Having spent almost 9 months without the car, it's all too easy to actually forget it's fixed and forget to use it!
This dawned on my late on Saturday evening, as I wondered what I'd do with the first few hours of Sunday morning. A few messages later, and I was going for breakfast with Andy and Luke
0830 Sunday arrived and I dug the car out of the garage.
Id been profiling the back edge of a white laminate shelf in the garage on Saturday night (to fit our wonky walls
)
I hadn't realised quite how bad the dust had been!
I set off to meet Andy on the way to the Cafe. I was a few minutes late leaving, and my phone was playing up so I hoped he'd be waiting for me.
I got to the meeting point on the a32, and no Andy. I waited 10 minutes, phone still not working, and decided to crack on. He was probably ahead of me anyway. Id meet him there.
I arrived at the cafe 20 mins late to find a very bored looking Luke. He did cheer up when I arrived though!
No Andy though!
Luke's phone wasn't working either. I think o2 forgot to set is alarm on Saturday night after a few beers and simply couldn't be bothered with Sunday morning!
20 minutes passed, and we decided Andy had clearly bailed on us, and either not bothered to tell us or the messages wernt getting through. So we ordered food.
We were just tucking into breakfast, when the waitress came out and said "do we have a Nick and a Luke in here? There's a phone call for you!"
Well, that's never happened before!
Of course, it was Andy. He'd broken down just 3 miles from the cafe, and limped into a side road.
He'd been trying to call Luke and I for over half an hour, but none of our phones were working
To add insult to hunger, I'd apparently driven past him half an hour earlier on my way out, but wouldn't have seen him where he'd limped off the main road
So, breakfast was inhaled at double speed, and it was back to the car!
5 minutes later we arrived at a stricken Andy on the road side:
Luke dug out the Japanese widow maker to lift the stranded Swede:
Whilst the German car owner laughed and took more pictures
With the wheel in the air nothing appeared to be wrong.
Andy had been experiencing a bizzare snagging at the front left and a snatching at the steering too, yet nothing seemed to be catching.
We jumped in and went very slowly down the road, and within 50 yards I was able to diagnose a dead inner CV joint. That's one area in which I have a particularly colourful depth of unwillingly acquired experience
With nothing a could do, the only option was to drive it home very gently with me following behind incase it went completely.
It didn't, and after an unusually long drive back we made it to a Andy's. Job done.
This is part of what I love about these cars. There is never a dull moment.
Whilst you could look on something like that as expense and hassle, it's all part of the adventure and just adds to the story!
Long may the fun continue!