Despite knowing the date of my MOT appointment months in advance, I still ended up searching for somewhere to have a tyre changed before 10am last Saturday, before waiting in a freezing car park to see if my clapped-out seven-seater was going to pass as roadworthy.
It was hard to tell whether my teeth were clattering from fear or cold as I stood pondering whether I managed to pick up all the mummified French fries and decayed fruit from under the baby’s car seat.
As a mother-of-four, my vehicle functions as a mobile skip as well as a means of transporting my horde to and from school but despite the fact that you may need a tetanus jab after being inside, my daily life would be extremely difficult without it – hence the fear that she would fail.
More’s the pity that we don’t do it like the British, where they leave their car with a mechanic who works on it and writes the certificate in one go, or even do it once every two years like the south of Ireland.
But us northerners are like a child in the middle of a messy divorce getting on with their homework while the parents argue over who gets custody.
I’ve sat GCSEs, A-levels and a degree and it doesn’t even compare to the happiness and pride I felt when the aul lad at the test centre handed me that A4 sheet of paper and told me my car had passed.
We’re safe for another year, lads.
I suppose I should book next year’s now, though, if I want to get in on time.
***
The old saying goes “America sneezes and the rest of the world catches a cold’, but I reckon the US has farted and we are all downwind.
While big D stirs up a major stink by appointing his new team in the style of the popular kid in school picking first at gym class, in true Trump style his favourites are the ones you would see on the detention list rather than the honour roll.
So far he has appointed Pete Hegseth – a Christian nationalist crusader who spouts Russian propaganda – as secretary of defence (not to mention that Hegseth has been investigated for sexual assault allegations and paid a woman ‘hush money’) and nominated a vaccine sceptic to oversee the health of the nation.
The president-elect’s first pick for the role of attorney general, Matt Gaetz, is under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, accepting improper gifts and obstructing government investigations.
I can’t decide if the women in his circle have no scruples or whether the Botox injections are the reason nobody seems to be raising an eyebrow at these choices.
It’s all fun and games until the taxpayer is left holding the bag.
Meanwhile, we should all just hold our noses.
***
Supposedly we are set for snow this winter, although given the accuracy of our meteorologists, I say this with all the confidence of a fairground fortune teller.
The kids are hoping to finally get using the plastic sleds that we bought a few years ago and I am secretly praying it doesn’t come to that for a few reasons.
The major one is that school usually closes when it snows, which generally means that the few quiet hours I use to work from home will be filled with shouts, screams and scuffles, not to mention my fridge getting emptied in one hour.
The other reason I don’t want the kids looking for the sleds is that I think I’ve thrown them away – although I’m the type of parent that will help my child search for half an hour for a bar of chocolate which I know full well I’ve eaten, so I may just need to tell them that the spiders ate their snow toys in the shed.
It always amuses my American friends when they hear that everything comes to a standstill simply because we get a few inches of snow, while they still carry on their daily lives after 7ft of it falls on their yard overnight.
My mate from Wisconsin was aghast when I told her we didn’t have snow-ploughs: “But how would you get to a doctor’s appointment if you needed one?”
I laughed a little too loudly at the thought of our government investing in snow-ploughs when we’ve more chance of winning the lotto than getting face to face with a GP.
On reflection, I say “my American friends’, assuming that I still have any after the things I’ve written...