Busy, Busy, Busy

It's kind of been a pouring rather than raining few weeks since Easter. I was away on a work conference for a week, which means that many pressing things did not get accomplished. Ange and I just snuck in a coffee that amounted to the first 15 minute conversation I have had with just her in nearly 2 weeks. Mental.

For most of these past days I have been driving a brand new Renault Megane. Very funky little car. If it weren't for their repuation for being brutally unreliable, I think I would consider it as a car I would buy. Having this rented car was because it was cheaper for the University to rent the car than pay for 3 people from our office to take the train to Durham for the event. The net result for me was that the Passat sat at Oxford Brookes for 10 days. When I did get back into the old beast, my first and only priority was getting it to the garage for it to go through its MOT (a yearly safety test).

Being the owner of many, many old cars with suspicious tendencies, I treat garage-visiting days with a great deal of trepidation. I fear them. They get marked on the calendar and as the day draws near, my internal fight-or-flight response nags at me to flee.

The car itself is in decent working condition. It has been, after all, a vehicle my father had owned. He's owned many and has a great threshold for putting up with things that others might find mildly annoying or slightly strange. He once owned a fully loaded Range Rover. It was the cat's ass of Range Rovers. Sadly for dad, nearly every little feature on it went wrong. His fight-or-flight response was to fight, so he attempted to mend things that went wrong. But he wasn't really on a budget to have a garage fix the Range Rover so he... ad-libbed.

When the key broke off in the ignition, he was left with replacing the ignition component as his only option. Well, almost. A Range Rover ignition component was going to run him £500. That kind of money was out of the question. A Ford ignition component from the scrappy was only £15. Can anyone see where we're going with this? The mechanics amongst you will appreciate that car companies haven't exactly worked with one another to have parts fit across the board. By the time all was said and done, dad had loosely fitted the Ford key switch into the whole where the Range Rover one had once been. "Seemless" probably wouldn't be the word to spring to mind on close inspection, but it served the purpose of having a key. The problem lay in the electrics. To resolve this little hiccup, Dad cut a whole in the dash, near to the stereo and fitted a button. Wiring the key iginition to the button and then the button to the starter, the problem was solved. Turn the key, push the button (as one might have done in 1960) and the vehicle springs to life.

So, the Passat is now in my hands and the big day arrives. I walk out to the car and go to the passenger side door to unlock the vehicle. I have to do this because about 3 years ago someone tried to break into the Passat and, in the process, broke the lock mechanism in the driver's side door. Having the key fob, Dad never bothered to replace the lock. But then one day the fob packed it in, leaving Dad with only one option for locking the car: go throught he passenger door, lock the doors through the central lock and then push the passenger side door lock down. It is marginally inconvenient to do this. People often give you strange looks and it certainly makes going to the Toyota, with its working fob, a pleasure.

But on this biggest of days for the Passat, the key won't turn the lock. A rather sudden and unexpected turn of events. I helplessly sat trying to will the key to work. Meekly, I phoned Dad. Nope, this was a new problem. One not encountered before. However, had I tried the boot? As it turned out, I hadn't. The key still worked in the boot and I was into trunk. With baited breath, I pushed the seat and it fell. I was in. Crawling through the trunk, into the back seat (on the 40 side of the 60/40 rear split) I unlocked the doors through the central lock. I fired the key in the ignition and... wait, why are the blinkers on? The alarm! The horn "long ago stopped working with the alarm." Thankfully at this point. I'm not sure I needed any added attention to my situation. However, I had to get this car to the MOT and working indicators, etc is a requirement. While I fretted, the coolant light came on. I jolted to the back of the car, grabbed the bottle of water and opened the hood to re-fill the coolant. Apparently, there was a leak but it fixed itself at one point... which is somewhat ridiculous since Dad bothered to buy a radiator for the car and it sits in his garage.

I drove up the street to the garage, four blinkers on. Thankfully, they stopped blinking before my arrival. I tried to laugh off the brand new alarm problem to the mechanic as I handed him the keys. "Just don't lock the car!" I said as I trotted off down the lane. As one might expect, the car failed the MOT. Happily not because of the alarm, key or coolant issues. So, I'm going to pony up the money to keep the car on the road. The mild inconvenience of having to go through the passenger door is exacerbated slightly by now having to go through the trunk when I have to lock the car but it builds character I reckon. I can also say with some conviction that my Dad will somehow be proud of this new badge I wear because of owning this vehicle.