Transport Woes: If only everything in life was as reliable as a...yeah right.

It's lucky I bought that car before Christmas, so that we weren't totally dependent on a 1992 Fordamundo and a 1954 Matchless motorbike, isn't it? So that Diver Dave and I could go off in our opposite directions. You know - the VW I bought off ebay. The 1998 Polo with air conditioning, Mitsubishi wheels, Holden stereo and a gear knob from Super Cheap Auto. The car that Dave christened Jim, after Jim Morrison, because, within two weeks of owning it, all the bloody doors were f***ed.

The same car that last week gave up the ghost in spectacular fashion on a right turn at some traffic lights in the middle of Nambour. It decided it didn't want to turn right, or left, or anywhere else for that matter. It certainly wasn't taking me to the railway station so I could catch the 7.03 to Brisbane and it seemed quite happy to sit there as I got redder and redder in the face whilst trying to restart it at the head of an increasingly large queue of traffic: A long line of vehicles that seemingly had no idea what the hazard lights on the back of my car might imply, ie. that I wasn't going anywhere because I had no choice and I couldn't move it out of the way because I am only one weak and feeble female. Fortunately, a nice man came along and pushed me to the side of the road and I sat there waiting for the RACQ while watching my train go past.

Unbeknown to me, and the RACQ bloke that repeatedly told me to try starting it, the timing belt had snapped causing untold damage to all the valves each time I tried turning it over. $1800 worth of damage to be more precise. That's nearly 900 quid. That's about half what the car's actually worth. It's about what I'd hoped to pay for a plane ticket back to Blighty for my best mate's wedding in July.

Jim has now been at the garage for the last week as they appear to be having trouble getting new valves for it. Meanwhile, our hopes for a solution to our transport problems were raised when Dave managed to get his 50 year old motorbike working again for the first time since before xmas. Hoorah! We were a two vehicle family once again. He spent a manly weekend bonding with it all over Noosa. He used it to go between work and home. For all of three days. Then it conked out again.

So we are now wholly dependent on the 16 year old humungous sized Ford Fairlane known as Bertha - because that's what you have to do with it when you park it. And you all have to keep your fingers crossed, hold your breath, say some prayers - whatever it takes to keep her going - because her ABS brake warning light is permanently on and yesterday the petrol indicator expired.

All this when there's a perfectly perfect VW Lupo GTi in a garage in Windermere, raring to go, desperate for me to collect it from the kennels and let it off the lead, and waiting for me to show it some car love.