OK, OK, no offence against blondes here, Katarina is one.
So, this week I decide I'll go for the Mother of the Week award (a friend asked who was nominating me - I replied "I am!"). And so instead of just sitting around all the half term, pretty much doing nothing except watching TV, playing on the computer, reading and eating, I thought it would be great to some sort of project with the children. Good idea. Well received by said children and we chose the subject of British wildlife and nature.
Things get off to a good start. On Tuesday afternoon we studied butterflies. Did some word searches, coloured in some butterfly pictures, learnt about the different body parts and identified some different types of butterflies. The plan is the following day, Wednesday, we will go to the local garden centre where there is Butterfly World.
So now, the blonde moment. We set off for Butterfly World but I need to stop to fill up the car with petrol. It's been on red for a couple of days. I'm standing in a world of my own, dreaming away (probably about hoping we find all the butterflies on the tick lists I've downloaded from the Internet or else the children are going to be disappointed), when I look down and read the label on the inside of the fuel flap. Hmmmm, I'm filling up the car with unleaded petrol - and my car is a diesel!!!!
Oooops. And not a small amount of unleaded but £40 of worth of unleaded. What to do, what to do? Thoughts go through my head at a random rate, "I'll just stop here, pay for the petrol and just go home and then call Richard. No, no, don't do that you may not make it home. But I don't want to be stranded on the garage forecourt. It's embarrassing. OK, OK, I'll pay for the petrol and then drive just around the corner and then call Richard". Then somehow, don't ask me how, I have this little "feeling" about how you shouldn't ever start the car when you've done this as it makes the problem worse and causes huge problems.
Long story short we spend the afternoon, not at Butterfly World, but being towed by a humongous, and I do mean big, tow truck to the Chrysler garage, where we then spend another long tedious time before being told that they are sorry but they won't be able to do it today and we'll get a taxi here to take you home and oh, by the way it's going to cost £350 to fix! £350? My first thoughts were give me a piece of hosepipe and I'll suck out the stupid petrol. But apparently no, this won't work as most new cars are fitted with anti-syphoning stuff and that's why it's going to cost so much to fix. They have to take the fuel tank out of the car!
Richard, bless him, has been so understanding. His comment? "Well, look on the bright side, if you hadn't had the sense to not turn on the engine the garage told me we'd be looking at a bill of £2500, so you've saved us over £2000!".
Got to love that man.
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