Belt up

This is going to be the most minuscule of miniature diary entries because I have Had Enough of today and am going to hasten its conclusion.

On the good side, I am in Cambridge. I am in a little bedroom in the tower at Madingley Hall, with everything a student could possibly need, that is to say, a hot shower – there is even a bath – a socket for the computer, and a bed. I am in the latter, having availed myself of all the rest.

It was a brief availing, and I am sorry to say that my haste was such that I have done none of my usual immutable bedtime routine. I have not stood on one leg or doused myself in ice water. I have simply scrubbed myself clean and collapsed into bed.

The scrubbing took a while.

It has been a difficult day.

I set off at lunchtime, and had just passed the M61 junction when the car broke down.

Tiresomely, it was right under the nose of a traffic officer, who was sitting next to the exact spot where I slithered to a halt. He told me that he was here to help me and that he was going to do this by telling me that I had two hours to get the car off the motorway before they came along with a tow truck at massive cost.

I thanked him for such invaluable help, and he told me that I must put the hazard lights on and get out to stand on the hard shoulder, both of which I declined to do. Of all the brainless things to do, flattening my battery and getting cold and damp were not at the top of the list.

He was cross about this, and buzzed off with some threats and a request for my phone number, which I thought was probably not because he thought he might like to take me for a drink later.

Instead I rang Mark, who came belting across. This was not a quick belting across, because I was eighty miles away. He had a tow rope, which turned out to be about four feet long, and dragged the taxi, hazardously, to Charnock Richard service station, which was a mile up the motorway.

It turned out that a strip had peeled off the fan belt, because a thing called a Tensioner was not working. The strip had whipped about and cut through the wire to the cam sensor, which promptly stopped the engine.

The reason the camper van keeps going is because it does not have all of this gubbins. It does not have a sensor to its name, and seems to manage perfectly well.

Mark stole a plug off another bit of the engine, which he said, rather improbably, wasn’t doing anything, and got the engine going.

Then we drove all the way back home and he changed the fan belt and did something to the Tensioner which he said would hold it together – probably – until I got to Cambridge, which it did.

I set off. It was eight o’clock at night by then.

It was midnight when I got here.

I am tired. I am both grateful to Mark and the Gods and cross that I am going to start my last college days being frazzled and exhausted, and have missed the evening drinks in the bar.

I am sure I will feel better tomorrow.

Right now I am going to sleep.

I will talk to you tomorrow.