18 August 2003 | 4:05 p.m.,

bloody car

Not the best morning ever but could have been worse.

Everything was going fine and I had just dropped off my videos at Blockbuster before heading home when my car broke down.

I suppose at least it was in the relative saftey of car park rather than out on the main road in the country but it was still inconvenient and I was blocking people in where I was stuck. I had been trying to turn in order to leave the car park but its a pretty tight space so I had to do a three point turn. Went to reverse and the gear box went wonky. Thats the only word that can describe it really.

So I was basically stuck where I was. Some woman - who when she tried actually got out her space no problem - was being a bit narky when I went over and apologised and explained I had broken down. Like I was being deliberately awkward. Then some guy came back to the one car I was really blocking in but offered to push me back so he could get out and then him and another guy pushed me forward again into the empty space.

After that I felt okay cos I was more worried about where I was stopped than anything else.

The breakdown guy turned up and said it was something to do with the linkage [?!?]. He was all for towing me home but I said to go to the garage instead so we dropped the car there and he offered me a lift to the bus station.

On the way there he got another call and it turned out he had to go to another job in my village so I ended up getting a lift all the way back and he dropped me at the station so I didn't have to fork out for a bus at all. Woohoo.

And hopefully the car will be fixed tomorrow and I'll still be alright for going to Stirling :)

I was panicking for a bit though... I'm not good in a crisis.