What A Weekend. Stupid Car.

Oh the trauma!! What a weekend it's been.

The airshow, by the way, was incredible. Really sad with one of the pilots killed in a crash, but the show was stunning. I've only been to one airshow before and I must have been really young, all I remember of it is the blue ribbed jerseys that the RAF wore. I loved it! I never want to get so into cars or planes or bikes or trucks that I qualify as a geek, but I do love machines....

Just as we were leaving the airshow we got a call from Tze who had caught the bus to Brighton that afternoon with a friend. The bus seemed to take an eternity to get to Brighton (from Tunbridge Wells) and by the time they got there, everywhere was closing and the last bus home was about to leave. The last train that would get them home was ridiculously early as well, so we met them in Brighton for a meal and they stayed over at ours afterwards.

I'm beginning to realise how far away from everywhere we are. It took nearly three hours to get into London on Friday evening (a bit less to get home though), and it took nearly an hour to get to Brighton - at least it felt like it! So yes - we don't actually live in Brighton, it's just the nearest town that most people have heard of. If we want fish and chips by the sea we go to Worthing, which is about 8 miles away over the hill.

Sunday morning we went to church in Littlehampton with Rachel Evans and her family. That was good. As the family said afterwards, it was a bit of an odd service (ie not the usual) but I enjoyed myself, and it was so evident that God was with them. They're on the case of the invisible church in Steyning, so hopefully soon we'll have a lead! We had Sunday lunch with the Evans' family, and they're so happily barking that I felt like I was having Sunday lunch with my family! Conversations dived off at tangents regularly, and with 5 fairly sleep deprived people in the room it was interesting to say the least. Neither Rach nor I wanted to go to Manchester after that.

But we had to, so eventually we set off and that's where the fun started. We crawled most of the way up to the M40, at which point the road cleared up and the coolant warning lamps started flashing. There was no way we were going to make another 20 miles to the next services so the AA were called out ("you're a priority because you're on the motorway - we'll be with you as soon as possible within the hour" - they just made it!) to find that the car had dumped all its coolant. Nice car. The guy topped it up and spent a while checking for leaks and things, couldn't find anything so signed it off and off we went. We got home ok and I crashed at Rachel's overnight.

In the morning the car was going to the garage for a service so I took my stuff to Woodhouse Lane and from there set off for Hazel Grove where the garage is. I got as far as Cheadle Hulme and steam started pouring out from under the hood. No warning lamps, just lots and lots of steam. Handy pub carpark nearby.... Popped the bonnet, sighed at the green puddle under the car, and called the AA again. This time I wasn't a priority so it was a potential hour and a half wait for them to turn up. I'd not had breakfast (the plan had been to drop the car off at the garage, and then go foraging for food) so thankfully Sainsburys was just down the road so I went off to buy a paper and some pencils and some breakfast. I'd only just picked up the paper when my phone rang to say the patrol would be there in 10 minutes!! I was still running back to the car when the patrol phoned me to say he was there...

Well he topped the coolant up again, couldn't find any leaks, checked it over, and said he'd follow me to the garage. I got maybe 400 yards down the road and had to pull over, warning lamps flashing furiously and steam starting to seep out from the bonnet. Oh joy. The head gasket had gone. Garage said please don't bring it here, we won't be able to look at it for 3 weeks and then it's going to be a month-long project to sort it out. I was taken back to mum and dad's on the back of a recovery truck. (The afternoon then consisted of me trying not to cry, being consoled by the cat, making dinner and falling asleep on my parents' bed - I forget what I was doing, but evidently the brain decided to shut down for a while.)

Little aside here. The guy who picked me up and took me home was such a gentleman! He didn't talk down to me and I expect he would have happily explained anything to me, but I was able to hold my own in a conversation about cars and engines but he still opened doors for me and was just generally a really nice chap.

So the hunk of junk is now parked on my parents' driveway, and it's a case of Watch This Space to see what happens. We've got a hire car (a brand new sexy Megane with the sexy rear end) for a few weeks while we look for something that's hopefully not going to break, and I've had enough of travelling for the time being. We'll have to come up to Manchester at some point in the next few weeks, but I'm looking forward to a fortnight at home to relax and recuperate and generally de-stress.