Of course, when it came to this year’s recent MOT test, “Blinky the Wonder Car” (named in due deference to the ‘tradition’ of its two predecessors both being rather cruelly and inappropriately dubbed by others to be “Clunky”, and also due to never seeming to have all its lights working at quite the same time, all of which I recounted to you in a long-forgotten posting months ago), failed. Not spectacularly, but still a failure nevertheless and, because there were no days left on the old certificate, old Blinky had to remain in clink-y until the engineering wizards could get around to fixing it. They are, naturally, very busy at the moment, what with the harshness of the last winter and the upcoming holiday season, so it may be a while before Blinky and I are reunited and the mundane necessities of life like doing the food shopping can be returned to their usual routine. It is surprising, however, how dependent you become upon your own particular box on wheels, and how suddenly complicated the little things of life that you do without so much as a passing thought can suddenly become, especially out here, so far beyond the rim where civilisation ends.
Still, there are benefits to be found if you look for them. It was pleasant enough walking the beloved to the bus stop in the vague understanding that one might eventually appear on a Monday morning, and we did get a weekend home alone without any wider responsibilities to be thought about, although, as I told elsewhere, my social life took a slight nosedive because certain places just seemed too far for my old knees to consider walking to.
Now, of course, during this very week, there is talk of changing the MOT test to bring it in line with Europe by only having to have it every two years, which goes a long way towards explaining many of the wrecks I saw parked on the streets of Paris the last time I was there, but, in my case, I really don’t think that that would be a great idea. I am a terrible procrastinator when it comes to such things, and I suspect that anything that meant that I didn’t actually have to deal with a problem straight away would probably lead to ultimate disaster of some kind, either mechanical or financial. A stitch in time may very well save nine, and putting off until tomorrow what you can do today might well be something that should never be done and I’m sure that these things are indeed false economies, but I’d still rather put off acquiring any more actual bills until I jolly well have to, if I’m being stupidly honest about it.
Another complication is that Blinky, due not so much to an accident of birth than by a conscious choice of purchasing options by its current ‘owner’, is rather dependent upon parts made in Japan, which might make the acquisition of them slightly more difficult what with the terrible aftermath of events over there. You see, in a global economy, events on the other side of the world can eventually begin to trickle down and touch upon your own life in all sorts of little ways.
Basically various tubings and pipings that are something to do with its braking system need a jolly good bit of mechanical shenanigans and jiggery-pokery doing to them, but, rather surprisingly considering the dark suspicions lurking in my mind these past few months, that would appear to be the bulk of the problems and, once those things are dealt with and a suitably large number of digits have been totted up and presented to me in the form of a bill, and the back of the sofa has been raided to scrape together the last of the pennies to pay that particular ransom, Blinky and I will be reunited to terrorise and frustrate (in equal measure, I’m sure) the young motorists of the fine streets of Lesser Blogfordshire once more by pottering our way around the highways and byways in that terribly sedate way we have of going about our business.
There is, however, another matter to deal with, a rather darker matter that will lead to much soul-searching and wailing and gnashing of teeth over the next few months. My garage have a rather helpful habit of putting together a list of ‘advisory’ comments after such a gruelling ordeal for my faithful old bucket of rust. These are not matters considered urgent or dangerous enough to require that Blinky is either put out to grass or suggest that it needs immediate invasive and life-saving surgery, just a few notifications of impending future problems that ‘should’ be addressed as soon as it is convenient to do so.
This list is, apparently, rather long. So long, in fact that, well (looks around to see if anybody’s eavesdropping…), if you promise not to tell anyone I’ll tell you… It might be more financially prudent to consider the possibility of, I can hardly bring myself to say it, buying a replacement. There is, therefore just the chance that Blinky and I are going to have to face the awful truth, the horrible notion, the terrible fact that we might just be about to spend our last summer together.
Now, I have to be very careful what I say here, because I don’t want to bring the wrath of Blinky down upon me. You know what cars are like. One sniff of the vaguest notion that it might be destined for the chop and there’ll be all sorts of trouble and complications over the course of the next few months and I won’t have a moment of peace as it goes raging and kicking and screaming into that long, dark night. It’s much better to keep things calm. Tranquil. Sedate. Best not to let it know that the axe is going to fall. Just take it out for a drive as I would on any other morning and quietly park it up, hand over the keys and slip quietly away without a backwards glance. Much better all round. I mean, finding a replacement (actually, it might be best not to use that word) is going to be a horrific enough experience as it is without Blinky playing up about the whole thing. Oh, there’ll be clues, I know. Strange visits to unfamiliar forecourts. Unfamiliar gentlemen in shiny suits kicking the tyres for no real reason, but hopefully the distraction of a tank full of petrol or a bottle or two of motor oil will be enough of a diversion for me to get away with it, and one day, I’ll be chugging along the highways in some other vehicle, probably looking back on my days with Blinky with a great deal of affection and wondering why I ever thought that this latest bucket of rust would be any kind of improvement, as I throw back my head and bellow at the sky in frustration.
“Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrsssssss!!!!!!!!”
Maybe, after fifteen years of building bitter and seething resentment, Blinky will come back to haunt me, furious at being abandoned, and whatever vehicle I am driving by then and I will find ourselves battling for whatever victories we can gain from such an unlikely thing happening. If things run true to form, from the minute that we have been parted I will spend the following years regretting that we ever were, and I will no doubt find myself looking longingly at Blinky-like vehicles as they pass me by when I’m broken down at the side of the road or when I’m passing a second-hand car dealership, and I will make a small gesture of respect towards them and then try to comfort myself with the thought that the needs of the one outweighed the needs of us both.
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