told, I wasn't worried at first. Car was fine, *la la la*. It was only after being sat there for five minutes — stopping and starting in first gear every few seconds — that the first signs of trouble appeared, as the temperature needle started to creep up.

I was worried, of course, but I consoled myself with memories how she used to do this in traffic ages ago anyway, and I even more encouraged by how she started to cool down the second the temperamental fan kicked in.

But soon, the fan was having no effect, and the needle just kept going up and up. You might have shared in that moment with me, actually, because it was around about then that I shoved that MEEP photo onto Flickr, and started twittering about how things weren't going so well.

It was shortly after that photo that the needle went over the red. Fortunately, I was passing a lay-by, so I pulled over and refilled the radiator. Obviously my RADweld skillz hadn't born any fruit, because the waiter was PISSING out of the car.

Undaunted though, I plodded on, hoping that things would cool down enough to get through this jam, and I'd be fine once I'd sped up again, and streams of cold air would be flowing through the engine.

By the time I got to the bit where the traffic was moving fast again though, the needle had spent about five minutes as high as it would go. And strange rattly noises had started to emanate from the engine every time I accelerated.

"Please baby, stay with me!" I kept shouting, frantically stroking her dashboard (as if that would help), praying for a lay-by that wasn't shut because of the road works.

But they were all shut, every fucking one of them, and it was about five miles down the road that I just couldn't take any more of the noise, and pulled off the road, over the kerb onto the verge, and stuck my hazards on.

I'm really quite annoyed with myself about this little bit, to be frank. For some ridiculous reason, I left it until after the "Free Recovery" area to pull off. I bet if I'd just stopped and waited for the rescue van, I'd not be in the situation I'm in now (I'll explain in a bit), and I wouldn't have had to fork out quite so much money in the process.

But hey. Idiot or not, that's what I did.

I opened the bonnet and let the steam billow out of her, before trying to put some of my depleting water supply in so I could carry on. It occurred to me though, that I was seriously in danger of not being able to complete this journey in one piece, so I rang the AA to find out how much it would cost to be towed to Kings Lynn.

"Well, you're not a member, so you'll have to join first. That'll be £180. We'll take you fifty miles, then it's two pounds per mile after that"

I wasn't sure just how far I had to go, but I guessed I'd be spending roughly £250 overall, and I'd still have to get her fixed somehow.

"Yeah, listen, I'll call you back after I've thought about it", I lied.

...

Can I just slightly veer off the subject here, and mention another thing I'm kicking myself about?

A small conversation with my insurance company the other day:

"Hi, we're just checking everything's OK, and that you're happy renewing with us"

"Oh yeah, sure, it's all fine"

"Would you like to take advantage of our breakdown cover at all?"

"Ack no, sure. I'll be OK"

Siobhan 'Stupid fucking dickhead' Curran

...

"Fuck it", I figured. "She's only overheating. I'll just keep stopping to top up the water every chance I get"

And with that, I pulled a seriously tricky manoeuvre off the verge and back on to the A1.

Two miles down the road, the needle had gone over the red line again, but fortunately, there was a exit to pull off onto.

That was the Pissing Coolant moment. All I could do was stand there and watch every drop of water that I put in her could spurting out of the radiator. So I took my chances and tried again.

This time, I got half a mile before things were hideous again. So I pulled off into a lay-by (between two trucks) and called Green Flag.

"£89, and we'll take you ten miles" they said.

"Fuck it. OK. Nearest town is Worksop, that's within ten miles"

I'd (obviously) let everyone at the wedding know that I was in trouble, but I also rang the Premier Inn I was staying at to let them know I wasn't going to make it. They were very nice — told me that I could just transfer the room as long as they had a branch in Worksop.

(They didn't)

So I booked myself into a Travel Lodge, and waited for the tow truck.

The Travel Lodge at Worksop is quite nice. Although I didn't realise I had to turn the heating on myself (and so spent a very cold shivery night wearing my jumper in bed). The women on reception were lovely, crossing their fingers for me that the pub across the road would still be open, because OMG I NEEDED A DRINK.

(It was. They were having a Rocky Horror night. Oh how I laughed)

In the morning, they were equally lovely, getting me the number of a garage in the area who promptly came and hauled Ffr onto the back of a truck and started hitting things with spanners.

To be fair to them, they tried. They got a shiny new radiator for me, shoved it in, and OMG it all seemed to be good.

Smiles and nods from all around as they poured antifreeze into it, and made approving grunts at the engine tone.

THing was though, there was a lot of smoke coming out of her exhaust.

I thought they hadn't noticed, or maybe (I hoped) it was All Perfectly Normal And Would Stop In A Bit™.

But it didn't, and soon the happy grunts turned into tuttings and Suckings Of Teeth™

Eventually, the main guy said "Nope, it's not going to happen", and I knew at that point there was something seriously wrong.

"Cylinder Head Gasket" said another, and my heart sank.

Now, to be fair, I know replacing a Cylinder Head Gasket is a long and stressful task — I've done it myself, twice. But I just couldn't face the possibility of doing it again — considering the last time I did it I wasn't actually successful.

(I'm only good at fixing Minis, I've discovered)

And even though I'm not Little Miss Skint these days, I really can't afford to start throwing around the £400+ it would have cost (including skimming the head)

...

So I'm scrapping her. I've left her in Worksop, and I'm about to get in touch with the DVLA to get a replacement log book so that the scrap yard will take her.

I was a bit teary to be honest. As I've mentioned before, I anthropomorphosise way too much for my own good — giving all of the things that 'mean' a lot to me names, and instilling them with personalities.

But, you know, fuck it. I'm a lot less emotional about this than I thought I would be. I was (for example) gutted when I found out that my first Mini (Sally) that had been stolen had found its way to the scrap yard. But this time, it's OK.

In fact, I'm almost glad that my hand has been forced, and that I'm now carless. There was a sense in my head that this was probably just the right time to lose her — just after I've moved to Leeds. And I dunno, it kinda fits into this whole 'Brave New Life' thing going on.

So I'm going to try and live without a car for a while. I mean, I don't need one to get to work (and, actually, I've been really lazy a couple of times recently, and driven in rather than getting the bus). OK, so it would be handy for Big Shops™, but that's why God invented taxis, right?

And, you know, I'm rather glad this didn't all happen next Friday, on my way to pick up Amiee from the airport. That would have been a fucking disaster — not being able to get in contact and all that.

*la la la* — silver linings and all that.

122,065 miles we did together. Most of them were on the A65. It was the 122,065th mile on the A1 that killed her though.

Bye bye Ffr

...

So now, I'm at home, with Biscuit on my lap, and Tish happy because he's been fed. I'm going to sleep so well tonight I feel.

I would tell yous all about the wedding (or what little part of it I experienced), but I imagine that (sad as she is) Becky will have blogged it already.

The main thing though, is that they looked so happy, and so wonderful together.

And it was so fucking worth it.

(Now I'm getting properly tearful)

I haz no cake, but I've been promised something better instead.

@Thom — I have a funny feeling that "new bird" isn't going to go down too well

PS. Hilarious terminal-confusion moment...

Connection to erin.eyefood.co.uk closed.ed so happy, and so wonderful together.

Ack, I found it funny