Today was a little unusual – we did some gardening at the shop and I had the car serviced. The former required a lot of hacking of brambles and tracking of mud through the shop, as it was a wet day. The car servicing was equally successful and involved leaving it at the garage overnight because they are struggling to get it back together. I was provided with a small Mazda automatic for the night. It is small and automatic and not at all comfortable. Apart from the lack of space the automatic transmission means I am continually on  edge in case I forget myself and put my left foot on the “clutch”.  I did that years ago in a borrowed automatic. The “clutch” is, of course, the brake in an automatic and the car tends to come to a rapid and inconvenient halt.

So far, so good. I got home without major incident, squeezed myself out of the car and worked out how to lock it.

I’m sure tomorrow will be equally memorable when I get the bill for my car. The cost of bus tickets has gone up too and Julia is looking at ways of economising. It now costs £3.78 a day.which, considering the time taken, the timetable and the number of drunks and idiots on the bus, makes the expense of a car seem worthwhile. I know it’s better for the planet to use public transport, but cars are so much more convenient.

We had several interesting customers today too, including one who was recently awarded an MBE and one who is recovering from breaking both arms in a cycling accident. He’s recently had the cast off one arm and revealed the scar from the operation – it’s well over a foot long. This is another reason to stick to cars.