Roofs, rain and red rings of death!

Our roof has sprung a leak. So much so that we've had to move the bed! It's not too bad at the momet however, and we only have to use the bucket when the rain is torrential! Of course, it couldn't have happened in November when Kevin was still employed.....oh no, it had to wait until the end of December! Luckily his consultancy seems to be taking off, so we'll be able to afford to get it fixed soon.

As if that wasn't enough, on Sunday we were on our way to see my eldest son; he's at Canterbury Christchurch, and as the M25 was a bit snarled up, we decided to go to Broadstairs via the North Circular. Good job we did because the car suddenly decided it wasn't going to work anymore! Luckily there was a bus stop, and as Kevin pulled in and switched the car off (can you tell I'm not a driver?!), the roof started to go down. It was pouring with rain at this point! It was pretty comedic! Luckily, Kevin had joined the RAC last week.

An hour and half of playing hangman later, the engineer arrived and decided that it was something to with an electrical fault in the transmission. Another hour and half (and more hangman) later, the towtruck arrived to take us back to Northampton! The garage said yesterday that they've fixed the transmission but the roof and the wipers are still being mental! Apparently they are ringing Smart to see if they will cover part of the cost of the repair because it's going to be pretty expensive.

Bizarrely, whilst we were waiting for the RAC, there was an accident across the road from us. Fortunately nobody appeared to be hurt but one car's entire front resembled a concertina. Ouch.

We've decided that actually, living in the middle of the town, we don't really need a car that much, especially not now both of us work from home. Any travelling that Kevin has to do generally requires a train journey into London, or a flight. Shopping is not really an issue because I'm happy to walk to the market every couple of days, and for other stuff, Waitrose delivers. So it's only really visiting which we'd need a car for, and it would actually work out cheaper to hire one for two weekends a month than to keep a car on the road full time!

The worst thing however.....last night Kevin got the Red Ring of Death .

Poor man switched on his 360, and there it was in all its reditude. (Sob) He spent half an hour on the 'phone to Microsoft, arranging to have it fixed (£59 - gulp), only for them to ask him to call back because rather ironically, their system had just crashed! (Doh!) Thankfully, mine seems to still be fine, so we can carry on playing Mass Effect together!

They say bad things happen in threes don't they? Fingers crossed that's right then!

EDIT: Those nice people at Smart have said they'll cover £1,000 of the £1,500 repair bill, despite the car being out of warranty. That's a loyalty scheme that's really worth having!