Day & Night Driving

God, it's surprising how much attention a bit of beard topiary gets. I was wrong yesterday, it was the 30th of March when I last shaved, not my birthday.

Quick moustache update after some more carving around the bottom lip (aka the soul patch on the mentolabial sulcus, which is quite extensive on my facial hair) and a bit more slashing back on the lower cheeks:

Still not fully happy with the result and may have to carve a bit more away on the underside, but I'll see how it goes. Can't see it lasting for more than a couple of weeks anyway; there's only so much willy waving you can do.

Back to the subject at hand. Got an emergency call from Hay on Tuesday - she was at work in Filton (thank God it wasn't Weston-Super-Mare, Swindon, Cardiff or Gloucester, which it could easily have been) and had tried to move her car at lunchtime, but the key was stuck in the ignition and wouldn't crank the engine.

I looked up the fault on a Chrysler Crossfire forum and saw it was common in older cars and had something to do with either the tumblers in the ignition lock, or the pin that locked the steering column - not necessarily expensive, but not possible to fix quickly roadside.

I was about to call a friend in the trade to go and collect it on his transporter, but thought I'd better go and have a butcher's myself first.

I arrived in her work car park and spotted the car. Climbed inside and, yes, the key was in the ignition and wouldn't come out. I turned the key and all the dash lights came on, but no power to the starter motor.

I happened to look in the direction of the automatic gear shift and, lo and behold, she'd left it in Drive, rather than Parked. Slipped it into P and everything was fine. Hay was, needless to say, rather embarrassed.

When I got back to Old Sodbury I decided to fill my car at the local service station and recounted the experience to my friend Juan, who works part time behind the till. He said he had a similar experience, or rather his wife did, when he bought her an automatic car. Juan himself can't drive, as he has narcolepsy, whereby he can suddenly fall asleep unexpectedly, which is not advisable when driving. The car worked fine for his wife during the day, but wouldn't move at night. He finally tracked the issue down to his wife and her interpretation of the letters on the automatic shift - she was under the impression that D stood for Day and N stood for Night. A far better story than mine.