Whirrrrrrrrr whirrrrrrrr whirrrrrrr whirrrrrrrrr

If that was, say, a helicopter, that would be a good noise. As it was my car it was not such a welcome noise. Particularly given that my car doesn’t have rotor blades (How cool would that be?!).

So, that led to all sorts of excitement that basically proved, to all those people who weren’t aware, that I don’t have a clue about how my car works.

Firstly I woke up my housemate, J, who for someone who is really, really not a morning person, was an absolute star.

First job was to move the car out of the way of everyone else as I was blocking in the whole rest of the house – now how was I meant to know that the steering is locked when the keys aren’t in the ignition? These are details that I’ve never needed to know. However, J helped sort that one out – by telling me.
Mary’s learning point number 1.

We got the car moved and A went to work. Then my car share arrived. It was suggested that we tried jump starting the car. Somewhere in the house there are some jump leads. Somewhere. So J popped out to buy some more (we’ll now find the original ones this evening – them be da rules). They then tried to jump start the car (note, I had little to do with this – I just did what I was told).
Mary’s learning point number 2.

This didn’t work. I had already called the RAC, to get into the queue; A had suggested that would be a good idea as I could always cancel it later.

In due course, the RAC man turned up, said he knew exactly what the problem was – and proceeded to start the car. Apparently if you cold start and engine and only leave it running for a minute then the next time you start the car the engine might be flooded. It’s quite normal apparently. So swapping the cars round on the drive last night wasn’t the time saver it was meant to be. Ho hum.
Mary’s learning point number 3.

I’ve explained to my colleagues (now that I’m in the office) that I’m a civil engineer so not meant to understand things that move, and that I do know some things about my car – It’s blue, it has wheels and the petrol goes in the hole at the back. They are not looking that impressed.

And now, in the safety of the office I’ve just tripped over a flat bit of floor.

Sigh.