Never grow up

Nathan finally arrived home at about 1am yesterday, after waiting for the AA for a full four hours. Unfortunately, and probably necessarily, the single female drivers take priority, so if you're a bloke, you'll probably wait a great deal longer, particularly if you've managed to crawl your way to a lay-by. The clutch-less car was deposited at the Kwik Fit garage in Kentish Town, and the breakdown truck driver kindly dropped Nathan back home afterwards, which apparently isn't AA policy: they'd rather leave you at a dodgy garage in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night.

The saga turned into a farce this morning when Kwik Fit announced they didn't fix clutches and that our car would need to be instantly removed from the forecourt or they’d be forced to have it towed away. According to Kwik Fit, the AA is perfectly aware of their policy on broken clutches, and should never have left the car with them. The situation became ludicrous when the AA claimed it was now our responsibility to have the car towed to a more appropriate garage. Their policy, they told Nathan, is to only allow one tow per breakdown.  Nathan eventually sorted things out but everything happened with terrible grace, which is deeply disappointing. I would have thought the AA ought to be used to dealing with worried drivers, and would at least feign compassion.

I left the house about ten minutes after I should have done and found myself running late all day as a result. It was well beyond rush hour  when I arrived at Highgate tube but I still found myself pressed up against a man who looked like a cockatiel and a woman who smelt of Marmite in a ridiculously crowded tube which was being "regulated", a process which seemed to involve a great deal of waiting on platforms. Meanwhile, something ghastly was happening to the deodorant under my right arm which had started to feel like honey. Sticky armpits are about as nasty a way to start a day as it gets, with the possible exception of waking up and finding a dead person in your bed on Christmas morning, or discovering you pitched your tent in the middle of a river. Oddly, both of these things have happened to people I've met, which forces me to somewhat downgrade my comment about sticky arm pits.

I spent much of the day in White City speaking to more extraordinary people with astonishing tales to tell. It's always when you least expect it that a story pops out which knocks you sideways. I won't elaborate. You'll have to wait to see the film!

I came home and had tea and cake with Fiona and lovely Vicky 'cello at Jackson's Lane. We talked about grown-up things like houses and children in a completely un-grown-up sort of way. I have no intention of ever growing up, and don’t see much evidence of many of my friends doing so either. It would be nice to own a house, however. One day...