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Exhausting weak end 02 April 2017 18:13 It’s the weekend! It must be the weekend as I’m at CGF’s. That, by her own admission, is how CS3 knows it’s the weekend. Personally, I’d have thought the fact she didn’t have to go to school would be a bit of a giveaway, but there’s no accounting for the logic of a teenager. Anyway, she was discombobulated on Friday evening as, owing to other commitments, I didn’t arrive until after 2200. I’ve spent a few hours in the garden this afternoon. Digging over the vegetable patches (or what we like to pretend are vegetable patches), mowing and raking the lawn, and cutting down a defunct palm tree. Wonder how long it will take CGF to notice the latter – she’s on a child-to-uni trip this arvo (which means I'm also on Vittels Duty tonight). I was a bit late finishing work on Friday (relatively speaking – relative to the time most of the rest of staff seemed to finish) and the car park was pretty empty when I got there. Meant that I had an uninterrupted view of my car as I approached, and could see something hanging down that shouldn’t be there. I had a closer look, and the exhaust pipe was hanging about three inches from the ground. Pretty certain it’s not supposed to be that low, but it does explain the scraping noise when I’ve been over sleeping policemen. My first thought was “it’s only a bracket, I can fix that myself” and I checked to see they were only £1.59 at Halfords. But then I realised that without wheel ramps (£40) access would be a bit of a problem, so “oh sod it, I’ll take it to ThickFit – after all, I got paid yesterday so I have money”. “We don’t stock brackets,” I was told. Really? You’re an exhaust fitting establishment. Surely brackets are an integral part of fitting exhausts. Well, that wasn’t a great problem. I didn’t need the car for the afternoon, and we had no plans to go anywhere far, so I left it with them while I went for a coffee, bought something from the butcher for tonight's dinner, then wandered down to meet CGF to get a lift back. They did manage to take a look in about 40 minutes, and phoned me: “bad news I’m afraid; the pipe has cracked and needs replacing. It’s going to cost a nat’s nadger short of £300”. Well that’s a bit of an escalation from £1.59, but I wasn’t greatly surprised – it was hanging down a long way, and exhaust pipes aren’t generally known for their flexibility. So much for having money after pay day yesterday. Later in the afternoon we went to the supermarket just down the road from ThickFit, so CGF dropped me on the way back. It had been over three hours by then, and they’d told me the job would take about two. “we’re waiting for a bracket – they sent the wrong one originally – 58 mm rather than 50”. What sort of motor factor muppet sends out a 50-mm exhaust pipe with a 58-mm bracket? Of course, if they kept a supply of brackets on site, they wouldn’t have this problem – it’s not like they are expensive or take up a lot of storage space. So now a fourteen-mile round trip had to be made to deliver a £1.59 bracket. I’m sure this makes sense to someone, but it doesn’t to me – logical or economical. But it is all back together now, and the exhaust pipe is closer to the floor of the car than to the road. I was shown the fractured original and asked whether I wanted to keep it – er, not really. Probably just as well I got it fixed as I’ve got a return trip to Harrogate for a funeral on Monday/Tuesday and don’t really want it falling off halfway up the M1.
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