Taxing

98% of my life is the back of two (rather dubious) looking white vans awaiting the keys to our new house (which, incidently, we get at some point tomorrow). My husband is 200 miles away (as is my father – ahhhh the blessed peace). I’ve driven 500 miles in the last 48 hours. I’ve run out of money and can’t get my hands on any more for 48 hours which isn’t great when you’ve got not petrol……I could go on (and on). What you DON’T need to find in the middle of all this ‘no fixed abode’ business is that your tax disc has fallen off the front windscreen of your car and DISAPPEARED.

They are pretty hot on tax discs these day. Don’t display one and you could get thousands of pounds of fine or even worse, your car towed away and crushed.

Crushing my car wouldn’t really help me right now. Especially as the 2% of my life that’s not in the removal vans is in the boot……

So when I realised it was no longer stuck to the window I somewhat freaked.

First I took the car apart looking for it.

No luck (I found 'other things', things I would rather have not have found, but alas no tax disc).

Second I interrogated the children:

‘Now listen, mummy has a really really REALLY important question for you. You know that little bit of round paper stuck to the front of the car windscreen? The one with the shiny bits on? Have you seen it at all? I PROMISE YOU YOU WON’T GET TOLD OFF but it is very very important you tell mummy if you have played with it/eaten it/posted it down a siblings earhole/rolled it into a ball and thrown it out the window? No? ARE YOU SURE? Promise me that’s the truth? If you know where it is and you’re not telling me the car could be CRUSHED! DO YOU HEAR ME CRUUUUUUUUUUUSED!!!!'.

(Que tears and deep distress. I've gone too far).

Next I rang the vehicle licensing people (in a rather desperate state as I have no proper registered address and no money to pay for anything). I got to speak (at length) to a machine. I was not happy and I was none the wiser.

So that just left?

Becoming very foul tempered and ranting a lot. And I mean A LOT.

Shortly after this low point my mother walked in to the kitchen:

Mother: Darling I thought you said you’d lost your tax disc?

Me: YES! AND!?

Mother: It’s stuck to the windscreen..

Me: (in a very sarcastic voice): Errr, what!? I don’t think it is! Thus why I’ve just wasted several hours trying to obtain a new one.

Mother: No it is. I’ve just seen it. It’s just that it’s not at the bottom, it’s at the top. It’s stuck on up by the interior mirror.........

Oh.

Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh.

Obviously this is good news. Very good news but yet….but yet it somehow smarts a bit.

In fact it reminds me of the time I drove the whole way from London to Somerset with windscreen wipers that wouldn’t spray water (getting out of the car at every service station to wash them by hand. BY HAND I TELL YOU) and then took the ‘fault’ to be investigated only to find? To find that I’d been pressing the wrong button all along……

So there we are - it's just not the kids or the parents - I can easily embarrass myself.....

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