koo and goo's big day out

Boy and I had a nice wee road trip planned for this weekend, up to see his mom in Suffolk. Boy was keen to go asap and decided we would wake up at 8.30am (on a Saturday nonetheless) with a view to leaving an hour later.

Now I think it is safe to say this got us off to a rocky start. I am the first to admit I am so not a morning person. And after the longest week EVER I was keen for some sleep. Obstacle number 1 - getting koo moving on time. I finally emerged at 9.10am, and proceeded to spend the next thirty minutes in the shower, ensuring we were late leaving.

At 10.10am, while I was faffing with my hair (it's at that annoying in-between-cuts stage), the phone rang. It was boy's brother, saying please do not arrive before 3pm as they were going out. Bloody lucky that I was taking my time then. We decided that we would head into town to take care of a few errands and leave at 12.

Errands in town were flown through. Exchanged a knackered handbag, new shoes for boy, new jeans for me, new shirts for boy. Pretty successful. Shame we left at 1pm though, an hour later than planned. I duly texted boy's bro to inform him of our lateness, and to expect us around 4pm and not to rush.

A potential obstacle - the M3 followed by the M25 - turned out to be ok. Within an hour we were at South Mimms, our usual halfway place where we stop for food. As we pulled in, boy's phone rang. His bro had not seen my text so informed him of wee change to plan. Worked fine as sounded like they too were running behind schedule.

Boy and I fed, relaxed, refreshed. Return to the car. Boy turns the key - new obstacle now as car will not start. About 6 attempts later - as this is a frequent problem of late, but usually resolved in 2 or 3 tries - we accept defeat. Boy calls recovery people. We are told will be about an hour. We sit, we wait, we read, we act up.

Finally, 75 mins later, someone comes to our aid in the noisiest tow truck ever. Recovery man (RM hereafter) left the engine running and one of the headlights was loose so kept rattling. Annoying.

Boy pops bonnet, two boys discuss the car. I read. Eventually after much poking, banging and prodding, the car still will not start. We are at north London. We live way down in Hampshire. It's 4.30pm on a Saturday - no garage would be able to fix it on time. We decide sensible option is to have car (and us) taken back home - well car to garage in town and then us home.

Sadly, RM tells us that only a 10-mile tow is free, anything above that we have to pay for. This is criminal. What is the point, I ask you, of recovery cover if it pretty much only covers you in your hometown? Ludricous. And a phone call on Monday will follow, rest assured. In the meantime, we have no other option but to suck it up and pay the obscene amount to get towed back home.

£132 and 90 minutes later we are finally back at home, tired and nothing to show for our rather expensive day (even the earlier shopping trip had been moderate - lots of gift vouchers/sales around). We are back where we started five hours previous, minus a car, and in need of rescuing by our fairy princess in her blue stallion. Defeated in the battle, but not the war. Take note recovery people - I'm coming for you on Monday.

And so koo and goo's big day out drew to a close, and we retired once more to our couch with beer to reflect on what we learnt today.