This weekend I drove down to Weymouth to camp with some friends at the annual Jonstock. Had a wonderful weekend; on Friday night I was so relieved to have arrived, after a five hour drive, that I jumped out of the car and joined straight in with the campfire revels. The next morning I realised I had no idea where I’d left the car keys. My spares were at home, on Gill’s keyring (I remember glancing at them on my way out of the house and, on the cusp of consciousness, thinking “I don’t need them as Gill’s not coming”. Doh!)

A weekend of field-combing produced no useful results. I was all ready to get a train to Sheffield and back for the spare keys, and then drive home again, when Gill valiantly offered to get the train down to Weymouth. We met up, got the car started up, and… knocked the exhaust pipe on our way out of the farm. Somewhere around Yeovil it hit the ground and the driver behind pulled us over to tell us we were leaving a trail of sparks. A tent peg stuffed up the two broken sections of exhaust was enough to keep them from hitting the ground, at least as far as Bristol where something else must’ve given. By the time we reached Dursley we gave in to the inevitable and checked into the crap hotel at the motorway services.

Rather than be bowed by any of this, we treated it as an unexpected romantic break away from the kids (fortunately we had a troupe of understanding and very flexible babysitters). The next morning a mechanic arrived from the local garage to strap up what remained of our exhaust, and we pootled the rest of the way up the M5, M42 and M1, sounding like a fleet of boy racers.

When we got home I noticed that my rear number plate had dropped off. Next week I’m joining ETA (that’s the Environmental Transport Association, not the Basque seperatist group).