ain't a-gonna work no more

Thursday nights after rehearsal, I am the last to leave as I lock the school gates. Our MD usually waits to make sure everything is locked—which was handy this week, as my car wouldn't start. I asked her to collect Beast and the battery charger, which she did—it still took a good while for the car to decide to start once it had the charger pack attached, but eventually we were able to drive home.

It didn't start again until this morning. Beast drove it off to the garage, and walked home. I am not sanguine about its prospects, particularly since they apparently paid no attention to his very reasonable suggestion as to what to do.

Sigh.

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As well as a non-functioning car, we have a non-functioning boiling tap. Beast changed the filter—which he has done before—and it just won't come back online. Naturally, the service phone line is undergoing unexpected levels of demand (trans: doesn't employ enough people to answer the phones) so we are stuck with the kettle. Which is fine, really, except that my neural pathways have been retrained, so I'm constantly getting the timing wrong or, on one occasion, filling the coffee mugs with cold water from the boiling tap. Sigh.

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We spent the morning shredding stuff in the garden. Well, Beast did. I was startled from my cuppa-in-bed by what sounded like a serious problem in the radiator system, but when I leaped from my bed to seek answers, I realised he was outside with the trusty Bosch. So I got dressed in my gardening clothes, had a leisurely breakfast, and went outside to help. There was a *huge* pile of branches, sticks, brambles and what not, which is now mulching some of the hedge border.

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Beast gave me a stay-wet palette as a Valentine gift this morning! He is a treasure.