27/03/2022 The Broken Brakes

 Once upon a time there were two people and a car, and they drove their car the long way from Queensland to South Australia and then, because they couldn't help themselves, they drove from Adelaide to Sydney and back again via Melbourne.  For most of that time they only had intermittent backwards gear, and very excited they were when the car was fixed and it could reliably go forwards and backwards, whichever was required at the moment.

When they were on the highway between Sydney and Melbourne they drove past a truck (one of many).  The truck flicked up a rock and bang! just like that they had another chip (one of many) in their windscreen.

Not the culprit.  But similar.

 

'We'll get that fixed in Melbourne,' they said.  And then they forgot all about it and parked the car in the sunny driveway in Melbourne and caught the train everywhere and the next time they looked at the car the chip had turned into a crack and it was growing right across the windscreen and this was Not A Good Thing.

'We can fix it!' said the Melbourne windscreen man.  "But you have to wait weeks because we're busy fixing up lots of windscreens that were broken by hail."

The two people couldn't wait weeks because they had to go back to Adelaide, so they drove the car with the chipped/cracked windscreen back to Adelaide and made sure to park it in the shade because they blamed the hot sun for growing the crack.   

"We can fix it!" said the Adelaide windscreen man, and he booked it in for Monday weeks away.  While they were waiting for Monday weeks away the two people moved into a house sit on top of a hill and drove their car up and down the hill to go to Fringe things in Adelaide.  One day, as they drove down the hill, their brakes made a very big noise.  This was Not A Good Thing.  Brakes are very important on cars, particularly if you have to go down a big hill to go anywhere at all.

 

"We can fix it!" said the Adelaide brake man.  "Bring it in and we'll fix it up."

The two people delivered the car to the brake man, jumped on their bicycles, and rode around Adelaide City while the brake man was looking at the car.  This (riding around Adelaide City) was easy to do because Adelaide City is surrounded by parkland.  When they  had finished riding around the parkland they rode back to the brake man to pick up the car.

Some of the parkland was cemetary.  And sculptures warning of the danger feral cats pose to birds.

 

"You can't have it back!" said the brake man.  "The brakes are broken and if you drive it you will have trouble stopping and that is Not A Good Thing.  You can have it back on Monday."

Oh.

They were very thankful that they had their bicycles and that they lived near a train station.  They almost forgot to get their house keys from the car before it got locked into the brake man's shed for the weekend, but at the last minute they remembered.  That was something else to be thankful about.

They rode their bicycles back to Adelaide City and caught the train to the top of the hill and went home.  From the train they watched the sun set over the sea. 

 

When they got home they rang the Adelaide windscreen man and re-booked the windscreen for Much Later (again).   After that they cancelled all their social engagements for the weekend and stayed home to do exciting things like vacuuming, washing, keeping the pool sparkling, 

Pool alchemy.

 

persuading the magpies to take food from their hands,

 

and walking up the hill to the Banana Boogie Bakery to test its claim to the best vanilla slices in Adelaide with show ribbons hung in the window to prove the claim.

Mmm it's pretty good.  Might have to have a few more before I can decide...

 

And that is the story of the Broken Brakes, complete with the cliff hanger ending.  

Will the brakes be fixed on Monday?  Only time will tell.