D’ya hear yer man

I got two DVDs out of Xtra-vision at the weekend which could well cost me several hundred pounds.

It’s a few years since I’ve been to Xtra-vision and while I was expected the prices to have gone up, I wasn’t anticipated quite such a hike.

Okay, so it wasn’t the DVDs that ended up costing me a small fortune, it was my own stupidity.

Having paid for the rental of the two discs I left the store at Conswater Retail Park, strapped Lucy into the back seat, got into my car, then reversed into a Mini.

Or more specifically, a blue Mini with the ability to become temporarily invisible.

It wasn’t a major impact and my VW Golf, known affectionately as Bungee, didn’t sustain so much as a scrape. Unfortunately Bungee left his mark on the front right panel of the Mini.

I’m not sure whether the correct term is a dent or a dint, but either way, in spite of the miniscule size of the damage I remain fearful of the amount I’m going to have to fork out to have it repaired.

I don’t know how much it’s going to cost, but I’m preparing myself for the worst.

The irony of ironies is the accident happened the same day Bungee passed his MOT and just a week after I took sole ownership of the car for the purposes of my daily commute to my new place of work at Carn.

While I accept 90% of the blame for the accident, the other 10% is down to this country’s climate.

Myself, Karen and Lucy had been making our way to Xtra-vision on foot when the skies opened and we were forced to turn back for home and make a motorised journey instead.

Looking back at the bump, I almost wish I’d driven into something inanimate, like a gatepost or a bollard, and damaged my own car instead. That way I’d have got the message that I need to be more careful when reversing without the embarrassment and ungovernable financial sting of involving a third party.

Incidentally the two movies I got were ‘Headhunters’ and ‘The Guard’. They were both good films, particularly ‘The Guard’, but given the impending payout for my motoring misdemeanour, the enjoyment was never going to outweigh the cost.

All I can say is thank goodness I left the films back on time. I don’t think I could have coped with the late return fee to add insult to injury.

Doctoring the weather