A trip up to Lincoln to see those Little Red Jets and the 2026 team winter training was well overdue - and Claire and I had plotted and planned for that to happen last week - with me driving up on the Thursday evening, tea at the fabulous Dambusters Inn, then a day of photography on the Friday after which I would head home - however the arrival of a storm with a funny name made us put on our uncharacteristically sensible hats and we agreed that it probably wasn’t the best plan for me to be heading up just when Lincoln was threatened with possible heavy snow, so we postponed by a week. A good decision as it turned out, as there was no flying at all last Friday (no snow either as it turned out, but that is another story!) Anyway, the forecast this week was FAR better, so all good, surely?
I arranged a slightly early escape from work, and we agreed that we’d meet at the pub “as long as I was up by7.30pm” - not a problem though, that allowed a good three hours for the trip, which should be plenty. Well, that was until the absolutely torrential rain that hit on Thursday afternoon, turning the M11, A14 AND A1 into a succession of swimming pools! Nearly 4 hours later, I finally arrived at Claire’s and we agreed that a takeaway would be just the thing! This morning the day dawned…well, overcast and cloudy, and, worse, with a visibility forecast of “poor”- wait, THAT wasn’t in the forecast! We duly trotted out and sat and waited but it became painfully apparent that no flying was going to happen first thing, so we agreed to head back, collect my car, and return to Waddington via a rather nice butty van we’re fond of for a late breakfast/early lunch bacon roll. Half way back to Waddington, with the rolls scenting our respective cars rather wonderfully, I swung off a roundabout and suddenly saw the dreaded orange warning light plus a “check injection system” warning pop up on the dashboard - and immediately also lost a lot of the car’s usual power… I tried a couple of hard revs in the hope of clearing it, but to no avail, and it became apparent that I was going to need to call the breakdown people.
I should say at this point that this was my first time of requiring help from my current breakdown insurer- Eversure - and I honestly can’t fault them. They have a straightforward web form to fill in with details, then kept me updated at every stage with who was attending and when I could expect them. The excellent local recovery chap turned up within half an hour, plugged in the diagnostic tool and gave me the bad news that it was going to need full recovery. Initially Eversure suggested that they were going to try to get a local garage to take it for a repair, but happily on a Friday afternoon, and with what pointed to a quite major fault, that rapidly proved impractical, and it was agreed that instead they would recover the car back to our lovely pal Neil at his garage local to us, albeit this wouldn’t happen until early next week. Back came the nice local chap - with a slightly bigger truck this time - and off went the car.this was all inside 2 hrs and 30 minutes! In the meantime, Eversure had also agreed that I could simply get the train home and then send the receipt in for reimbursement - very efficient!
At the time of writing I am on my second train of the day, and here are the gratitudes which come under the heading of making the best of things - first up having friends like lovely Claire who did battle with Friday afternoon Lincoln traffic to drop me at the station, but not before the Reds finally got in the air for the last slot of the day in the most wonderful light - a joy! Having a free hot drink code on my Greggs app - after standing out wielding the camera that cuppa was most welcome when I got on the first train! The delicious piece of Victoria Sponge I have just enjoyed on THIS train - courtesy of a friend of Claire’s who had made it for a fundraising thing they did yesterday but not all of it had been eaten so Claire snaffled a couple of slices for us! Having the wit to ask whether I could use my train ticket on a slightly earlier connection from Peterborough - I suspect I have been a lot more comfortable on this train than I would have been on the later completely sold out one I was scheduled to use! And finally, MrEH for turning out to collect me from the station near home on a chilly dark winters evening - and for the fact that we have a second car for him to use for this purpose, of course! The train journey itself too - I read my book on the first train, have written this post on the second, and will get the book out again for the Tube connection between Kings across and Tottenham Hale, and on the final hop back to our local station from there. Sometimes, it’s nice to have enforced downtime!
I suspect we are in for a hefty repair bill for the car, but we will deal with that as needed. Thank goodness for Emergency Funds!
Robyn
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