So, last night I stayed late. A patient arrived at ‘just the wrong moment’ (as they are wont to do, not that I minded, he was soooo cute (a baby, incidentally, before you think I’ve gone odd)); so I ended up leaving about 20 minutes late. When I got to Brick I was knackered, dead on my feet as it were, so when the car handled a little oddly I presumed I’d just run through my patch of oil from the leaking engine. It settled down fine and I was happily trundling down the motorway when suddenly I heard a *BANG*, presuming I’d hit a bit of debris I scanned the road hard checking for more…
…and then things went a bit weavey. Not terribly so, but not right… unfortuntely I was next to a set of roadworks with concrete barriers…
…having made it past them with the car definately handlying a little strangely, I pulled over and hopped out. The rear nearside tyre was flat, completely dead flat. I don’t know if it came off the rim, or has a puncture… but it wasn’t right. It was also dark, and cold, and I’ve no torch in Brick. So I stood there with my Neuro obs torch trying to get my pint-pump jack under the car. It does fine on Rebecca, but on Brick there’s no where to put it. Eventually, cursing, I got back in Brick (still idling) and called the RAC. Thankfully, being as I was woman-alone parked on unlit-motorway next to woodland, they did the ‘urgent assist’ and I got help within 30 minutes.
Less fortunately I stopped the engine just before he arrived and Brick let-go his coolant again. He arrived to find the car suffused in a gentle glow from self-produced mist. I felt a right twit having to have my tyre changed for me; but I had a nice chat with the guy who seemed deeply concerned about brick’s coolant leak. The tyre on the car is a rather dubious one, it’s got enough tread but it’s more than 10 years old. In fact, I suspect it dates from when the car was last in regular use.
So on the way to the engine place, I shall be stopping to get two new tyres.
Bah.
Still, it could have been a lot nastier….
