Plans

I managed to get on Timbo's insurance for a week, starting yesterday, as he has chicken pox and is house bound. Naturally I made some plans to maximise the freedom and headed up to Loughborough yesterday to watch Ian play rugby and see Megan. The plan was to come home late, (like after 12 at least), so that Ian would be home for Mothers day (happy mothers day mum!! I know its not the Aussie one but I don't actually know when that is and will almost certainly miss it so I am capitalising on the opportunity) and so I could run sunday morning youth at church. That was the plan anyway. Halfway out of Oxford I noticed the heat guage was very high. A quick call to Tim put my mind at ease, apparently it stays hot till you get out on the motorway and then she cools down. So I headed up the motorway and got most of the way to the M1, just under halfway to Loughborough, when the engine light came on. I pulled into a service station and checked the water (had checked this AND the oil before I left and they had both been fine) both were still ok but I topped up the water and let it cool down for twenty mins before deciding to give it another go. The car seemed fine again, except that the heat climbed very quickly, and it was driving fine, not doing anything that it should not have been. About 5mins later however the car started losing power, the engine light came back on and I started hearing worrying noises, I just managed to get it to the next BP station where it promptly died and refused to come back to life. Steam from under the bonnet suggested a blown head gasket. Not good. I called Tim and he said it sounded like a head gasket, told me he'd make some calls and then see about getting me home.
3 hours later. I had finished my book, beaten my own high score at solataire three times (now stands at 119 seconds, 6573 points. Heck Yeah!!) listened to my cd five times, paid an exorbitant amount for a sandwich and muffin, and written half of a letter. Stu and Tim rocked up with the dirtiest, most pathetic piece of rope I've ever seen (about as tick as my finger) to tow me home with. We quadruple layered it to stop it snapping and being to big a gap between the cars and twisted it into a half decent rope which I double locked off in both directions and then some, basically I made it up as I went along but it worked. We worked out a series of army style hand signals to communicate what Stu was about to do in the car in front, and after a couple of missunderstandings and close calls worked it out so that we could drive almost as one. Cruising down the motorway at 50(miles) we were a sight to behold, so impressed were the other drivers they drove past with mouths agape, clearly speechless at our genius and daring. The Police however would not have been speechless on the topic and so we kept a sharp eye out and made it all the way to Oxford before not one but two police cars pulled out directly in front of us. We quickly pulled off the side of the road and I called Tim to say "Shizzer!! The bullen commen!!" (Something we picked up off the Germans last week that seemed appropriate to the situation) We made it home without further incident and had only snapped one strand of the make shift rope, we'd done well. Even better, there's a pub directly across from Tims house and I walked in just in time to see England score a spectacular first try against Wales (who, in fairness, beat them in style by the end of the match). France won the six nations, should have been Ireland... gutted.
So that the day was not a complete mess, Heth came to get me and we headed to Emma's to chill. Halfway there I realised that Heths lights weren't on. Spent the other half of the journey giving her stick about it. Watched the last half of Bridget Jones Diary, a thoroughly girly movie, before discovering Fight Club was on another channel, a thoroughly un-girly movie.
There were two up points to the weekend. Friday nite, the boys from last week showed up, I took them aside for a quick word and they were absolutely fine, they came in and played volleyball with us and there was not a hint of the anger and so on from last week. Grace and Mercy seemed to have a powerful effect. The whole nite was fantastic, a great four a side football thing got going and there was laughter and good natured banter in the other room all nite. Amazing stuff. The other thing was that I got given a bunch of clothes the pators son was throwing out, he's pretty much my size exactly and he has stupidly good taste in clothes as he is a designer. I quite literally doubled my wardrobe over nite.
Now feeling very much like I need to sleep so I think I'll go have a kip before church tonite. Im open to this becoming a kip instead of church tonite, but James is doing his first talk so I want to go support him.