I took Sophie to work this morning as we needed both cars. My Mum and Dad had an appointment at the hospital for a physiotherapy session and Mike had to go to the Golf Club again to meet one of the management staff.
I picked my parents up at 11am and we drove the short distance to the hospital. I dropped them off at the entrance and decided to go and get my car washed at Tesco. However, once there I changed my mind as they looked really busy but I decided to get some cash out anyway. I put my card and pin into the ATM and waited...and waited... I then started to panic as the machine wasn't doing anything so I pressed the cancel button twice and luckily my card came back out! A couple were waiting behind me and I warned them not to use the machine as it looked like there was a problem. I went into Tesco and told them about it but they didn't seem that interested!
I bought a coffee but after a couple of minutes I decided to go home rather than wait around for my Mum to call me. I wanted to check my bank account to make sure no money had been taken out!
Thankfully, it hadn't (so far!) so I did a couple of little jobs and then my Mum called to ask me to pick her up. I took Keith for moral support as we needed to go down to Riverside and sort out a bulb that had gone in the headlight of my car. My parents were waiting for me and we went off along the A43 into Northampton, my parents enjoying being out in the car for a ride!
As we neared Northampton, though, the traffic came to a standstill and we realised that the busy dual carriageway was down to one lane because there were men cutting the grass. We dodged down a side road and came out by the Weston Favell Centre to find the road still at a standstill! By now, I was pretty fed up but I couldn't turn around so we had to keep on going. We made it to Riverside and headed straight for Halfords where we bought a bulb and asked someone to fix it for us. They said we'd have to wait a little while so I went over to Costa and bought my parents a coffee each. They have certainly missed their trips there!
Finally, two members of staff came out to fix my headlight bulb but they took a long time to do it and I could see they were having difficulty. In the end, they managed it and we hurriedly drove back as by now it was almost 2pm!
We avoided the dual carriageway and once in the village I dropped my Mum off at the Co-op so she could do a bit of shopping and took my Dad home. The weird emissions light had come on again in my car so after settling my Dad at home we called into the garage to see if they could fix it for us. They asked me to bring the car into the garage and the bulb went again!
The very kind men then had enormous difficulty getting the bulb out as it had been jammed in and was bent, so it was a total waste of money! They replaced it for me and I made an appointment to have the emissions problem sorted out as the head man said it needed doing. They also recommended I never go to Halfords again as the staff there don't seem to be properly trained for the jobs they are doing!
Keith and I sped home and I just had time to eat a ham roll before it was time to go to school. We had a few disasters this afternoon as well - several children ended up in tears - so it was a relief when it was time to go and pick Sophie up from work when the session ended! Even going home I encountered hold-ups so I was very thankful to arrive back in one piece and treat myself to a Leffe to recover!
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