h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

...On the first I got in the car to leave work and it died on me. I have RAC cover so I gave them a ring and they made me wait just long enough to stress-eat a left-over slice of someone's birthday cheesecake and drink a hot chocolate from the machine in the office - ie, not very long. It's your battery, the RAC man tells me, I can do you one for £115 fitted. I ask if that's very much more expensive than taking it to a garage and he said not much more so I went for the convenient option and got him to do it there and then. Once fitted he got me to turn on the engine, rev the car, turn on my lights, radio, heater...and announced the reason my battery had been knackered was that my alternator was also knackered and wasn't charging the battery, so that also needed replacing. He didn't have one, so he recommended I drop the car at my garage that evening and get them to replace it the next day. In the meantime I'd be ok to drive the 25 miles home up the motorway as long as I didn't use anything other than my lights.

Before I left for home I called my usual garage and booked the car in for the next morning, explaining the problem. Two minutes later the actual mechanic called me back - I really shouldn't be driving it that far if it wasn't charging. So I called the RAC guy back - he'd left me his mobile - and he reiterated that I'd be ok, it was charging at 12 instead of 14 volts (or something). Called my mechanic back, he really wouldn't recommend it. By this time I was completely stressed, I didn't know what to do for the best, so I called the breakdown number again. The woman I spoke to told me she'd call me back after speaking to the guy who'd previously been as she could only go by what he said. Oh great, I thought. But when she called back she said that although he'd again said I'd be fine she herself drove the same stretch of motorway and thought I might spend some time in stop-start traffic, so she'd also spoken to their technical team - who agreed with her! At last people were agreeing with each other! So in the end the original guy came and fitted some kind of booster to my battery & I drove home with him behind me.

As we had a big meeting at work the next day I had to resort to public transport. This meant a two hour journey in the morning rather than my usual 45 minutes, said journey ending at our stores facility a ten minute drive from work - as the guy there was also attending the meeting he could run me to the office. Then I had to get someone to run me back to the station in the afternoon for another 2 hour train journey in time to pick up my car before the garage closed at 5.30. To be honest, the actual journey was pretty good, I had my kindle and everything ran to timetable. The only minor irritation was that I had to ask a member of the Birmingham New Street station staff how to get to Snow Hill station as it wasn't signposted at all in the station and I had to get there to get the onward train. It was nice having the walk through the town centre to get between stations though.

Then I had to hand over £206 for a new alternator & fan belt. So £320 of my savings has gone just like that.

Still, December seems to have improved. I've now done all my Christmas shopping, I have the day off tomorrow so I can hopefully get the tree decorated and the presents wrapped - and I found a fab pair of trousers which actually fit me nicely on the bum!

Tonight I'm at my brother's house looking after their kids while they're out on a works Christmas meal. It's been lovely sitting on the sofa watching Home Alone 2 with them...but I'm very glad they're now tucked up in bed and I have peace!

Deb

Peace sounds rather short-lived in your life, so make the most of it.

Hope things continue to improve. You ar so organised I am sure it will, and at least you got all that done on your car before the bad weather hits us, which looks like it will before long.

Websailor

And today the "powertrain warning lamp" starts flashing. Now what??!

The first day of each month might be a good time to not drive.