Flat tyre

After our wet weekend in the Drakensberg, we barely had time to unpack and repack because come Good Friday we were off to Clarens, a lovely small town in the Free State, about 3 hours drive from here. However, we had an amusing escapade on Thursday before we got away. I took the car to be washed at the local “drop and shop” and was in the supermarket with 30 mins to wait when Les phoned to say he was finishing early, could I pick him up at 4.15. But the car wasn’t ready and because the place was so busy, I didn’t get it back till 4.30. Off I went, directly from the carwash, and arrived at the factory only to discover I’d left the “clicker” (electronic gate opener) in the house, having emptied the car of all valuables for the wash. So I called Les on my mobile, but he could only open it from the office and by the time he’d done that and locked up and set the alarm, the gate would be closed again. Nothing else for it but for me to drive home to pick up the “clicker”. On the way home, the car began to make a funny “ding” tone, indicating it needed petrol. Did that. Then it began to make another funny “ding” tone so I pulled over, got out the manual and discovered it was the flat tyre warning. Off to the service station where they pumped up the tyres but confirmed one had been low. Still the annoying “ding” didn’t go away, despite me following all the instructions in the manual (which is the size of “War and Peace”). I tried to phone Les to let him know of the delay….phone out of money. I queued for ages in the service station to get a top up and having been reassured by the manual that I could drive on these “runflat” tyres, I picked up Les. Meantime, he had phoned the care hire man, who suggested we check the tyre pressure. We did. No improvement. Finally we drove to the hire place, just as he was closing up for the holiday weekend. He called someone, between them they reset the onboard computer system and everything was OK. We finally got home at 6.50. So much for his early finish! No clicker, no petrol, no money on my phone…the motto is, be prepared! As for the fancy car with it’s on board computer, Les’ Dad used to say, when shown something new-fangled with many knobs and buttons, “Hmph! All the more to go wrong!” How right he was!