So, Friday night, I’m planning my weekend away to say goodbye to Trey – who’s heading off to climates colder and more northern – and I arrive home after my day shift to a phone call which runs thus:
Mum: “Kate… the cistern’s leaking again…. quite a lot…. do you think you could come down and fix it…”
The temporary repair I did a while back (because I couldn’t get the right bit) had finally given up – well, actually it’s given up because I replaced the ball-valve with the same type of ball valve instead of going with my (feminine?) instinct and deciding that the plumber had fitted the wrong kind before and changing to the type of valve I thought it should be.
Unfortunately I’d also agreed to collect my Victorian cistern for my new house (which I have not got) from Freecycle – before I left on Saturday – and so it was on Saturday morning that I flew out of the house and round Bristol to collect a toilet cistern. Having collected it the bloke said ‘do you want the toilet too?’ – I looked, and a Victorian toilet in *staggeringly* good condition (apart from being somewhat mud filled) became mine also. Of course, this meant that my original time saving plan was somewhat destroyed – having an *entire* toilet in the car was a bit much when travelling a couple of hundred miles.
So, I switched back, headed home (enabling me (handily) to collect my camera); unloaded the toilet and cistern and piled back in the car only to discover… a car accident.
Then I joined the M4 Roadworks queues. I got to my mums. I fixed her toilet cistern (seeing a pattern?). I jumped in the car and …had some of the best and most beautiful drive I’ve had for years – I’ve got a backroads route which gets me most of the way to Oxford – and since I was trying to cut north and across the country working my way diagonally seemed like a good idea. It’s exactly the roads the mog was designed for and it was *beautiful*; the sun shone, the fields were all green, my little Rebecca’s slightly clattery, slightly industrial sounding engine pulled endlessly and we flew though the countryside. I remembered all the best things about Britain, the things I’ll miss.
Sadly, at this point things went pear shaped, out of the next four main / trunk A roads, all of them had roadworks. It wasn’t until I got to the A14 that I finally cleared the roadworks – allowing me to arrive a staggering 3 hours late at Chrissy’s place. Fortunately, Trey’d not arrived yet, and so we whiled away the time doing something. Playing games? Chatting? I can’t really remember.
Trey arrived and we troddled into Huntingdon, visiting it’s fine range of shops – including the new chain “Hoe Express”. Chrissy always said there was more to Huntingdon than it first seemed.
It was probably the best weekend I’ve had in a long time – just the fact I couldn’t see my work, and was away from Bristol, it was just such a good change to get away from the place. I hadn’t realised how claustrophobic I was feeling – and seeing Trey again… Lord I’m going to miss that girl – we nattered away – and just generally had a damn good time. We did some abandoned places photography (again, wait for the results!) talked about moving, about life, about past, about future… We (as in the group we) played Mashed, Mario Kart, Super Monkey Ball, Formula D (board game), Fluxx (card game), drank, ate curry, ate a huge fry up, stroked Jay, and generally had a thoroughly chilled out and fun weekend. Well, I did.
We also went for a wander round (a park who’s name I’ve forgotten).
Finally I headed back, I think the stretch at ‘flat out’ on the way there as I attempted to make up time has made the exhaust leak; on the other hand I did discover that the slowly bending hinge is responsible for the fact my car’s way noiser than I remember her being – and the temporary but expedient measure of wedging a bit of rolled up paper in the gap at the top of the door makes my car much quieter. I really must order a new hinge and some new windscreen(shield)-wiper-arms (because the current ones vaguely hold the wipers somewhere near the screen, not so convenient when driving through high winds and rain).
Anyway, I’m working an Early tomorrow, so I must go collapse in my bed :-)
