A couple of days ago R’s new car – that is, just over three months old – developed a slow puncture. On examination, the cause turned out to be a humongous nail, sticking out of one of the back tyres – a perplexing occurrence, but also, obviously, extremely irritating, and as it transpired, quite expensive. The earliest appointment R could get at the tyre place was this afternoon, and in the meanwhile he had to keep monitoring the tyre and refilling it as necessary.
When we went off to Stratford at lunchtime, my intention was to leave husband and car at the tyre shop and go for a good long walk, to improve my currently dire step average, and work off the irritations of the couple of hours I’d just spent at my desk, firefighting a problem with my web site. But it was so windy this afternoon that I felt as though I was being bowled along the street, and by the time I reached the Bancroft Gardens, with my clothing being pulled every which way and my hair blowing into my eyes and mouth, I’d already had enough. I’ve always detested wind, which I find childishly but genuinely enraging, and a wonderful Chinese doctor having once told me that it’s bad for my health is all the excuse I need to avoid it if I can. So I blew along the edge of the canal basin, grabbed a few shots of gulls, and then hot-footed it up through town to join R for coffee in BTP. This image looks pleasantly calm, but it’s deceptive because I took it during a brief lull: the next gust almost blew the bird off its feet, and after a couple of skittering sideways steps it gave in to the inevitable, took off from the ice cream barge, and dropped down onto the canal.
About an hour later, we’d just ordered our second round of coffees when the tyre shop called R to say they were terribly sorry, but the nail was too close to the edge of the tyre for it to be repairable, and the tyre would need to be replaced. After 1500 miles of use.
Sigh…
R: L2, C4, D5.
