Cold and Colder

That was me, last night.

Bad enough there were three or so inches of snow when I departed from home. Which had to be shovelled off the car before I moved it. There wasn't any snow once I got about ten miles away, but the Crimson Brick ground to a halt on me about a quarter of a mile before the last roundabout before my turning into the village.

This is where the A1(M) splits off to join the A1, the A614 and the A57. We are talking major, big roundabout (it's called Five Lane Ends - hint?) and there I was, stuck in an immobile car with an engine that refused to restart, half on the main road and half off it and able to think of nothing save sticking on the hazard lights and clambering over gear stick and handbrake and getting the ferk out of Dodge before a lorry slammed into the back of me.

You may well ask where cold comes into things. Well. It may not have snowing in North Notts, but it was colder than a witch's you-know-what. I waited well back from the road down a farm track (well away from the car - just in case that lorry did happen to slam into the back of it) for nearly three-quarters of an hour before my knight in yellow refletive overalls turned up in his AA van. He was far too cheerful. And the verdammtes car started first turn of the key.

So my nice AA man followed me the four miles home and gave it a quick check when we arrived. No rhyme or reason to it cutting it out - nothing to do with my firklings with carburretor cleaner which entailed cracking open the round flat thing with the air filter in that sits on top of the carburretor. (Look, I know how to dismantle bits of my car - that doesn't in my view necessitate knowing what they are called). Nothing to do with the missing bit of flexihose twixt manifold outlet and air intake. (Though my former apprentice mechanic brother muttered something about vacuums and powerloss and shocking fuel consumption).

The CB actually is running sweet as a nut today. Pulled out onto the A1 this morning and there was no power loss, no jerking and shuddering like a fitting bucking bronco. Most relaxing!

There will be a slight delay in getting the new old car. CtOR has the car I am going to have, you may recall. I'm sure I mentioned it...Anyway, this is his Dad's old car, which has the vanity plates on that his Dad bought him for his 18th (the car was always going to pass to him in a few years). He gets his Dad's current vehicle and passes the old one to me. But, to transfer the vanity plates, he has to own both vehicles at once, the old car gets a new registration number and I buy new plates for it with that number on. And then it gets transferred to me. Oh, I need to probably increase my insurance a bit cos it's a 2.0 litre SLX as opposed to a 1.3 litre Pony GXi or something like that. The blue car goes like a rocket. The Crimson Brick goes like - well, a brick, obviously.

Oh, well. Mustn't grumble!