Last year, during pandemic lockdown, we had a waiver on the annual MOT for Max. I was a bit confused at the time (last June) because I thought it meant a waiver on the rego as well. I was wrong and had a strongly worded letter saying the car was no longer registered. I rectified that quick smart, but it meant the MOT, rather than being at the same time, is now six months after registration.
Which means, of course, that Max will always be out of synch now. Call me crazy, but I would have thought it would have made more sense to adjust both at the same time, to the same time. But mine is not to reason why, yadda, yadda, yadda.
The reason I’m discussing Max’s MOT is because today the guys from the excellent Blackwater Auto came over, picked him up and gave him a thorough inspection. By the end of the day, Max was back in the drive with a clean bill of health.
I had to wait in for them to arrive first thing, so I headed into town later than normal. Not that it mattered much. Today was cold, crisp and sunny. In fact, this morning marked the first frost, meaning I had to scrape the glass on Max. This reminded me of the mornings in Sweden I spent outside, scraping frost and snow off windscreen and roof.
Also, like Sweden, there was a lot of Autumn around today.
Being a Wednesday, I went to the butcher for some excellent pork chops, lamb chops, venison sausages and bacon. As usual, it was a pleasure shopping and chatting though, unusually, there was no cricket talk this week. That’s probably because neither of us consider T20 to be cricket and given that’s all the cricket on at the moment, there was nothing to discuss.
Instead, we talked about that perennial and reliable subject, the weather.
Then, in Starbucks, chatting to Jade, there was more weather chat. Then the woman at the checkout in Waitrose told me she couldn’t find her scraper this morning and, instead, used an old credit card to clear her windows. I said the same, agreeing that the card was better and is now safely in the glovebox for later use.
Given I was in Downing Street, I snapped the window of the wholefood shop.
Shame about the Otto bin. Still, what can you do.
And I feel I have to say that the pork chops were superb. I roasted them with fennel and other veg. As usual, I wondered at people who denied themselves the pleasure of pork because their imaginary friend told them to.
