Home again

Pants very bankrupt. Knackered and wrung out. More later.

So here's the story

Last week the DC rang us up. According to the Countess, she was in tears on the phone; she had an appointment to be fitted with her new hearing aid, and she couldn't find anyone to take her. Touched by her plight, we said of course we'd come and help out. We had an offer from Jan's cousin Maureen, whom we'd met and chatted to last time, of a bed, or rather a pair of beds, in her house, which could only be better than shelling out for a hotel again. Jan's cousin Maureen is nice.

So, around four o'clock on Monday afternoon, having phoned the DC and told her we were on our way, we set off, and all went well till we were slingshotting off Northampton.

beeeep-beeeep-beeeep

"I've got a warning light on the dashboard," I told the Countess, and pulled in at the next layby. The light looked like a circle in brackets with an exclamation mark in it. No idea what it meant, so I pulled out the friendly manual.

"Something is up with your brakes," it told me, in effect. "Either the fluid's leaked out, or the front brake pads are worn. Drive carefully to your nearest Audi dealer. Do not pass GO. Do not collect two hundred pounds."

I looked around at the deserted road. No Audi dealer in sight. They'd be closed anyway by that time. I looked at the brake fluid container. Couldn't tell how much was in there. I'd checked the water, the oil, the tyre pressure, the fuel...of course it had to be something I couldn't fix. I got back in and we drove very carefully on. The brakes seemed to be working, nothing was catching fire, no odd noises. Just that single, minatory, flashing red light.

We stopped at Peterborough and rang Maureen, who promised to let the DC know we were running carefully but definitely on our way, and arrived at Sutton Bridge about half past nine. The DC's place was dark and silent, and the doorbell produced no response. On we went to Maureen's, unpacked the car, had a chat and something to eat, and went to bed in two extremely comfortable single beds side by side.

Tuesday dawned. The DC's appointment was at eleven, so we breakfasted and set off at half ten. Nobody home. A neighbour, observing me skulking around like a skulky thing, told me she had gone off somewhere with Mavis. Off we went to Long Sutton surgery, where the appointment was, and in due course the DC turned up, surprised to see us because we had rung and told her we weren't coming. Sigh. Welcome to planet Hilda.

It became clear early on that the DC Did Not Want a new hearing aid, no no nonono no. "You've not to bother," she said plaintively, as the very patient Scots doctor carefully tuned twelve hundred quid's worth of precision auditory engineering to her precise aural specification. She didn't like it, she couldn't fathom how to put it in, it hurt her ear, she could hear things, and so on. Eventually, however, we were done. "If you can't hear the telephone," said the doctor, "hold the receiver a little higher." "All right," said the DC.

And so I dropped Jan and her mother back home, and went off to Wisbech to find a brake place. Eventually, I located Kwik-Fit (they're the boys to trust) on the Lynn Road, and explained my problem...

Part twee...

Returning an hour later, the Kwik-Fit person told me that the reason the light had come on was that the brake fluid was low, and the reason the brake fluid was low was that all four discs were worn below the minimum specification for roadworthiness. "You wouldn't see it unless you took it apart and did the measurements," he said. "They've all got to be replaced," he added. "That'll come to £££," he said. I may have missed the next few minutes.

(So, just to recap, we had driven nearly two hundred miles on a fool's errand and now we had a huge mechanic's bill on top. Yes, it would have happened anyway, but--well. You get the idea.)

"Can you get it done today?" I said.

"Yes," he said, "we can get the parts today."

"No," he added, "we can't get them till ten o'clock tomorrow."

"Wait a minute," he continued, "yes, we can get them today."

"Sorry, no," he pursued his theme, "it'll be ten tomorrow. Bring it back then and we'll have it done in two hours."

By now the emotional whiplash was getting boring, so I drove home in pensive mood, the furrowed lines of my brow limned by the constantly flashing red light, or they would have been if it hadn't been daylight, and we spent a merry afternoon and evening listening to the DC explain how she couldn't hear any better with the hearing aid, didn't really need one anyway, didn't like hearing herself chew, and so on. The phone rang. She held the receiver to her ear. "I can't hear it," she said.

"Hold the receiver a little higher," we chorused.

"Oh," she said, listening to the mouthpiece.

I went and got fish and chips, we ate them, and came away to Maureen's at about half eleven. I had foolishly imagined that the DC would go to bed at her usual nine or ten and we'd have a little time to unwind, but no such luck. And, on the Wednesday, back I went to Wisbech...

Part throo

It was ten to ten when I deposited what was now starting to seem like a large flashing red light surrounded by a thin skin of car, and the parts were confidently expected on the ten o'clock van. Off I went to spend two hours in beautiful Wisbech, jewel in the crown of the Fenlands. (This time I left Jan with Maureen, which was altogether a better idea. She got to meet grandchildren and daughters-in-law and chat to her cousin, so when I got back I found an unstressed and sympathetic Countess, and that was nice.)

I found a bookshop. Mostly reduced cook books and kids' stuff, but it was a genuine bookshop, which puts Wisbech one up on Westbury. I found a little back street full of tattoo parlours and Polish grocers. I looked into Saint Peter and Saint Paul's church (Norman in origin, sensitively rebuilt by George Gilbert Scott) and sat in the library looking at "And Another Thing..." without taking anything in. And I went to G W Frank the butcher, who make the best pork pies in Britain unless you know of better, and got a couple. And then I gouged a huge hole in the does-not-exist money and went back to Kwik-Fit.

You know what's coming next. Say it with me:

The parts had only just turned up.

They were there. I could see them. And to be fair, I could see a huge difference between the shiny new brake discs and the very much smaller raggedy-edged ones on the car. But they had only just arrived, sorry about that, it'll be another two hours.

The next three hours were hell. I couldn't face walking anywhere else. So I sat in the reception area of Kwik-Fit in Wisbech and made casual conversation (not my strong suit or something I enjoy) with the guy behind the counter, while with what seemed glacial slowness the discs were fitted to the car, and the pads to the discs (I think), and the brake fluid changed, and the wheels put back on, and the guy took it for a test drive to make sure it was all right. I'm not sure where he went--it felt like Hunstanton or thereabouts--but at last he was back, and the car was...was back up on the ramp, and he was fiddling about underneath it, and then letting it down so he could look under the bonnet.

"Okay," he said. "It's all fixed, it's working fine. Just one problem. The warning light's still flashing and we don't know why."

By now I was too enfeebled even to register a question.

"It may go off once the new brakes have bedded in, but if it doesn't then you've got another problem, probably a chafed wire or something," came from somewhere in the misty distance. "But the plugs are all in right, and the brakes are working, and that's the main thing, £££ please."

I handed over half my kingdom, signed a piece of paper, got a receipt, and drove my flashing red light home, little voices in my head saying things like suppose it was the light all along and there was nothing wrong with the brakes and you've just handed over £££ for nothing, you schmuck?

And meanwhile, back at the DC's place...

Part fung

On a previous visit Jan had noticed that her mother had a drawerful of loose photographs of all ages and sizes, and had resolved to organise them for her. So when we steeled ourselves and went to her house that afternoon, we were armed with photo albums and sticky labels.

We ran into a problem pretty quickly.

"Who's that?" we said.

"I don't know," said the DC.

"When was it taken?"

"I've got lots of mates, you know," said the DC.

"Was it in Bradford?"

"She had a friend who married someone down south," said she.

"She who? Who is it?"

"That was before the war." (We'd guessed that bit.)

Perm any three of four, multiply by several hundred and repeat. And this was with the hearing aid in.

Eventually, using my l33t sk1llz at facial comparison, we managed to identify about three-quarters of the pictures as to principal participants or rough year, and by the end of the evening we'd managed to get about thirty into an album and labelled. The rest remain to this day, in envelopes awaiting their fate, unless she's had them all out and shoved them back in the drawer again. I wouldn't put it past her. I will admit that my spirits were not raised by the discovery, at about half past ten, that there was another drawer of the same size full of pictures she hadn't mentioned, also completely mixed up.

The rest is swiftly told. We went back to Maureen's, slept, woke, had breakfast, bade her a genuinely fond farewell interspersed with promises of a return and/or reciprocatory visit, dropped in on the DC to say goodbye (I noticed the hated hearing aid was lying on a pile of papers from which it could be conveniently knocked off and lost under a cupboard, but it didn't seem worth saying anything) and drove carefully home, battling the distraction of the damned flashing red light which still hasn't stopped flashing. And there you have it, as Freddie Mercury sang. Altogether four days with which I could have done something more useful, more pleasant, and definitely less expensive.

And now, having un-burdled myself, I'm going to lie down again.