I drove over to a friend’s house in Sudbury last night. It’s almost exactly 10 miles each way. The drive over was free of any excitement. I stopped for petrol and Bob was perfect. Purring away and so enjoyable an experience I composed a lyrical waxing about the joys of older vehicles in my head to be included here today.

On arrival D asked if he could have a look around Bob and I of course obliged. We had a look around her and, because it was dark, I put the internal light on for maybe a minute or so before making a point of switching it off and going back into the house.

Three hours later I say my goodbyes, wipe clean the condensation from the windows and fire her up. Nothing. The ignition lights appeared for a split second and then nothing. The battery was dead. Infuriatingly the battery jump-start pack I bought last week to use on the Smart (which was intended to live in Bob as a backup) hadn’t made it from the kitchen at home and so I was stuck. Not wanting to encur the wrath of the RAC’s fair-use panel I made my apologies and asked D for a jump start.

Thankfully he has jump leads and thankfully Bob started straight away and was again a joy to drive on the way home. I’m still going to write that piece about the joys of older-car ownership, but my word she is certainly pushing her luck at the luck at the moment…