… what I wanted to buy today. But there was a reason for that.

We had the coldest night of the winter so far so this morning and with Caliburn under about a foot of frost, the battery finally gave out and he wouldn’t start. Regular readers of this rubbish will remember that the battery has been a little flaky for a while and I’ve been meaning to replace it but of course it’s one of those things that I’ve always been putting off and putting off.

Liz came round to rescue me but there wasn’t even enough in the battery to jump-start the van so we ended up going in Liz’s car and, of course, that’s not adapted to carry rolls of insulation and packs of tongue-and-grooving.

We had an exciting day out anyway and while Liz did not manage to resolve her problems, at least we now know why she has been having them and the people concerned have given her an undertaking that things will be put in motion to deal satisfactorily with the issues.

We shall see.

And even though Caliburn’s battery type is not listed in the catalogue of any of the chains of car accessory dealers, as I found out today, one of the employees at the Norauto near to the Auchan at Clermont Ferrand did take it upon himself to make detailed enquiries and as a result, supplied a battery that he promised would fit. I had the choice of an unnamed make, a Norauto make or a high-quality Varta battery and as you know with Caliburn he only ever receives the best, so much do I depend on him.

And so I daren’t tell you how much I paid for it because I’ve only just now recovered from the shock, but as I said, 100% reliavbility is the key to all of this, even if it does come at a hell of a price.

And much to my surprise (and probably yours too) it was actually the correct one. Fitting it was a nightmare though – trying to access the nuts to the battery retaining bar took me about half an hour, but anyway now it’s fitted and Caliburn is mobile once more.

I suppose that I’ll have to nip into Montlucon fora couple of hours tomorrow morning now. After all, I don’t want to be without anything the absence of which will hold up my work. It doen’t normally tale much to stop me.

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