So much for my plans for a day out yesterday.... I finally decided I’d go to Malmesbury... visit the abbey... and the Athelstan museum... if I’d had a son I would have wanted to call him Athelstan... how sad is that? Fate decided otherwise however... in both the sex of my child and my plans for the day.
You may remember I had a spot of car trouble a short while ago... well long story short... the dealership needed to get some parts in and agreed to do me a temporary fix so I could continue to use the car until it went in on Monday for the repair... got it back on Tuesday... I was somewhat lighter in the wallet of course... and decided since I’d been abstemious of late I’d have myself my day out yesterday...
Off down the M4 I went and was into Wiltshire when the temperature gauge shoots off the dial and things start flashing and beeping all over the place... onto the hard shoulder I go... of course opening the bonnet does nothing at all and everything looks perfect... bugger!
I hate sitting on the hard shoulder and the services at Leigh Delamere are only a few miles down the road so I coax the car there and ring the RAC... an hour later a guy arrives in the orange and blue van... takes a look... oh, it’s a Volkswagen... much sucking of teeth...
I’m sorry to say this... says the guy... this is either going to be the thermostat or the water pump impeller has shot its bolt... either way it’s a workshop job... and you want to hope it’s the thermostat... because otherwise... more sucking of teeth... bugger!
Have you ever driven along a motorway at 30 miles an hour... pulling over onto the hard shoulder every few miles to let the engine cool down... getting in everyone’s way... attracting the displeasure of all and sundry and especially some twat fool who tried hard to drive you off the road by deliberately cutting across you? I have...
Limped back to the dealership... took me over three hours to do about 50 miles... chucked my keys at the service desk... much displeasure... very sorry... sure it can’t be anything we did... leave the car with us... well I wasn’t going to take it anywhere else... and a couple of hours later they ring up... all very sorry... how terrible to have to say... the water pump impeller has detached... to get to it we’ll have to strip flanges, flukes, cams and all kinds of other enginey bits... suggest you have your cam belts changed at the same time... due in about 10K miles anyway and will save you money if you have them changed now... five to six hours labour... plus parts... plus VAT... approximately £600... what would like us to do? Well not much option is there? Damned if you do and damned if you don’t... get the parts in... bugger!
Three years trouble free motoring so I suppose I was due for something... and I do get change out of a grand for all this week's repairs... but I could have done without this now... so I was in a strop yesterday evening and didn’t trust myself to come on here... and I'm driving a car that is covered in dealership livery... so am a bloody mobile advert... bugger!
So no pictures at all yesterday, just a lot of frustration and bad temper. 
I'm feeling considerably less stressed this morning thank goodness. 
lee954
Sorry to read about your stressful day. I suppose my not being able to drive makes life a lot less stressful for me.
On the subject of Athelstane though; according to Sir Walter Scott's novel, Ivanhoe, Conisbrough Castle was Athelstane's stronghold.
Some of the more romantic among us locally also like to think that Brunanburh, the site of Athelstane's victory over the combined forces of his brother Edmund, and Olaf Guthfrithson is actually at Barnburgh, about five miles west of Doncaster...interestingly just a couple of miles north of the River Don - which traditionally marked the boundary between Mercia and Northumbria.
It's just a fanciful theory though - Bromborough on the Wirral, or Bamburgh in Northumberland seem to be preferred by historians.