The year that followed

Living in Leeds, I had to take my car with me so that I could go places, use it, do stuff when the buses weren't running, etc. As I didn't want to leave my pride and joy out in the street I negotiated to rent a garage nearby but there seemed to be none available. After a while an opportunity arose to keep it in a garage which was fifteen minutes walk down the road, as I had no alternative I took it. There the car sat, under its blanket, in the safe, dry environment of the garage, there when I needed it. Except it was a pain - I found myself saying 'can't be bothered walking all the way down there only to have to walk all the way back up when I return'. What was more annoying was that I'd have to follow the same route that I walk to work every morning, plus it cost me money to rent the garage.

Some time part way through the MOT period I experienced clutch problems, quite a bad slip occurred when going up hills (very embarrassing while holding up traffic, I had no traction) I took it to a specialist garage and asked them to look for the oil leak too while they were fixing the clutch. It turned out that the clutch had been damaged and was holding on by a thread, and the oil leak was the now well-known problem of push rod tubes. The pair cost me over two hundred pounds to put right, as they had to remove the engine and do quite a bit of work on it. The money pit was pleased as punch.