The week in numbers;
1: number of failed attempts to cross the Widnes/Runcorn bridge
2: hours late to my meeting
3: motorways used to circumvent the bridge queue
25: minutes waiting to be rescued by the AA
45: miles per hour - the speedo got stuck here
110: degrees Celsius before the needle passed beyond the scale
273.75: pounds spent repairing the car
So it was a busy week really. Tuesday was going to be a busy one on paper, but I couldn't believe how busy it turned out to be. I had a meeting in Runcorn at 8, and I had to pop in to school first, so I left the house at 6.45am. For those of you who live far away from here, and arent familiar with the geography, my school is on one side of the River Mersey, and my meeting in Runcorn was on the other. There is only one crossing for miles around - the Silver Jubilee Bridge - built to take about 6000 vehicles a day between the two towns. These days it takes about 70,000 vehicles a day, so you can imagine that it can get quite congested.
The morning rush hour queue for the bridge normally starts at 8ish. When I was approaching the turn off for Widnes before 7 the traffic was already backed up, so instead of doing a bit of work at school I just grabbed what I needed and headed back to join the queue. After 40 minutes inching forward I had reached the top of the queue to join the queue to join the queue for the bridge, so I decided to abandon my attempt to cross the bridge and head out on a 30 mile trip on the motorway to circumvent the bridge.
Under a mile into this clever strategy, I noticed the temperature gauge was showing an alarmingly high reading. In fact, the needle was pressed against the end of the scale - right past the red and sitting where it could go no further. As if that wasn't sufficient warning of impending doom, I started to get steam billowing out from under the bonnet. Nice.
To cut out the middle part of the story, let me summarise in bullet points;
- threw car into nearest car park. This was a Toby Carvery & Pub, which would turn out to be handy later.
- phoned school to seek assistance
- borrowed colleague's car to make the trip (the meeting was v important)
- arrived 2 hours late to meeting
- red face
- returned borrowed vehicle to work
- phoned AA to report breakdown
- waited in Toby Carvery sitting in a comfy chair with nice cold drink and relaxing music. Best part of day by a mile.
- AA man established there was a problem but couldn't pinpoint it.
So I had to book it in to my local garage and get towed back to Liverpool. I have never been towed before. It was a bizarre experience. I was on a fixed bar thing, and so according to Mr AA all I had to do was steer and indicate. In actual fact what I had to do was steer, and battle to overcome every driving instinct. I found myself hurtling along (probably not that quickly really) in the dark, ridiculously close to the vehicle in front, without the ability to see anything or control my speed etc. I kept wanting to get some distance from the van, or steer to the side to see in front. When we came off the slip road onto the dual carriageway all I wanted to do was slam on the breaks! It was all very weird!
As it happens, the cause of the crisis was a leaky water pump. All fixed now. My wallet felt the heat all right, but my engine's as cool as a cucumber now.
P.S. I slightly made a joke at the AA man's expense there, but actually I thought he was very good. I am a happy AA customer this week.
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