Bye, bye Brian.

You may remember me saying that one of the conditions linked to moving to the country was that we had a second car, a little runaround, so that if Neil was at golf or I was out at a class or shopping, there was a means of transport if necessary. So, we bought Brian, a little white Citroen Saxo.


He ran beautifully, but didn't like starting if the weather was cold. So, I learnt how to start him when it was cold, he took a lot of warming up but eventually he realised I wasn't taking 'No' for an answer, and started. Once started - he would run all day.




We took him to the garage for them to check him out, make sure his heater plugs were ok, and they told us they had replaced a filter and done some cleaning up but the heater plugs were fine and charged us €70! We asked about some new tyres and the mechanic told us we shouldn't spend money on tyres just yet, until we were sure there wasn't anything more serious with Brian.

He must have had his suspicions........

There is something more serious with Brian!

He didn't get out much so, on Christmas Eve, we too Brian when we went up to our neighbours a short 400m away, he got us there without any hint of what was to come later.



At a few minutes past midnight we decided we should leave so that we didn't bump into Santa on his rounds. Brian started, reluctantly, but then, it was cold. As soon as I tried to move - he stalled. He did this 3 times and then he wouldn't start!



We decided we would walk back to the house, in the dark, on the dirt track, without a torch (yes, we know to take one with us now!) to fetch big car and rope. In Spain it is not allowed to tow a vehicle but we were only taking him down the Campo, so we thought we would be ok.



We managed to get him back, parked him up infront of the house ............



......and he's been there ever since. We have tried jump leads from Big Car, we have tried squirting Easy Start into the engine, and nothing.



So, today we went back to the garage to let them know that we had a very poorly Brian.



I asked the mechanic if they could come and collect him and he reminded me that most motor insurance policies in Spain include breakdown recovery, and it would be free, whereas he would have to charge us. So, when we got home I rang the insurers, and he was correct. After 10 minutes on the phone we had a breakdown truck on it's way to collect Brian in half an hour.



And so, it was with some sadness that this was the scene outside our house, earlier today.




I will call at the garage tomorrow and see when they will be able to check what the problem is and give us an idea of how much it will cost so that we can decide what to do with Brian.

Poor Bri!