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Saturday 1 October 2011

Detail.

I've titled today's page as "detail" because I can't go into detail as it would be inappropriate. Anyway I'm having a right mare with my van. There are things wrong with it and being a Merc it's expensive to fix and the road tax has expired. Basically I'm pretty screwed. So I'm having a chat on the phone with my friend Chris and telling him my transport problems. When he says I might know someone and he did. Well into my life comes this little Greek fella who happens to be a Mercedes mechanic.

All I have to do is get from Kent to North London by 11o/c this morning and my new, yet to meet friend will solve my problems for an amount without too many zero's on the end. No problem. That is until I get onto the M25 and the engine starts to get a bit hot. So I pull over and lift the lid, stream pouring out from the side of the little filler bottle. I let it cool down and top it up, also making sure I fill anything in the van that will hold water. Now it's five to eleven I've stopped half a dozen times I'm out of water and sweating like an X Factor hopeful. Well I just make it in time and my new bestest mate moans a bit about working on such a lovely Saturday. A few hours later I have a fairly fit Van with a long list of things I need to do and I'm sailing home to Kent. 5 miles from MissG I get a puncture, so parked up on the hard shoulder with lorries whizzing past my bum at 60mph I change the wheel and am thinking when will all this grief end.

Back in the van and creeping along those last few miles (cos the engines cooking again) a light goes on. This time not on the dashboard but in my head. Whatever crap comes my way I get through it. I solve it. I survive! So now I'm looking at things from a different place. I'm not a failure. I'm a solver, someone not ready to give in. I just need to alter my thinking a tad. Take on the new info and start seeing life from a birds eye view and not a bugs!

The answers to my many problems are around me. Friends, family and my own abilities. Today I learned a lot.

Onwards and upwards in the pursuit of happyness.


1 comment:

  1. What a day! We may even have passed you given that we were up in Hackney for the weekend! You are totally right, all that crap happens and you didn't just roll over, you met it all head on and dealt with it. Days like that make me feel like it is all about the surviving... not the sort of day we live for! Hope all works out with the van. My connect cuts out because of a faulty temp sensor and i just put up with it now because it isn't somethng i can spend money on. Fuel costs are so steep at the moment too so I'm having to be choosey about where i work. Like you just had tax and MOT in the same month... killer! Using cash from ebay sales to help us get through these expensive months.

    Onwards.....

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