A friend held a yard sale today. Since she lives only about half an hour away, I went. I arrived just after another friend called Isa. She was a bit worried about her van, because it started to overheat just before she arrived, and she was waiting for it to cool before she checked the radiator.
So we both bought stuff. Then Isa poured water into her radiator and immediately got a puddle on the ground underneath. Oops. Not good. Skinnier people than I got underneath and tried to see where the leak was while I tried the top view. For those who don’t know, a van’s engine is between the front seats, very cramped, and much harder to inspect than a car engine. But I saw a shiny patch and poked my fingers down. Nope – oil. Then I saw another shiny patch which was water. I could just get my fingertips down to feel the split in the hose pipe. Oh lovely. Really hard to reach from the top or the bottom.
So we had a cup of tea and discussed Isa’s options,seeing as it was Sunday and tomorrow a bank holiday. We decided to try to patch the hose pipe sufficiently to get the van to a garage, instead of trying to get hold of a breakdown truck.
Well we managed it. The owner of the house produced some electrician’s tape which was the right width and waterproof. I got in the van and Isa got underneath. I cut a foot of tape and poked the end down past the bust hose to Isa, who poked it back up the other side, and repeat. After three lots of that, we thought there was a fair chance that it would drip water instead of pouring out. So we refilled the radiator, took a 5 litre water bottle and set off – me behind in case she got stranded.
It was only 14 km (about 9 miles) and we still had to stop twice to refill the radiator, but we made it. So the van is now parked outside the workshop waiting for Tuesday morning, and I ran Isa home (about 10 minutes from my house). And then I discovered that I’d left my phone at the yard sale. So that’s one thing I’ll be doing tomorrow, and it’ll eat into writing time. But you know it might just find its way into a story one day.
