My love/hate relationship with my garage. And Wicked.

The beginning of June did not start well. My car's service, tax and MOT were all due throughout the month (I didn't plan that, honest!), and with a road trip to the west country coming up, I had to coordinate what I would get done before and after the trip. Especially with holey exhaust and radiator - not that they were particularly bad then - and the cam belt was well overdue for change.

As things turned out, I decided to have it all done before the road trip, as I had a 60mile round trip to Dover for my birthday party on the Saturday, to bed parts in and time to take her back to garage if there were any niggles left over.

I left my car (aka Ghostie) with the garage with their complete assurance that it would all be easily done by Friday afternoon.

On Friday afternoon I got a nervous phone call from the garage manager saying that car would not be ready after all, as Ghostie did not wish to be parted from her old cam belt. I agreed that I would bring her back the following week for any work not done, but that I must have her Friday evening.

Very nervous and apologetic manager called back at the end of the day and advised that Ghostie had finally given up her old cam-belt. But, they couldn't have her ready for me, because she needed an unanticipated new part that wouldn't be in until Monday.


But I need my car, I said. Not a problem, said he. This garage didn't do courtesy cars, but they would pay for a taxi. Now, my most reputable local cab firm only does Mercedes.

Which means that, for anyone I care to tell, I took a chauffeur driven limo to and from Dover, lah-di-dah, where I was well-fed, watered and entertained with good parental company.

Since the garage offered goodwill without me having to argue, I decided to be gracious and told them they could keep Ghostie until Weds. It was more convenient for me too, but don't tell them that. Also, since they clearly broke my car, I very definitely did not want them trying to do a rush job fixing it.

I had a balance to pay, and fully expected 'extras' to be added to off-set the taxi, and recoup the 'unanticipated parts'. But no, they stuck to the original quote (which had been reasonable), and 1000 miles later, the job seems to have been good.

On the Tuesday, we went to see Wicked at the Apollo Victoria. We were right at the back, but could see everything. The seats, however, were the tiniest, squinched in things in existence. They made charter airlines look positively generous. We all sat with pony tails, back of heads and other hair peices between our knees and were conscious of the people behind's knees next to our ear.

It was a good job we were all girls, as even the side ways space was non-existent to the extent that the girl next door and I kept getting our drinking straws mixed up.

The show itself was fabulous. For those who don't know, it's basically the Wizard of Oz from the witches point of view. Lots of laughing and sniffling.

More later!

I went to Longleat last week so, until I get around to blogging about it, find below two videos to keep you going.

The Meerkats have been moved away from the lake and into an enclosure where people and handbags can be explored by the little cuties.

This three-banded Armadillo was doing an excellent impression of a remote-controlled beetle.

More soon!

There are times when life just does not stop, and right now would be one of those times. Before the violins come out, please note that it’s all pretty much self-inflicted, and almost all thoroughly enjoyable. But, I will be looking forward to slowing down and having a mooch at the end of July.

Rain hides the helicopters.

The Obamas visit to London, as I am based in Pimlico, was marked with constant helicopters in the sky near our offices. Not knowing anything about helicopters other than I went in a four-seater once, it was fascinating to watch so many of them nimbly accommodating each other without making contact. It all seemed to be in very limited airspace, from my somewhat warped perspective, between a skyscraper, a bank of television aerials on the mental home roof next door, and us.

But without trekking into Westminster, there be no sign of the O’s in our part of town. At at least that’s what I thought as I yomped up Vauxhall Bridge Road to Victoria Station, in my own little world as I thought about the article I needed to write on the politics and delicate intricacies of block paving.

There’s a little petrol station that sits near a major junction that I walk past twice a day, and there are often vehicles sitting on the exit ramp across the pavement, although most are polite and will pull back for pedestrians. On this day there was a motorcyclist sitting in my way.

A motorcyclist whose shiny white with blue and yellow trim helmet matched the livery on his bike.

Random pic: Callie and Neko.

And he didn’t move, so I threw him a dirty look and walked around his unattractive (I looked) back end.

At that point as I wondered along the pavement between the exit and entrance ramps I noticed a really, really huge black SUV by the pumps, and wondered what make it was. I started to look at its back end and suddenly realised that the car behind was an equally overly-large black SUV with equally dark tinted windows. And both vehicles had Washington registration plates.

Penny struggling to find the hole to drop through (it was the end of a busy day!), I looked at the back of the garage and saw big black limousine. Plus other police motorbikes. And other black vehicles lurking. Penny finally dropped and I whipped out mobile phone to take a picture and silly man on silly motorcycle pointed at me and shook his head so I scowled, put it away continued yomping – I wasn’t going to miss my train if I couldn’t get any pictures.

As I  approached the last junction before Victoria, lots of sirens, blue-flashing lights, large black SUV’s and a limo came charging into the junction and I reached once more for my mobile phone. But I was still deep inside my handbag searching long after they disappeared into the smog.

M25 traffic jam.

More successfully, I drove to Telford and back last Wednesday, which was most enjoyable, despite the ridiculous farting noise from the extra hole in my exhaust. I lost all of ten minutes each way on the M25 according to my Tom-Tom, but was gridlocked for half an hour outside the Exhibition Centre I was aiming for.

QE bridge at Dartford.

Now, as most of you know, I am a habitual window-shopper and love to flirt in traffic jams – don’t think too hard about the psychology,

suffice to say that my little car and I can take off faster than anyone else on the road – and this particular jam rather spoiled me for choice.

Two BMWs and a Mercedes flirted back, but it was the middle-aged man in the white van on the other side of the road who made my day by leaning out and shouting across the lanes: “I have just got to tell you that you’re absolutely bloody gorgeous!”

Am still smiling! :oD

Nelson Piquet's Benetton with John Reakes.

The Masters Historic Festival at Brands Hatch was very lucky as it didn’t rain. To make up for that, a number of cars decided to dump oil on the track, necessitating much application of cement dust along with hard scrubbing to make sure the oil was all covered before the next lot of cars came barrelling around.

It was awesome to see classic Formula One cars driving at speed around the circuit, some racing, but most doing a demo. Among them were Ayrton Senna’s Toleman-Hart, Nelson Piquet’s Benetton,

James Hunt's McLaren.

James Hunt’s MacLaren and Michael Schumacher’s Benetton. They looked and sounded beautiful still. Apart from the Senna car, which sounded like someone had put fireworks up its tailpipe.

Some of these cars get a £20 000 overhaul every 600 miles. O_o

Schumi's Benetton.

The Cobras did well in their race, which is good because they’re very pretty, and the Mustangs and Minis are always fun to see together, but the weekend did not go well for the BMWs. They crashed out, or couldn’t start, or busted a gut, or broke down randomly. Personally, I think they took one look at their nemesis, the (sole non-broken-down) Ford Capri with massive spoiler and skirts and expired from terror.

Arguably the only car who had a worse weekend was the sole Hillman Imp. More Imps had registered, but he was the only one to turn up and play, so he raced all by himself at the back of the field all weekend. I think there may have been some excitement at one point when one the Minis turned out to be even slower.

Most importantly, it was good to see John Grant, who had a truly awful accident last year at the Historics, at the circuit looking hail, hearty and offering up a round of drinks for the marshals.

And lastly, my website (the main one that I run at work), yesterday had its best day of traffic ever. Happy dance!