Well, it was a day out..............(lo ng!)

Up bright and early today, ready for our jaunt. All planned, drive to Exeter, leave Focus there, train to Bristol, collect "new" car, leisurely drive back, lunch somewhere rural, collect Focus, drive home.

Slight hiccup yesterday when the dealer chap (Simon) phoned and said that they were still waiting for the new shock absorber. "Oh" said I, "but I've just booked new train tickets for tomorrow." A moments silence, in which I could practically feel him doing that slow closed eye thing. "Oh Rachel!" says he, with a slightly over familiar, yet exasperated tone. (I seem to get that a lot with people). "ok" says he "let me just run over the road to speak to Mark".

Now, to be honest, at this stage I had no idea who Mark was, could have been his counsellor, a freelance member of the Samaritans or a hit man that he keeps on standby for difficult customers. It turns out that he is the mechanic who "does" for him.

Simon phones back. "Ok, it will be fine" I could almost hear his fingers crossing and his teeth grinding. I was starting to get a bit worried about him now, he seemed somewhat stressed. I was at pains to reassure him. I said "Look, there's no problem really, we will be quite happy to potter around Bristol, look at the shops, have lunch, no time restraints at all"

Simon brightened considerably at this. "Great, phone me when you arrive, I'll pick you up, drop you anywhere you want to go, then come and pick you up when the car is ready!"

So as I said we set off with high hopes and glad hearts. Reasonable journey on the train, apart from the last 20 minutes where we were joined at our table by a very excitable youngster who talked so non stop that I was waiting for her to hyperventilate, being certain that her oxygen intake was deficient to her out put. (She was travelling with her Aunt, a well spoken and stunning girl of about 20, with stars tattooed on her wrist and hand, why??)

Got to Bristol, the sun shone, we had a really excellent coffee then phoned Simon. The car was ready!!! He would pick us up in 20 minutes I did a little happy dance, but tried to make it look as if I was attempting to deal with cramp in my foot. Mr P tried to pretend he wasn't with me.

Simon arrives, takes us to his garage and there is the car. A darker blue than I had imagined, but still pretty good. I briefly fell in love with a little convertible sporty BMW, but was told it was sold and to step away from it and no-one would get hurt.

We do the paperwork, Simon shows me how to make the roof go up and down, how to raise the seat (How did he know that I would need to do that?) and off we go, with MR P driving. We get onto the slip road for the M32, Mr P looking a bit concerned. We pull over. Mr P feels that it isn't revving properly. We phone Simon. He comes out. He tries it. He orders a recovery vehicle. He drops us at the Hungry Horse and insists on giving us £20 towards lunch. We lunch. He phones, car is now at a Mercedes garage awaiting a fuel pump. He collects us, takes us to the station we buy tickets and get the train back to Exeter.

He will now deliver the car once it's fixed.

Not sure quite how he's going to get back to Bristol though, I don't think he realises how far from public transport we are.

Perhaps I'm not meant to have this car