Warming Up

The boy seems to have survived. 

What the fuck is going on? I went to pick up my wife from the train station and on the way back, suddenly became aware that the ride was a bit bumpy. I thought maybe the fixed tyre hadn’t been fixed after all, but after we’d pulled over I got out and had a look and it was solid as a spongy rubber rock. I walked to the other side of the car to discover that the other rear tyre was completely flat. Why is God punishing me this way?

I has actually spent fifteen minutes this morning pumping up all the tyres to the 41 PSI that I’d just discovered that they were meant to be and everything had seemed fine then. So I assumed that maybe I’d somehow left the screw bit open or something. It seemed too much of a coincidence that there would be another catastrophic failure within two or three days. We couldn’t have to change another tyre. My car is in danger of becoming like Trigger’s broom.

I had meant to put the pump machine into the boot - in fact I thought I had - but then I remembered I hadn’t been able to open the boot when the garage door was shut and had left it on the side to be put in on the next trip. But I’d forgotten to put it in. Things were a little urgent as we needed to pick the kids up from school and I needed to then get to London for RHLSTP. We were quite near my in-laws house so we asked Catie’s dad to come and pick her up and take her home so she could pick up the kids in the other car and then he could drive back with my pump and hopefully we could solve the problem, or at least get me enough air to make the journey home. 

Half an hour passed and he turned up. And he handed me the machine and I realised there was a bit missing. I’d found a little gauge on the floor of the garage earlier and assumed it had fallen out of the back of the machine and was just there so you do a quick pressure test. I had put it on a shelf. Like a fucking idiot. But in fact it was the main gauge on the machine. Luckily it worked without it, though we couldn’t see what pressure the tyre was at. We pumped it up until it looked sort of OK and then I drove the five miles home, hoping that everything would be fine. But by the time I was home the tyre was flat again and when I pumped it up in the garage I could hear the hiss of escaping air.

I wondered if someone had been spiking our tyres, but this one had failed some distance from the home. Maybe I’d run over some nails laid out by Wiley Coyote and spiked both tyres. Or maybe I had just been very unlucky.

Or I am driving in a way that is bad for tyres. 

Or the people running this computer simulation are just fucking with me. It’s been a highly stressful weekend.

I drove to London in the other car, convinced that I could feel they tyres on that one going down too, though all was fine. And in spite of a sleepless night worrying about my boy and this additional stress and research time being eaten up, we had two charming and funny RHLSTP interviews in front of a very small, but very appreciative audience. The Phoenix is a terrific venue for this sort of thing. We’re back doing two more in January. No guest news yet, but I hope a few more of you will come. I appreciate that things are a bit up in the air again re-viruses. 

I really had fun with both very witty guests. Margaret Cabourn-Smith is full of great stories and indiscrete too, which I love and Chris Lynam was a bit nervous about doing it, but absolutely shone. I had had such fun watching his stuff and he had amazing stories of anarchy and pure comedy and clowning. Having watched the clip on his website I am enchanted by ErictheFred and hope I get to see the whole thing some time. So many genius comedians out there who live their lives performing their hearts out and don't get the credit they deserve. But maybe the performances are all the credit they need. 

Late at night in the carpark, the machine ate my ticket and I thought I might be stuck in London forever, but luckily the call button on the machine got through to someone and we sorted the issue in about ten minutes. So God isn’t treating me as mean as he treated Job. But it’s a mild Jobing for me. Got home safe in spite of my paranoid fears that the ghost of the tyres I have used and thrown away were coming for their revenge.