MargoMusing

(originally posted at http://margomusing.blogspot.com/2010/01/not-as-single-spies.html )

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 (because 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.