When I was driving home from the supermarket the other day, the exhaust on my car fell off.
And by “the other day”, I mean last week. As I had something to write about last week, I made a conscious decision to save the exhaust incident for another week. This gives you an idea of how action-packed my life is during the pandemic.
When it happened, I was thankfully only about 20 seconds away from the garage my family has been going to cars fixed for more than 30 years. I’ve driven this particular car all over the country, all around Yorkshire, up to the north of Scotland, and the west coast of Wales. So if something like this was going to happen anywhere, it’s incredibly fortunate that it happened where it did.
I thought that the repairs would cost me a lot, especially after I saw the mechanic removing a long piece of metal from underneath the vehicle. But I was amazed when they only charged £20.
In August, it will be 20 years since I first got behind the wheel of a car when I began my driving lessons. Yet two decades later, I still know very little about cars other than how to drive them.
It’s only really been in the last five years that I’ve learned how to check the levels inside the engine and what the correct tyre pressure should be. They really should teach this sort of thing in driving lessons. It was only when I bought a car that I realised I really should know a bit more about how to maintain it.
On the whole, it’s been a good car and this is only time when anything’s gone wrong on the road since I bought it five years ago. Admittedly, it does have a lot more sctatches and dents these days.
If I am moving back to London later in the year, I’m thinking I probably won’t take my car with me. For one thing, parking will likely be a lot of hassle. For another, it almost certainly won’t fit on the train.