Happy New Year!!!

Or not!

Had the mechanic round to see just why my car is belching plumes of white smoke from the exhaust and he said that the piston rings are going. This is not good at all... it means the car needs a new engine... which means that I am probably going to lose my car. I am very upset at the moment, I had a bad feeling that the problem was serious, but as usual I did my "head in the sand" routine (I seem to have an inablilty to cope with some things, mostly concerning change or the losing of my prized possessions).

I know that I should consider myself lucky in the things that I do have... and watching the news this week and seeing the terrible things happening in Haiti, my not having a car is terribly petty - compared to the people that have lost everything that they own! The problem stems from the fact that I seem to give inanimate objects personalities... it's something I've always done, from thinking that my teddies had feelings, right up to the present day, when I gave my car a gender and a name... that was a big mistake, but it's what I do (maybe being a fairly lonely person I make my own friends from inanimate objects... no rejection that way).

So that means that I will be car-less in about four days (the guy's brother is looking for a new engine, but seeing as the car is an import from Japan, the chances aren't looking good... and even if he can find one my car will be out of action for about a week, plus we will have to find approx £500 for the engine and then pay labour on top - yeah, like that's gonna happen, we are broke!)

All this is not helped by the fact that I feel ill (it's only a cold, but the losing of my voice and also the constant headache I have from my sinuses means that I have trouble thinking clearly and am often grumpy, too).

We have had to get kids on the bus from school, which normally wouldn't be that much of a problem, but the buses are not running up our hill until the 2nd Feb, so that means that in order to get the bus we have to walk up a hill that is 1/4 of a mile long... not a good thing when you are running late - also not a good thing when you have a man that cannot walk more than 300 yards without getting breathless (who is also registered disabled, whether he accepts it or not!), that is insisting he has to go out "because he feels trapped". What we are going to do once Katie comes back I have no idea... I can't even think about it without getting fairly confused (I've run through so many differing routes and ways of doing it, but after walking the boys home from school the other day, there is no way in hell that I can be at two different schools in 10-15 minutes on foot... it took about ten minutes just to get them out of school and to the bus stop!)

There is only one bright spot on the horizon as far as getting a car goes... and that is that we could get one for my Dad through his DLA (Disability Living Allowance). All we would have to pay for would be fuel for it as they pay for everything else. We are currently looking up about it online (the offices are closed until Monday! How stupid, but there we go...) the only problem being that the car is only meant to be used for Dad, or for journey's concerning Dad if he's not in the car (like getting his prescriptions from the chemist). Now, would my using the car for picking up the kids, whose money pays the mortgage, that keeps him from being homeless, be seen as a journey for him?? Probably not, so I could still have a problem in doing school runs.

I suppose that I should just wait and see what the guy says about my car... I just hate not knowing, though... I feel restless and uncertain if I don't know what I can do **sigh**