Aki up at 0630 to ready herself for a cycle ride down to Southwark Crown Court to report for jury service. I got up at 0730 and brought a mug of tea back to bed with me…read some Edna O’Brien. Got up and porridged, and then drove round to the garage on Camden Road. There were fairly noticeable noises emanating from beneath the car. The guys at the garage put the car up so they could take a look underneath, and reckoned the back plate on one of the front pads was touching the disc, thus creating the vague grinding sounds as the wheels rotated. They reckoned to have fixed it, and refused to charge me. I drove home to make a packed lunch before setting off northward. I needed petrol, so I made for Manor House, but had only gotten as far as Big Jo's on Hornsey Road when there was a very loud ringing noise from beneath the car, and a screeching, grinding sound...worse than before I took the car to the garage! I turned round, intending to take myself back to the garage, but the noise had stopped, and I took a risk and made for the petrol station. Got there without a problem...I thought perhaps the guys at the garage had left a spanner in the engine compartment, or a screw had worked loose and had been spat out. So I drove on to High Barnet. Parked up in a bay on an estate, went and took some photos, then returned to the car...as I reversed out of the parking space, I noticed something that I didn't think had been there when I pulled up...it was a plastic water bottle, that had been twisted, as if someone had tried to wring the water out of it...I reckon it was this all along. Indeed, I did 140 miles in the car today without further mishap...not sure I'll be using the services of the garage technicians on Camden Road again! Drove up to Stevenage, and then on to Great Cambourne, having my lunch in the car park of a small country park on the edge of town, and then finishing up in a couple of far flung suburbs of Cambridge before heading for home. Got in around 1700...Aki had returned from Southwark, having been assigned to a jury late in the day. They have estimated the case will only take three days, which is a relief, and she's back there tomorrow at 1000, so gets a bit of a lie-in in the morning! I'd cooked a black bean and orange stew for dinner, which we ate with cous-cous and vegetables. Watched BBC documentary "Navalny"...he was an amazing fellow, full of life, good humour, and a blazing intelligence that shows up Putin as the thug he is. A sad loss to the Russian people...
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