Busy Day

Yesterday I had to go to the garage and pick up a tyre which had been replaced at the weekend. After which, I then was going to take my son to see my friend who I had not seen since college, sounds simple right? Wrong.....

We set of in our lovely Series III Land Rover, Frank the tank, at about 10am. I hoped to reach the tyre place by about 10.45am, then we'd go and find somewhere for lunch, as my friend wasn't due to be home till about 1.30pm.

Halfway into our journey on the M3, just before junction 6, Franks' engine cut out.... I pulled over to the hard shoulder and tried to re-start but it just wouldn't. So I called the AA who said it would take between 1 and 2 hours to reach us. Great. I had a brief look under the bonnet incase something had come loose, but couldn't see anything obvious.

So, myself and my son (5 years old) sat up on the hill by the side of the motorway. I'd stuck my warning triangle out and everything. Now the Land Rover doesn't have hazzard lights, or even a reversing light, so I'd put my side lights on as the AA man suggested.... rubbish. I had to prop the warning triangle up with my steering lock, as it kept being blown over by passing lorries!

We sat for about 15 minutes, waiting when a policeman pulled up behind us. He'd seen us on his way past and turned back to check we were OK. He got onto to AA and managed to get them out to us after 45 minutes of waiting. Yay!

So Frank was loaded up on a flatbed and we were driven back home. By this time it was 12.20pm, so we'd lost loads of time. There was another AA man on his way to see if he could fix Frank for us and we were told he'd be with us by 12.30. He was a bit late, 12.40, but he did manage to get Frank going and told me that my ignition points needed doing. This was funny, because my husband our friend had only decided the week before that they needed doing but would be OK for a while...... Why does it always happen that way?!

So Frank fixed, but needing new points, I decided it would be best to leave him home and take Filbert, the Fiesta.... we got to the tyre place at about 1.30pm, I'd let my friend know already we'd be late and told her what happened. Picked up the tyre and then set off to find her house.

Got a bit lost, as I always do.... but got there in the end about 2.30pm. We had a lovely time seeing her and her animals, 2 kittens, 2 goats, 2 horses, 2 pigs, a yard cat and some cows in a neighboring field. Her partner took us for a ride on the tractor, I rode her horse and my son also had a sit on the horse. It was lovely, because despite me working with horses and him having been round them, he'd not been happy to sit on one whilst it moved, so he watched me ride, and then decided to have a go.

My friends horse, Dom, was very good and was happy to walk slowly about whilst my son told my friend which way to go! I held onto my son to make him feel safer. He thoroughly enjoyed it! 

We left my friends farm at about 5.45pm, after helping to put the pigs away! and headed home. Now my son wanted to go to McDonalds for lunch, but sadly we never made it to our lunch due to the break down, so we decided to pull into a service station on the way home.

My son, Alex, wolfed his food down in no time, and then helped me to finish my chips! We then set off to finish our journey home. We stopped at another McDonalds closer to home, to pick up a meal for my husband, who had been at work and had gotten home whilst we were out.

After finally getting home at about 8pm, I fed the cats and made sure the hens still had food (they have a huge feeder, so more for my piece of mind than anything) and then took Alex upstairs to get him ready for bed. He was so tired by this point, but had a really good day.


Today will be a quieter day, just the shopping this morning, and then the man from the tyre company is coming to pick the tyre up.... hopefully, it'll be slightly less eventful than yesterday!