To get myself from place to place on my Midlands Tour I hired a car from the local car hire place near Tanya's. Tans and I have both used them before and they were dodgey, but fairly reliable and much easier to access as they are located around the corner from her house!
So this time I got a Citroen Picasso
Mainly because I feel safer driving a bigger car.
I had made it to Rugby fine, albeit the long way thanks to my TomTom! Apparently he likes to go via all major motorways rather than the quick way through A roads and back streets!
The next day, I was packed and the GPS was set for Nottingham, but when I pulled out from the Rugby Hotel, the car did not feel right. There was a thumping rattling kafump sort of noise. I pulled into the nearest petrol station, which was just around the next corner, so I couldn't have gone 100 metres. When I got out...... this is what I found!
I was only slightly devo'ed at this point. I thought how lucky it was that I was at a garage and that they'd be able to help me because as independent as I claim to be, I have never changed a tyre. I've got a vague idea of what should probably happen. I know you have to jack up the car and I know that nuts have to be unscrewed and I generally know where to look for the spare tyre. However..... in this hire care, which has 7 seats - doesn't have a spare tyre. Once I figured that out, I started to panic, but only slightly because as I said, I was in a garage and they would surely help me. So.... in I walk. I approach the counter and say to the lady, "Hello, I was wondering if somebody could help me, I have a flat tyre." Her reply overwhelmed me.... "Oh, well, the guy who's here, well he's hurt his back and I've got a sore elbow, so......" I stared blankly at her for a minute and furrowed my brow for a bit, raised my eyebrows and then just thanked her for all her help and walked out.
I tried to pump up the tyre, which cost £0.20p for 2 minutes of air!!!!! but the thing just wouldn't go up! So that had pretty much exhausted all my tyre changing expertise, and I even had a couple of helpful people who tried to give it a go just in case I was doing it wrong, but still to no avail......so I resorted to calling the RAC, it came with the hire car, so it wasn't going to cost me a limb as far as I knew. I rang the ever so helpful lady who asked me a whole batch of questions that I wasn't able to answer and she informed me that someone would be there within the hour.
Enter George - My Hero in High Vis!
(Not the real George, I thought it was a little creepy to ask for his photo!)
George did a little more than just walking around the car kicking the tyres and got straight onto the problem...... the biggest being that it was a Sunday and he wasn't sure if we could get another tyre that day!!! It wasn't all doom and gloom, It wasn't as if I was in the middle of nowhere I could have just left the car there and walked my suitcase back the hotel and stayed for another night, but George was determined to fix this problem for me. Bless him! He got chatting and I learned that he was married and that he keeps in contact with a couple of exgirlfriends via email rather than Facebook because his wife doesn't want him to do that.... ! It's funny what people will tell you in those sorts of circumstances. All I said was that I keep in touch with people on Facebook and away he went! He assured me that they were just friends, because they were exes for a reason, right?! I had to assure him that I didn't really care about that part of his tyre changing skills.
Anyway..... a Tyre Plus type shop came up with the goods and I had a brand new tyre, free - thanks to RAC, and was ready to go.
The funny thing was that the lady from behind the counter kept coming out to see me and offer me cups of tea and coffee and advice. I must have made her feel a bit guilty or perhaps she saw just how helpless I was before George arrived. She suggested the most unusual ideas to fix the tyre. She even told me, at length, about how her sister's car (not a Citroen Picasso, I might add at this point) has a foam dispenser for when she gets a flat tyre and you spray it into the wheel and it inflates. It ruins to tyre mind you, but it gets you to where you need to go to get a new one. I stared at her blankly waiting for something unsarcastic to come to mind, but when nothing came, I had to just reply..... I think I'll just wait for the RAC. She was my new best friend, I don't know who was working behind the counter..... maybe the man with the bad back?
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