The whimsical tale of the Waterbed of Debt

Thanks Beanie. Life moves on :rotfl:

Well to be more accurate it moves on a bit, starts making a bit of noise and a smell of smoke ......and then turns a red cog on.

Oh no, that wasn't life, that was the car!

YES yesterday was exciting (this is a technique I have taught the 'fear of flying' friend). When you are frightened of something or it is going wrong. You fake EXCITED because excited comes from the same part of the brain as fear (TBF Fiona Phillips should claim credit as it was her documentary on fear I was watching 'rather appropriately' on a plane).:rotfl:

So you will remember last week I was dealing with a property we manage. This property which I had to visit is on a 1:4. It's so steep I get excited when I have to turn the car round. Infact VERY EXCITED. Excited that the car may turn over. Yes, irrationally excited.

So yesterday driving to work, an inordinate number of miles away. I got about 6 miles on to the motorway, where the rev counter decided to go beserk, then I could smell burning, then this red cog came on on the dashboard. I took that NOT to be a sign that I am a very important cog in the Universe in general.

I did a bit of limping and coaxing and saying "I'm sorry I forgot to put oil in last week but that light had only flickered on and off". When the limping coaxing and talking to an inanimate object didn't work I got right off the motorway, off the hard shoulder and walked back to one of those phone's so they could place exactly where I was.

I have learnt. The last time the above happened I was on a flyover with no hard shoulder in a Fiat Punto. By the time I made it off, about 1/4 mile, the engine had already cooked. Because FIAT are SO SO NICE :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad: they don't do reconditioned engines, but very kindly flew me one in from Italy for £1.5k.

So I have learnt. Only had to stand in the cold for about an hour (still got My duolingo Spanish done for the day :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:) next to the phone so that if someone did kill me they also had to take the telephone out. Bloomin cold it was - didn't warm up until about 4pm....and then had to go and stand at the bus stop to go to the cinema!

Anyway the company have subsidised membership of the RAC so rang for that. Once we established the clutch had gone he gave me an option of garages to go to. So we took it to the one in my village and then I got a lift home. Only question now (which I really should have googled) is how much is a new clutch!

The other good news is that I've decided to put the solar panels on the back of the house (so they don't put off any purchasers should I decide to sell at some point). This means there is 7 instead of 8. Maybe the difference will pay for my clutch!

Here's a tip for you with hire cars. If you have done no damage and they are going to pay you your deposit sometime in the future. If you have asked If they are going to sign something to say you have returned it in perfect condition and they aren't.

Take a two times walk around the car with the video camera running.
Inadvertently it is also good if you happened to have taken a picture of the car at the house so they can't argue that what you are showing is the before photo.

The car company seem fine but better to be safe than sorry!