19 February 2018 (Monday) - Raining

I slept well, but woke up with a nagging sense of guilt. I have no idea why that should have been. As I pondered what crimes I might have committed I watched another episode of “Plebs” in which Stylax had his wicked way with a vestal (virgin no longer), then I peered through my lap-top into cyber-space.
For once I’d had no emails overnight. Facebook was almost as quiet, but here was an announcement from one friend that he’d made his last posting there for the foreseeable future. That fellow has done that several times, as have so many other people. I’ve lost count of the amount of dramatic exits I’ve seen from social media only to have the very same people turning up a week or so later.

I looked out of the window again… it was still raining. I had such plans for this the first day of a week’s holiday. Together with my dogs I was going to take the car for its M.O.T. From the garage we would walk out through the Finberry estate to Captain Kid’s wood and come home through Park Farm. Once home I was going to spend a few hours pootling in the garden.
It had been raining overnight and everywhere was sodden. I took the dogs with me to the garage and we walked directly home through Frog’s Island. I let the dogs off of the leads as much as possible; dog walks are becoming a chore. It is not so much walking my dogs as being harnessed to a train going at full pelt whilst dragging a sack of potatoes.

We were soaked when got home; I was towelling the dogs off when "Daddy’s Little Angel TM" phoned. She was going to Tesco so I went along for the ride. Just as we walked into the place my phone rang. My car had failed its M.O.T.; it needed a new headlight bulb (pence) and some wotsit on the suspension (hundred quid).
We bought cakes in Tesco, took them home and had them with a cuppa. As we chatted the garage phoned; they couldn’t find the wheel-nuts for taking the wheels off of my car. If they couldn’t find them, then I had no idea where they were…

"Daddy’s Little Angel TM" and Sam then set off home, and I looked at the garden. My plan had been to repair the damage done to the gravelled areas when we fixed the fence at Christmas, mow the lawn, and generally make good. But it was obvious that anything I did would very soon degenerate into stirring the lawn into mud. So I got out the ironing board and spent the morning doing the ironing. I have always said that no time off work is complete until I’ve ironed, so at least that is out of the way now.
As I ironed I watched a few episodes of “The Crown”. After the first episode the garage phoned again to say that they hadn’t located the oil leak; could they take the top off the engine to see it they could find it.
What choice did I have? With a fifty-plus miles round trip to work every day I need a car that I can rely on. And (to be fair) over the last eight years the car has been rather good to me.

With ironing done I had a spot of lunch, then decided to brave the elements and so some gardening. I gave it five minutes before giving up. Gardening in the rain is no fun. So I geo-puzzled and watched more Netflix until the nice man from the garage came to give me a lift to collect my car. They weren’t entirely sure that they’d sorted the oil leak, so they’d cleaned it all out and suggested I drove a hundred miles and took it back. So pausing only to find the two geocaches "er indoors TM" hid along Hythe Road I drove up to Maidstone, down to Folkestone, and home again. I shall take the car back to them later in the week.

I’ve had my dinner, I’ve programmed “Hannah” for tomorrow… I shall watch some Netflix and have an early night…

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