Best laid plans and all that

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Friday was just not a good day for me.

It all started so well: the sun was shinning and it felt like a beautiful day. I had a morning meeting in London which meant I didn’t have to take a train until nearer 10am and that – along with the fact that my little boy was away for the week with grandparents – let to a lovely lie-in. When I got to the station I found out that my colleague wouldn’t be able to come to London for the meeting so it was me on my own, which wasn’t a tragedy. The morning and the meeting went well and since I’d blocked the rest of the day as a ‘working from home’ day, there was no rush to return.

I decided to do a little shopping in London and then head home. The plan was to have some lunch on the train (or at the station), get home at about 2pm then drive to they gym. I would have a nice and relaxing run followed by a quick dip in the pool and a spot of sunbathing. I wasn’t expecting my husband to return home until about 6pm or so (he’d gone to get DS from grandparents, about 90 minutes’ drive away) so I could enjoy a very relaxing afternoon and make the most of the weather.

When I got back to Milton Keynes train station and got back to my car, however, all my plans were destroyed: the car went crazy on me: lights flashed on and off uncontrollably, locking mechanism wouldn’t work, remote locking wasn’t responding. I soon discovered that it was okay to drive though so I went home where I replaced the battery in my key, thinking this could be the problem.

Of course it wasn’t. So I spent the entire afternoon driving to the dealer, sitting and waiting and then getting a quote to fix the electrics that was about the same price as flying the family to Disneyworld in first class.

When I picked myself up from the floor and made a few desperate phone calls to my husband (who was by now in another nightmarish scenario stuck in horrible traffic outside London and getting nowhere) I then drove my car to another garage to get a second opinion. In the end they managed to tell me how to fix the problem temporarily by pulling out bits from the fuse box, but that I wouldn’t be able to lock it. Monday they could then have a better look and try to figure out what was wrong.

So I had no choice but to drive home, in a very grumpy mood, get my car in the locked garage and stay there. By then I knew the boys wouldn’t be back home before 9pm due to the horrible traffic so there I was – an afternoon of freedom and without the means to go anywhere! I tried going for a run but I was so grumpy I soon stopped that. I pottered around the house in a terrible mood, both dreading the cost of fixing the car and hating it for breaking down today, of all days.

When the boys finally made it home (after 10.30pm) I was in an awful mood but I must say I was very glad to see them. I felt like the whole day had been wasted as I had had such lovely plans and did none of that, but also I am now facing a rather large bill to get my car working.

Today (Monday) the car is in the garage but I haven’t yet heard what the cost of repairs will be. I’m dreading it but at least my mood is better… I really hate it when things don’t go according to plan and when that means I have to miss out on things that give me so much pleasure. Don’t you?

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