Yesterday, I was about to overtake a couple of lorries on the A14, when the one I was closest to pulled out right in front of me to overtake the other one. I so hate that. I braked rather sharply, as you might expect, only for a clunky-something’s-snapping thing to happen. I pulled into the gap left by the inconsiderate lorry, and stopped in the next layby, which had a handy SOS phone box. Less handy were the cockroaches living inside it, and even less handy were the lorries that kept going past drowning out everything the man on the other end of the phone line said.

Nevertheless, the AA was informed of my whereabouts, and about an hour later, I was attended to by a bloke in a non-AA van (I’d been phoned and told to expect him), who was very nice but said he couldn’t do anything, and asked for a recovery vehicle to be sent out. I had to wait a further forever for him, but eventually he came. He transported me and Henry to the garage, where they discovered they didn’t have the parts in, but they ordered them for delivery first thing in the morning, then they gave me a lift home, which I was very glad about because it’s tiring waiting about on a layby with nowhere to sit (you’re not allowed to sit inside your car) in the sun.

The highways people were very good - they kept phoning every so often to check on progress and to make sure everything was ok.

I received my shiny new V5C in the post today! That means I can now get my car MOT’d and then, hopefully, taxed. I’ve even renewed my car insurance. Still plenty of time before all the end of May deadlines, too, although it’s really not been my fault this year. Not totally, anyway.

It was fairly traumatic this year. Nana died the week before, so we had to go up for her funeral just before Christmas. We played Spot the Relative, which was useful, as I found out who some of the ones on the wedding invitation list that I didn’t know were.

Came back down again for Christmas itself and to see Puss, who we’d left to her own devices with lots of food and water and a litter tray, which she only uses when we’re away. She prefers to go out to do her business, which is fine by us.

Henry sounded particularly unwell (the exhaust, going by the noise) during the latter part of the journey up north, so I rang the doctor’s and arranged to take him in on the Wednesday after Christmas. On the way back down, I was just accelerating away from a roundabout on the A1, when I heard a different sort of noise. A metal-trailing-on-tarmac sort of noise. This sounded bad, so I pulled up onto the hard shoulder, got up and looked underneath the car. Yup, that would explain it: the exhaust pipe was hanging off.

One expensive phone call later, and the AA man came along and patched Henry up enough to take him home, then to the doctor’s, when they reopened. That wasn’t cheap, either. Still, it could have been worse: there was one car which was going to be sent to the scrap yard because the new part it needed was worth more than the car itself (a Mitsubishi Lancer) and one car which was worth the same amount as the new head gasket it needed plus other work and a tow to London. I wonder what its owner decided to do in the end.

On the Thursday, we went back up north to visit the families, starting with mine, then up to Scotland, then back to mine. The journey up to Scotland was to be the Grand Meeting of the In-laws, in a pub in Alnwick, which is roughly half way between the two sets. It wasn’t as bad as I was expecting it to be. C’s brother wasn’t there, though, as he’d elected not to visit his parents this Christmas. Can’t imagine why.

The cat came with us as far as my mam’s, and stayed with her while we were in Scotland. She did her usual interminable miaowing all the way up and all the way back down again that drives C up the wall so. Henry behaved himself, though.
New Year’s Eve saw us back at home, doing absolutely nothing special to celebrate it. Now, C’s back at work, and everything’s getting back to as normal as it can be.

This month is one of my most expensive month: I have to pay my car insurance, my car tax and my MOT all by the end of the month. I’m usually most tardy at doing this, but this year, it’s all in the bag. The MOT has been done (pass - woohoo!), the insurance documents arrived this morning and so all I need to do is go to the Post Office for the tax disc. I tried the online thingy, but it didn’t work because I renewed my car insurance too recently for it to be on the system. I don’t mind this, as I believe we should use our Post Offices more, not less. I just mind going out into the manky weather.

Henry’s poorly.  He became ill in Lincolnshire.  He’s been in hospital since Monday.  They can operate on him tomorrow, and I’m hoping he’ll be home soon.

I saw a program on the telly about the fastest motorway in the world: the Autobahnen in Germany. No speed limit (except for some bits)!

I wanna go on it!

I’d probably need a car other than my 1.1 litre Henry, though. Maybe a fine piece of German engineering would do. Apparently, the etiquette is to shift out of the way for German cars.

I’d have to get used to driving on the wrong side of the road, first, though.

Oh, I could have some fun on the Autobahnen. Oh yes.

I had to go out this morning, “bright” and “early” to give Henry his new tax disc. Such a stupid law it is that says you can’t put it on earlier than the day after the old one runs out. I mean, why?! Anyway, C rang me up at about seven this morning, to make sure I got up, after last night’s “exertions” - oh, I did another cartwheel - oh, in that dress! - but it didn’t work; I fell asleep again and then half an hour later, he rang, but I had just got up to go in the shower. He rang again shortly after, to check I was up, which I was, having just got out of the shower, but then I fell asleep again, and didn’t wake up until about nine, when I did actually go out and give Henry his tax disc and then I went to Tesco to buy orange juice and milk. When I got back, I had extra-sugary tea (that’s how bad it was/is) and juice. Need some more, actually.