If I didn't have bad luck...

At 3pm this was going to be a triumphant post about how brilliantly I had fitted a new exhaust to the 2CV. The only thing remaining to do was to start the car and run the engine for a short while to cure the assembly paste in the joints.

And that remains the only thing to do because, despite trying for a significant amount of time, there is no fuel getting through to the carburettor and so no chance of ignition.

It looks like the fuel pump has died. There is fuel in the line beneath it but none above. If I had a spare body I would get them to turn the engine over while I stuck my finger on the end of the pipe to test for suction. But there isn't one handy.

Instead of booking the car in for an MOT next week and getting back onto the road I am going to have to phone the garage, ask them to send a tow truck, give them lots of money to investigate the problem, and then, and I really do mean it this time, I am going to sell the bastard thing.

Events like this make me realise how fragile my mood is. I am trying hard not to take it personally. I have done 2 good jobs on the car. The fact that something else has failed is not because I am a Bad Person. It is because the car is almost 30 years old. But at the end of a few days which included dropping 2Moos in Wales and having to work out whether it is me, or the person who declared himself to be in everlasting love with me after one blind date and then promised to "wait for me" until I was ready to reciprocate, who wass being unreasonable, another failure is proving difficult to cope with.