.... What's bronken?
My car, that's what's bronken.
Why is it bizarre? Well, read on and (eventually) you'll get to that bit.
Yesterday was the meeting of Yorkshire Modern Quilters so I set off to the local station to pick up Scrappy so we could set off for a day of fun with friends, fabric and food. I got there, in the pouring rain and left my engine running as Scrappy's train was just pulling in. She climbed in, and as she was settling into her seat we were both saying how excited we were cos one way and another it has been months since we last went to a meeting. Anyway, once she was safely strapped in, with her bags all securely tucked in too, off we set. Except ....
... I moved about two yards, Just enough that I was more than half way out of the parking bay and the engine died. I tried restarting, but, nope, nothing doing. I tried swearing, but that didn't help either. As I was a bit (major understatement there) in the way of other traffic coming and going, we thought we'd better push the car back into the space I'd just left, but the car had other ideas. Because it was an automatic, and because I'd put it into Park before trying the restart, it was effectively all locked up and wasn't going anywhere. So, back in the car for us, and we became a human (or automotive) roundabout and all the cars had to drive round us! at least we were out of the rain, and I called the breakdown service. It was going to be about an hour and a half before they would get to us, so we settled ourselves in for a good natter and even did our own little show and tell in the car. We had food if we were there a long time, so we knew we weren't going to starve although we might die of thirst cos we didn't have any drinks. (I must remember next time to breakdown near a Costa or Starbucks and not in the car park of a small, unmanned train station.).
Mr Breakdown arrived a bit earlier than we expected, which was good. He found that my battery was totally, completely and absolutely flat. He was puzzled for several reasons and our conversation went a bit like this:
Mr Breakdown: How bizarre, Honda's don't just cut out like that.
Me: Well this one did
Mr B: Honda's are one of the most reliable cars there are, it's very bizarre.
Me: I know, that's why I have Honda
Mr B: it shouldn't have just lost power while it was running.
I shrugged my shoulders.
By this time I had come to the conclusion that Mr B was in one of these challenges where he's given a word for the day and he has to use it in every sentence and the word of the day for yesterday was "bizarre". Anyway, he jump started the car, Scrappy climbed on a train and went home and Mr B followed me home. When we got back the battery had fully charged - in less than 3 miles. So, no sewing day for us and I'll be on the phone to the garage on Monday. The breakdown guy did say it was probably a one-off that will never happen again but if it did then I should contact the garage. Hmm, I don't think I want to wait. I was just thinking that if it had happened 10 minutes later, I'd have been driving along on the motorway and I don't drive at 50 (or even 60 or 70) on the inside lane as a general rule, so it could have been worse.
* Bronken: the word Chatterbox used to use when he was just starting to talk when something was not working. It's just one of those words that the family adopted and still use, just like we eat chinken!
