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avevale_intelligencerI filled the car up yesterday. This afternoon I was alerted by my neighbours to the fact that forty quid's worth of fuel was currently adorning the Queen's highway, some of it in intriguingly skiffyish piles on account of being frozen. Hellooooo, ruptured fuel line.
The fire brigade came with commendable promptitude, put down lots of sand, and said I'd need to siphon off the tank and had I got anything to put the remaining quarter tankful in. I said no. We stood around for a while. Another fireman asked me the same question. I said no. Another Pinteresque pause. After a few more goes round I volunteered to walk to the nearest garage and get a fuel can or two, and this suggestion met with general approval, so off I trogged.
Returning with three 5 litre fuel cans, I saw the fire engine disappearing down the road. The car was no longer leaking. There was no note. None of the neighbours, who had all been watching with a combination of apprehension and avidity, knew what if anything they had done before they left, but one of them offered me a lift back to the garage to return the now apparently surplus fuel cans. (We kept one, just in case. They're useful things to have.)
So...did someone offer a fuel can after I had left? Did brownies make away with the remainder of the tank? Were they just getting me out of the way before carrying out some arcane Fire Brigade secret protocol? Were they called away to something more urgent and the fuel dried up on its own? We may never know.
Not how I'd planned to spend my Sunday afternoon. It's just a mercy I wasn't, you know, having fun at a filkcon or anything. That would have been really depressing.
The fire brigade came with commendable promptitude, put down lots of sand, and said I'd need to siphon off the tank and had I got anything to put the remaining quarter tankful in. I said no. We stood around for a while. Another fireman asked me the same question. I said no. Another Pinteresque pause. After a few more goes round I volunteered to walk to the nearest garage and get a fuel can or two, and this suggestion met with general approval, so off I trogged.
Returning with three 5 litre fuel cans, I saw the fire engine disappearing down the road. The car was no longer leaking. There was no note. None of the neighbours, who had all been watching with a combination of apprehension and avidity, knew what if anything they had done before they left, but one of them offered me a lift back to the garage to return the now apparently surplus fuel cans. (We kept one, just in case. They're useful things to have.)
So...did someone offer a fuel can after I had left? Did brownies make away with the remainder of the tank? Were they just getting me out of the way before carrying out some arcane Fire Brigade secret protocol? Were they called away to something more urgent and the fuel dried up on its own? We may never know.
Not how I'd planned to spend my Sunday afternoon. It's just a mercy I wasn't, you know, having fun at a filkcon or anything. That would have been really depressing.