Drama out of a crisis

Lame photo, sorry!

Yesterday morning S took the red car to Narbonne for a routine service. Once there, they said they needed to investigate a water leak and it was going to take a while, so they lent him a courtesy car and he came back home. A couple of hours later, the receptionist rang to inform him that the head gasket was leaking and the only solution was to replace the entire engine, which would cost close to 13,000 euros (Narrator: that's more than the car cost). 

To say we were surprised is putting it mildly, as we have been driving around in it with absolutely no issues and no signs of overheating, including S making several round trips to Girona over the past month. "Can I drive it back home?" asked S. "No, you'll need to get a breakdown lorry."

S took the loan car back and talked to the mechanic who'd worked on the car. This was a slightly different story. "Yes, the coolant was low and you can see signs of a small leak. Fiat policy is to replace the engine in this case." But, he subtly suggested, if you were to go to a backstreet garage, other cheaper options were possible, i.e. replacing the gasket. "Can I drive it home?" "Sure", said the mechanic, giving him an extra large bottle of coolant to take with him.

S stopped off at our local garage. "Ridiculous!" snorted Michel after S had told his story and he'd looked at the engine. "I can just replace the gasket and it will cost 1,000 euros. I could do the timing belt at the same time. And yes, you can drive it to the Pyrenees and back. Just keep checking the level."

Ha! Talk about making a drama out of a crisis. I guess the Fiat garage wanted to sell us a new car. Spoiler: when we do replace it, it won't be another Fiat. 

In the evening we were invited to S and T's for dinner with Ingrid and had a lovely time. We didn't notice the time passing, and eventually got home at 2 a.m. Slow start this morning but I revived myself with a very chilly swim ... Ingrid and I were the only takers.

Today's drama: there's one of those sticky moth trap strips in our food cupboard to keep the little blighters at bay. Today I opened the cupboard and to my horror found our pet household gecko stuck to it. S carefully managed to ease it off with a thin-bladed knife, and it promptly whipped round and got its entire body stuck. More careful peeling.  He put it on a shelf to recover, and it got stuck to the lining paper. After some thought we diluted some washing up liquid in tepid water, poured a little onto a plate, and S put gecko complete with paper onto the plate. Success! Within seconds it had unstuck itself and dashed off to hide. So a happy ending.