I know I've put on a bit of weight but ...

I didn't think I was that heavy.

I was due in the community cafe today. Before I went I made a chocolate cake for the cafe and that made me late but I really needed air in one of Betty's tyres. I pulled into the petrol station and drew up alongside the air machine. Then I saw that they wanted to charge 50p for it!

So I'm sitting in the car and trying to decide whether I have time to put air in all four tyres, or whether 50p for one tyre is wasteful, or whether it's against my principles to pay for air at all, when, all of a sudden - whooosh. There's a sort of deflating noise, rather like a hovercraft being lowered and I find myself closer to the ground than I'd been an instant before.

I got out assuming a tyre had burst but all the tyres were intact. However Betty was now leaning. At least I thought she was. You know what it's like: you start to doubt your own sanity. (Or perhaps you don't know what it's like.) Had she really sunk? She looked a little tilted but had she been like that before? I would feel very silly if I called out Rescue and there was nothing wrong.

I got in and started the engine. We edged forward a little. Squeak, screech. No, the tyre was definitely rubbing against the metal bit. I phoned Rescue. 'My car's started to tilt.'

The Rescue-man had to come and take her away on a lorry. I felt like a parent seeing a child into an ambulance. Oh, I went with her, of course; I didn't let her go alone. 'What's the problem?' I asked the Rescue-man.
'It's your big ball joint.'
'Oh.'

Apparently it would have been bad news if I'd tried to drive it like that. Phew.

But really it is very disheartening when you're sitting in the car and the bit you're sitting in breaks under you. As if it just couldn't take the strain any longer.
xx