venta: (Default)
venta ([personal profile] venta) wrote2003-12-11 09:40 am

Hurray for me.

Picture the road this morning: full of cars on the other side, full of puddle on our side. More puddle than expected, it would seem, because by the time we pulled out of it, the engine was definitely Not Going. Frances waggled the ignition key for a while, and talked to it nicely: no luck. Eventually I got out into the nasty rain with a bunch of tissues, detached the HT leads from the distributor cap, dried them all off, and shoved them back in. It started first go.

I feel positively heroic.

Of course, then we sat for half an hour in the mess that is the roadworks in Sonning. You can't have everything.

[identity profile] drdoug.livejournal.com 2003-12-11 03:21 am (UTC)(link)
I got out into the nasty rain with a bunch of tissues, detached the HT leads from the distributor cap, dried them all off, and shoved them back in.

Nice one! I don't like getting my hands dirty (what a wuss!) so I used to carry a can of WD-40 to drive out the moisture when I had a petrol-engined car ... but fixing a car that won't start with a bunch of tissues is way cooler!

[identity profile] venta.livejournal.com 2003-12-11 03:25 am (UTC)(link)
Tissues were only the solution of choice because the bottle of WD-40 was mysteriously absent from the Bag O' Stuff in the boot :)

[identity profile] drdoug.livejournal.com 2003-12-11 03:28 am (UTC)(link)
That's good improvisation.

Maybe someone had eaten all the WD-40 and not gone out to the corner shop for a replacement? Mmmm, WD-40!

[identity profile] venta.livejournal.com 2003-12-11 04:38 am (UTC)(link)
Ah, you've clearly met my housemates.

WD-40: Great With Aubergines!

[identity profile] addedentry.livejournal.com 2003-12-11 05:20 am (UTC)(link)
So that's where it's been concealed all this time.

Oh, sorry, I thought you wrote WMD-40.

[identity profile] venta.livejournal.com 2003-12-11 05:39 am (UTC)(link)
Seasonal problems. Thinking of the wine called "Great With Fish" (or "Great With Chicken"), and wondering about the Virgin Mary being described as great with child...

[identity profile] bateleur.livejournal.com 2003-12-11 08:23 am (UTC)(link)
Now we know why all the demons are always after the blood of virgins !

"You're such a pleb Beelzebub - Who drinks white wine when they're eating babies ?"

Anecdote time !

[identity profile] bateleur.livejournal.com 2003-12-11 06:59 am (UTC)(link)
That story very much reminds me of the time I was driving Jez around in [livejournal.com profile] lathany's old Micra.

I drove through this big puddle (at about 30mph) and the engine stopped and the battery died (all the lights went off - it was dark at the time). Then, once out of the puddle, the momentum of the vehicle restarted the engine and the lights came back on.

Jez couldn't stop laughing for quite some time.

A couple of years later he drove his big shiny Subaru Impreza into a puddle and it died and didn't restart. In fact it was written off !

Micra: 1 Impreza: 0

[identity profile] ao-lai.livejournal.com 2003-12-11 09:00 am (UTC)(link)
Of course, then we sat for half an hour in the mess that is the roadworks in Sonning. You can't have everything.

I'm glad we went through Henley, then! :)

[identity profile] narenek.livejournal.com 2003-12-11 01:58 pm (UTC)(link)
Hurray for you indeed! [livejournal.com profile] angry_marmot and I were most impressed.