Blur

Winter in the Cape is a wet one. The general trend is a drifting rain for days - or a couple of hard-hitting cold fronts that rattle the doors and pound the windows.

Today it's a bit of both. And I drove Olivia to work.

She reminded me she loves me by pouring the contents of the gutter down my jacket as soon as I opened the driver's door, then continued to do so with a steady dripping stream as I got all my work goodies inside her. Fortunately my pants soaked up what had hit the seat.

Bar a brief struggle with the fuel pump she started first time, which she's been doing lately - lovely. No more half-hour struggle!

Hit the lights, hit the wipers, hit reverse... hmmm.. something's missing. It's been a while since I drove Olivia in the wet - have I forgotten where the wiper switch is?

Well I fiddled them all, and yup - no wipers. Not even the hint of a reaction from anything mechanical. And no other choice than to simply drive.

I'll say this much - it's not easy driving down a wet road where the markings disappear under streetlight reflection, with oncoming commuter's lights shining in your face! It's even worse when there's rain pounding the windscreen. At the best of times I tend to clear the screen of the merest water while driving. This morning's commute was... well, interesting.

Fortunately Olivia is slow and I could hug the road edge, judging how far over I was by what I could see next to me. Equally fortunate was the gale force wind I drove into, which whisked a good deal of the water away. And also fortunate was the fact that the sun's starting to come up earlier, and it wasn't pitch-black dark.

Fun times, people - fun times.

Tonight Favourite Man gets to check out what's going on behind the dash. Or in the fuse box. Or with the wiper motor. Whether the rain's put paid to a connection, or if it's just Olivia being obstinate.

Whatever the issue is, life with a Landy's never boring.