Returning Home

It is as if life in the UK is impatient for us. First, while still in Sicily, we receive a phone call from the police asking whether my car, a Rover Metro, may have been abandoned as it’s been in the same place for months. I assure them it’s not and that I will be back home soon to remove it. Next, on our journey north, we receive a call telling us of the death of Sarah a close family friend of Frank’s and inviting us to the funeral (remember the lovely gentleman in the wheelchair at our wedding? Remember his wife? That was Sarah). So we travel a lot faster than originally intended, skipping about a week of other planned stops. Then, on the ferry, we receive a call from Frank’s tenant that the shed in the front garden had been broken into but the bikes hadn’t been stolen due to them being quite securely locked. However, we fear that the thieves might come back at night with suitable tools to cut the heavy chains, so we decide to drive through the night to get to Cardiff as soon as possible, and we manage to remove the bikes at 2.30am and save them from being stolen.

After a few hours sleep we get up early to address the question of my ‘abandoned’ car. It seems the battery is completely dead, so we ring the AA. I think AA stands for Amazing Angels, because the guy who comes gets the car going. The ignition lock was broken and had sapped the energy out of the battery. So nothing more than a flat battery and little AWA (the name of our Rover) is purring along nicely. We do have a slightly unusual system of starting the car though, now that the ignition lock has gone. Ah, well, it’s an old car and replacing the ignition would cost more than she is worth, and the immobilizer still works, so it’s no more vulnerable to being stolen than before. The Amazing Angel assures me that no-one would want to steal my car. I take this as a reassuring statement, rather than a derogatory remark on my stalwart little machine.


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