However. I did get to do my big butch kneeling on the side of the road in the cold and rain taking off wheels and getting grubby and, more importantly, got to go to Maury Pneus in Nontron and ogle the scrummy boy in his bleus. Christ he's gorgeous. Later phone calls with Pip brought about a plan: we'd slash the tyres on the Jag next time he's here then take it in for him to slobber over the car whilst we slobber over him. Preferably during the summer as apparently he wears really nice tight teeshirts. Philip considered having his wheels balanced slightly less drastic. Hm.

It's not that we're desperate or anything...

Anyway. Brian came round and we took the two driver's side wheels off. At this point, I suggested that I could put the spare on the front and drive her to the tyre place on three wheels - what is the point of driving squishy French cars if you can't perform party tricks? - but that was over-turned by Brian's Virgo sensibility. In the end, we plonked my wheels in Brian's car, left Mildred hovering in mid-air next to the cottage and had them fixed in Nontron. I'm not convinced by "repairing" tyres but cute boy assured me it was safe so I was in no position to doubt him.

After we'd spent most of the afternoon faffing around with cars, we ended up at Brian's listening to music, eating, drinking (lots of Pécharmant) and downloading Red Dwarf clips/cult TV themes from the net with William. Odd.