Was it Friday 13th?

I'm sure it must have been. Too many unlucky things happened on the same day for it to just be coincidence.

First of all, the day started off ok. My mate had to take her car to the garage, so off we went in convoy. We passed a pub that was advertising for a chef, so I made a mental note of it. We went into Specsavers for my mate's new glasses, and I made a free eye test - thanks to Grandma's glaucoma I'm entitled.

Decided to come back to the house for a spot of lunch before having to head out in the afternoon to collect the car, and we also both had more applications to fill in. We got to the house, got out of the car talking about what we would eat, my mate went to get the keys out of her handbag and it suddenly dawned on her that she had given the keys to the garage man and left the house keys on there. So, we were locked out! And starving!

We went up to the local, and had the cheapest meals we could see on the menu, as we couldn't wait until the evening to eat.

I had an interview with another agent in the afternoon so off we went back in to town. We went to collect my mate's car after that, and stopped in at that pub on the way back. I spoke to the owners, and basically had an interview there and then, and they have asked me to go in on Tuesday for a trial day in the kitchen, so I am really hoping that goes well. After that, we headed home.

We pulled up at a set of traffic lights, and all of a sudden I saw steam pouring out of the bonnet, so I turned the engine off immediately, switched on the hazards and beeped several times to tell my mate (in front of me) that I had stopped. I leapt out of the car, opened the bonnet and was stunned to see that the coolant in the reservoir was actually boiling over. There had been no warning, the temperature gauge must have literally shot up because I hadn't noticed it being hot. I then had a panic! I'm REALLY good at panicking! A nice bloke stopped just behind us, and helped us to push the car into the pub car park opposite, where he poked his head in the engine and couldn't come up with much that was useful except to say wasn't he lucky he had a bloody german car and not a crappy Vauxhall, to which my mate agreed. I snapped that that was hardly helping me now was it, and they became a little more helpful! Vauxhalls, for the record, are not actually crappy - this one we have had for 11yrs, since it was 3 months old, and, apart from one little incident which was totally our fault involving no oil change before the winter and no use of the car involving the old oil granulating and requiring a new engine, we have never had a moment's problem with it. And I drove it 700 miles on Wednesday without a second's problem. Anyway, the bloke just so happened to have a tow bar in his car, so he offered to tow me back to the house, from whee I could phone for assistance. We did it, and I have never been so shit scared in my life (apart from Space Mountain at Disneyworld when I was 6 - it was on a par). He drove far too fast, my brakes and powered steering didn't work, and it wasn't much fun.

I phoned the French insurance when we got in, and they arranged for the RAC to come out - that's a good thing with French insurance - you get roadside assistance. The RAC man decided that he thought it was probably the thermostat, but as he couldn't get to it without dismantling the engine, which is too difficult by the side of the road, that we would organise for it to be picked up and taken to a garage the next morning. So, I got up bright and early (sacrificing my longed for lie in) to meet the very cute new RAC man. He towed it off to the garage we had been at just the day before (he's a friend of my mates, so trustworthy). All I know is that he's going to do a head test - the RAC guy said he thought it was unlikely that it was the cylinder head as if it was there would be black smoke pouring out of the exhaust and there definitely wasn't. So, please everyone keep your fingers very tightly crossed that it is the thermostat.


Incidentally, on our way back from the pub that day, we passed some gypsies - real ones with bright caravans and horses! It was lovely - like a scene from a postcard.

Going back to the Friday 13th theme...
My mate's daughter had a bad day too! Her partner locked himself out of the flat by mistake and had to get a lift to her place of work for the keys, she got into her car at the end of the day to realise that she'd lef the lights on and the battery was flat, and then once she got it going, she ran out of fuel on the way to the petrol station!


Don't you think sometimes we should all just stay in bed!