Bucks fizz and ladies who breakfast

 

I meant the drink of course but any excuse for a cheap gag

 

I have arrived. After more than 12 months in Seychelles, I got an invitation to join some lovely ladies for breakfast and bucks fizz – this being I guess the practical progression from ladies who lunch – as ladies with kids have to go pick them up at around 2pm leaving scant time for boozy,lazy lunches. This for me was a big adventure – my first official acceptance of a social invite that required me to drive there and back out of choice (not necessity). Of course, I knew where the house was, it was close by and not up any horrible hills or narrow paths otherwise I wouldn’t have gone. If that makes me sad, I am.

I made it to the house (and found parking) safely and some people arrived later than me, always good. S had laid out the table beautifully and us ladies sat down to a feast of eggs, bread, toms, bacon and beans, tea and bucks fizz – though no bacon for me noooo. Though unaware of who else who would be there, this being ‘the shells’ I knew about half of the ladies anyway and so passed the time happily chatting away and S as always was a great hostess. Everyone else had kids so I felt a bit like an awkward younger sister,  not that they talked about it a lot but I was hardly chipping in with the great night the other one and I spent mixing tunes and getting drunk or how much headway I was making into my mission to read classic literature, but maybe that was because I just didn’t know everyone well or was too sober : )

Leaving, I managed not to reverse into the gatepost and made it home in one piece. Hurrah.

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Sorry random Gadaffi aside..

Do you ever have those moments when there’s a random fact that you’ve picked up along the way but it having been so long since you picked it up and you never really had the proper details in the first place that you start to doubt that it was ever a ‘fact’ in the first place?

I had that feeling about something I thought I knew about Gadaffi. Looking for a picture of him, I stumbled upon another picture and rejoice, I was vindicated, it was clearly a fact and I’m not going mad!

Colonel Gadaffi has in his time as leader of Libya found time to invent a car with no proper corners. Really, honestly, truthfully. A safety thing apparently. Here is the incontrovertible proof – and read it here.

Must admit though, not seen a lot of them on the road.

What next, Cameron invents robot to replace the civil service? or the Lib Dems? or how about Boris Johnson – it could be the version with a scouse accent…

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The car is fixed

I dream of brand new cars. I want a brand new car, shame they cost about 10k upwards. Instead, we content ourselves with having a new radiator pipe that’s fixed by our new mechanic down Pascal Village (never before visited and now twice there in 48 hours) and we sit and wait on old car seats in his yard in the balmy heat, a school girl stops by for a glass of water before continuing on her walk home (apparently she does the same thing every day) and I feel like I’m in a different Seychelles, the languid Caribbean kind. And I like it. I also like that our car is fixed.

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The morning after

No sex involved, just hot car – not as in stolen (who’d have it) or jaw droppingly sexy (it’s bright green) but as in overheated. Yup, turns out that our radiator pipe had a tear in it causing it to overheat. We are yet again grateful to lovely people, we borrowed our neighbours car to go put a sign on the car to say please don’t tow it and in the bargain also got the number of a whizz mechanic as our guy wasn’t about. Despite it being a Sunday, whizz mechanic sent out his son to help us, who arrived from the beach with his mate and girlfriend and kids in the back. How bad did we feel? He lobbed off a bit of the radiator pipe and put it back together again and believe it or not we could drive it home – well I drove it home and the other one followed me- glad it was only down the road. So a new radiator pipe and brackets to be bought. Flippin cars

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The Hangover#3 – and then it happens

this car has a lot to answer for...

Half a mile from our house, just before a bend and the dashboard flashed and the car stopped dead. The other one tried the engine and there was nothing. My stomach dropped, we were surrounded by the deepest black and it was nearly midnight. It was horrible. We got out the car, put the hazards on and watched as a few cars drove by. We had to move the car, if we’d left it, as it was just before a bend, it would have been totalled (perhaps not a bad thing?). Thankfully, a car stopped and three young Seychellois lads offered a hand, even more thankfully, there was a house with a private drive where we could tuck the car away (we’d have been buggered if we’d broken down further up the road as there was just a ditch…. ) They kindly offered us a lift but we’d already decided who our best friend was to come pick us up -the poor bloke with the months old baby who we kept up till 7am that morning – bet he loved that we chose him.

As we waited we cursed the car, cursed the day and cursed the piggin Seychelles. Our mate arrived, dropped us off and no doubt he cursed us all the way home.

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Sideswiped

Off for a quick dip at Beau Vallon of a Friday eve, we pull into the adjacent car park that has one lone stationary car parked and another reversing (badly) into one of the squillion available places. The reversing vehicle doesn’t appear to spot us (a minor feat if you’ve seen how green our car is) and so the other one beeps. No reaction. He beeps again a bit more urgently. Still nothing. Realising that the best tactic is just get out the way flippin quickly, the other one throws us into reverse but too late, the guy clips the right hand side of our car and crunch, something makes a not very welcome noise.

Flibberty gibbert, said the mild mannered wife.

We get out as does the other guy and instead of apologising for his complete stupidity he tells us it’s our fault as we should have been at least 20ft away from him – really? The guys who come over who saw it happen didn’t seem to think so but they explain as it’s a car park on private land,  it’s best that we come to some agreement with the guy. The other one presses for insurance details but the stupid (and drunk man) is not playing ball, repeatedly refusing to tell us his name and then settling on John. He thinks we’re as stupid as him.

We go round in circles, we offer to go halves on the damage, we take his license plate number, he says he has no telephone number, we give him ours – we know we’re getting nowhere. In the end, we just have enough and get in the car, too annoyed to swim so we sod off back home. We’ll never hear from him again.

Later we inspect the damage, the sidelight is smashed but the other one doesn’t think it’s that bad and thinks that it may have been cracked anyway. So we just ignore it. The car’s pretty much a shed so it won’t make much difference.

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McEnroe car style woes #2

‘I DON’T F’in BELIEVE IT’

The tyre’s gone down AGAIN. Any zen and karma like auras achieved have been ditched and replaced by a seething inner rage expressed by a well aimed kick (or two) at the wheel in question.

We return to our tyre expert who diagnoses flaking paint on the rim as the cause of a slight leakage of air between the two. This time he fixes it more thoroughly than at the Roche Caiman petrol station and as I wait, I notice a large puddle near the door of the car. Nope, I haven’t wet myself in excitement that the sodding thing might be fixed, it seems to be rather water leaking from our back car door. I open the door and fiddle about with the rubber sealing and behold, a gush of water falls from between the rubber and the door. It seems after the heavy rainfall the night before rather than keep the water out, the sealing has kept the water in.

Flippertygibbert I said.

I let the water out and hope the door just wasn’t shut properly. An aberration, I reassure myself, and look to the heavens and smile desperately at whatever may be up there.

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Zen and the art of coming to terms with car maintenance

see he's laughing

I’ve got my meditation date and like a child in a custody battle, I’m handed off from one party to the other in car park of ‘Freshcuts butchers’, high glamour in the Seychelles, as I’m way too chicken (boom boom) to drive the hills of La Misere, especially not knowing where I’m going. I feel guilty as my meditation buddy drives in and clocks me behind the wheel (getting in practice with the other one) so much so that I spend the rest of the journey explaining in torturous length my driving history (or lack of it) that given she’s at the wheel, she cannot but listen to, bet she was regretting her decision already.

I admire her house and engage in more interesting chit chat (having established the baseline of boredom with my car whining) while waiting for her other friend to arrive. I’d been careful to raise some of my concerns by email, like what if I burst out laughing? So again, I established early on the level at which I operate at (barely adult some might allege), though it does worry me if my lentil curry from the night before decides to say hello. I just hope I can meditate (or clench) it away.

I have a little intro about what meditation is all about, clearing the mind of clutter and for this particular type of meditation, of being mindful of the feelings being experienced (though my recollection may not be accurate!). I sit cross legged on a cushion, lean against the sofa and close my eyes being guided through the meditation. We’re encouraged to listen to the sounds around us before following the rhythm of our own breathing and then focusing on one particular area and to try and filter out all other distractions ( like wondering how long before our next puncture and do we need another fan belt?). All’s good, until about halfway through when my bony ankle impedes itself on my consciousness, telling me it doesn’t like being jammed against the floor. I try to move about subtly but it’s not much relief and I don’t want to break people’s attention by fidgeting too much (a major challenge). So the ankle gnaws away at me as does that state of our car, until after 30 minutes, I’m released from being at one with my mind and get to be at one with my belly as we share chocolate cake and chat about how I found the meditation.

I don’t think I properly inhabited the zone but would definitely try it again and found myself reading from cover to cover the magazine about mindful living that I was lent. I doubt I’ll be a total convert but think that it can only be beneficial to sit every now and then and aim for some inner space and peace (though not quite ready for ten full days of it!). I think my success at meditation would be aided considerably if I had a new car, though I’m not sure that Buddha would like that.

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McEnroe car style woes #1

‘I DON’T BELIEVE IT’

The tyre’s gone down.

*&*&(^(%

It’s super early as I had to drop the other one at work and I’d hoped to have a swim while I waited for the tyre place to open but bad planning, it ain’t open. Instead, I wander around the 2km running track, in normal clothes and a handbag, trying to look purposeful and avoid drawing attention to myself, I’m not sure I’m doing that well. My suspicions are confirmed when I manage to tread on a branch that springs forward, whacking me in the leg, making me yelp loudly and producing a limp and a bloodied leg that not only secures the attention of the few others about at 7.30am but brings a new low to my definition of myself as clumsy. I can’t now actually even walk without injuring myself.

Though, the garage opens at 8am, its about 20 minutes later before anyone turns up and explains that there’s a leak between the rim and the tyre.This they fix, though I blink and miss what they do exactly. They don’t charge which is nice of them but I take this to mean that either they didn’t do a good job fitting the tyres in the first place or they think me completely stupid and have immense pity for me, either way, you can read ‘chump’ on my forehead.

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&^**(*%^^***!£^ or challenging car times

the pimp mobile limps on

Perhaps I should have followed the car saint route more doggedly; if a higher being exists, it seems to be trying, bizarrely, to communicate to me via motor vehicles. I don’t know what I’ve done to vex it so, I think it may be the destruction I wrought on cars I learnt to drive in and the ‘expressive’ language that accompanied such outings. Whatever it is, we have another sodding puncture and it’s not sodding funny.

We seek the advice of various ‘experts’ that helpfully don’t agree on anything but then that’s what I think experts are meant to do. Someone suggests rims, someone else a need for good quality tyres. We opt for the tyre route first and make for Providence, a mecca for car enthusiasts (though enthusiastic is not exactly how I’d describe myself, try desperate).

We’re looking for 13inch, 185/17’s or something, presumably a popular tyre as everyone seems to be sold out. It looks like we might have to order China’s finest ‘Goodride’ (suggesting its everything but that) but I realise that the window we’re looking in is not of the tyre shop that is closed but of the tyre shop right next to it (nothing like friendly competition…)

We walk in and are informed that they have the right size tyres and not only that; they’re Bridgestone and affordable. I never thought that there would come a moment in my life that I would be this happy about a brand of tyres. It almost made me weep – you see these tyres have a lot riding on them (pun completely intended), they will solve all our wheel problems, of course.

We leave the shop happy bunnies and the very next day we get our brand new tyres fitted. We even manage to convince ourselves that we can tell the difference:

The other one: ‘wow it feels different don’t you think’

Me: ‘Weird, it does, it’s like sooo much smoother’

Both of us: ‘these tyres are amazing’.

If my friends missed me before, I doubt they will now.

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