It's Ready!

So I passed the garage on the train heading out of Montrose yesterday, and there was the "plastic dart" sat glinting in the early spring sunshine, waiting to be picked up. I am in Estonia presently, so that won't happen until early next week, when the keys will be returned to my possession in exchange for the sum of £392. Quite steep, but also quite good, when you consider that for that the garage have fixed the suspension, put in a new wheel bearing, new spark plugs, and applied a new exhaust-valance in place the rusty, unsightly, original one. With all that gubbins taken care of, the car should be back to its performance levels of early last summer, and regularly smashing the 100km/h barrier.

The Trabi has been off the road for nearly two months so it will be great to have it back again. The mechanics have already ordered extra gas masks in advance of the machine being started up again, which after such a long hiatus is likely to produce several thunderflashes worth of smoke, when it is started up. It will also be good news for this blog, which will cease to be a sorry narrative of self pitying mechanical disaster, and return back to the usual form of on-road oily-smoke adventures. Given the sheer mundanity of recent entries, it's amazing that I have any readers left. If I can pass my driving test on my return, the two-stroke heat seeking missile will be in daily use for a while down the road to Dundee. After their recent pisspoor performance with strikes, regular delays and insanely timed "engineering works", I need a holiday from Worst Group's dire stewardship of the Scotrail network.

if I pass my test and can finally drive the thing on my own, the big test will be the Scottish Trabi owners' day out in Glasgow at the end of April. That`will be the longest drive I have ever attempted, and I can tell you that I will be taking Comrade Giles' spanner, in case that bloody patched up fan makes yet another ill advised bid for freedom.

In the meantime, I have a lot of work to do over the weekend, and the small matter of the Estonia vs. Russia football match; a derby affair that seems set to make England v. Scotland look like a pre season friendly between Keith and Montrose, by comparison. Check back next week sometime. I am back on Monday, and there should be news of the latest sea trials by the middle of next week.