Not as Single Spies...

Also, it never rains but it pours (which is particularly appropriate as it has, indeed, been pouring with rain all day)


I'm still unwell, which is frustrating - I ended up coming home from work at lunchtime yesterday, and didn't go in today - I knew I had no clients due on Friday (Thursday, I had several in the morning, some of whom had had previously to cancel appointments due to the snow, so I didn't want to let them down) So I spent most of the day snuggled up under a fleece, with a succession of mugs of lemon & honey, and an intermittant cat, working my way through a box of tissues and wondering whether daytime TV is really quite as surreal as it seems, or whether, if I wasn't running a slight fever and was able to stay awake for a whole programme at a time, it would all make sense.


I suppose I should be grateful that modern medicine means that most of the time I don't feel like this (being asthmatic, the fact that I can breathe at all, and that most of the time I can do pretty much everything else I want, too, should be cause for thankfulness)

My car was due to go in to the garage to be serviced, which I could have put off, and to have new brake pads & discs (which I felt couldn't, or shouldn't, be) Luckily the garage isn't too far away, and I got there in safety. I was a little taken aback to find the courtesy car which they gave me was a LHD - most disconcerting (especially when not at my best & most alert) I think it's weirder to drive a car which is exactly the same of mine but the wrong way round, than just to drive a car that's the wrong way round, even when the roads too are all wrong. Happily I made it back home safely.

A little later I got a call to say the service & brakes were done, but they had found that a rather important spring was broken, and would I like them to fix that, too? As this is turning out to be a rather expensive month, what with the car insurance coming up for renewal, I asked whether it needed to be done straight away, or whether it was safe to leave it a little and to live with the rattle.
'No' they said 'better to do it now, as it will affect how the car handles so is really a sefety issue'.

'Oh dear' says I, 'Better have it done, then. What'll it cost?'

'If we have to replace it all, about £330'

'Gulp'

It was about 2 hours before they called again, by which time I was sure that this must mean they had had to replace eveything, and I'd worked out that this meant the whole lot, including the orginsal service & brake stuff, would be about £800 (although I later worked out I'd added it up wrong, and that it would actually have been £650 ) so when I got there and was told £440 it felt as though I had got off lightly, although still a bit chunk of cash to be parting with all at once.

*sigh*

And I still have to pay to get the windscreen replaced, some time soon (becasue of the chip at christmas)

The other frustrating thing this weekend is that I was due to go to Birmingham for my sister's belated housewarming party (She actually moved in in September, but 10 days later left for a month in Australia, then it was practially christmas, so the party was put off 'til she was settled in) I wsa going to drive up today, go to the party tonight, and meet up with my (other) sister, and cousins, as well as E herself. It would've been fun. But it would also have been antisocial of me to go and share my germs with all her guests, and I don't really think I would have enjoyed it (even if I managed to get that far) But it's bad timing.

Still. At least Tybalt approves. An arrangement in which I lie around in bed or on the sofa not moving much, and don't have the appetite to finish meals suits him, although he does object to my coughing & sneezing, and from time to time stalks off looking aggrieved because I am not providing a nice, comfortable, steady lap to sit on.