I can’t believe it. In less than a month we’ve had to replace three out of the four tyres on our bus, Yoko. Earlier this week, we got the handbrake and speedometer fixed. Just after this, the ignition circuit went to poopoo in the rain (we’re expecting to receive the replacement parts tomorrow). Today, I saw fit to check the air in the tyres, given that now we’ve come down from altitude. Front-left–always the front-left–was massively overinflated.

“Huh?”

I deflated it to the correct pressure and we drove on. Not twenty mile had gone by and phut. Ploot. Phut. Ploot, ploot. Plung. Phut. Phuuuuuuut. Ploooooooooot. Phissss. Phiiiiiiiiiiiiis. Plut. Poot. Sing. Sing. Siiiing. Scring. Scccccring. Scccccccccccccccring. And we were driving on metal. It wasn’t as if our unfixed ignition system wasn’t giving me enough of a challenge–I cannot brake with my right foot as I have to keep the revs on with right to avoid cutting-out (you just try driving like that in a stop-start city)–but now I have three rubber tyres and one steel one. As absolute godsend luck would have it, I rolled to a stop outside a really friendly mechanics workshop no more than a hundred metres after putting my hazard warning lights on! Great bloke: Not only did he have an old, beaten-up tyre to Yoko’s specification kicking around his workshop, but he sold it and fitted it for a total of about £15 (contrast this with the £120 that we paid for two new tyres in France — and we’ve found Switzerland generally more expensive; good man!)

PS: To my Dad & Phil: I hope you’re proud of me — I’m getting my mechanics apprenticeship way faster than I expected. Not bad for a white-collar London IT worker!)