And that was the weekend.

On Saturday morning, I woke up quietly buzzing. Wow! We’re going horseriding! And we’re driving there in our new car! And we’re going to hang out with Jaimi! Our lesson had been bumped forward to 1pm which meant more time to check out Jaimi’s hood and still fit in a well-deserved BBQ afterwards. I tried to piece together a suitable wardrobe, aware that my yoga pants were perhaps not quite as fashionable as I’d led myself to believe but wearing them anyway, and got out a notepad to plot a route northwards. It’s an easy journey but as only passenger and chief navigator I take my job very seriously.

We left late in the morning hoping the weather would hold out. I was secretly studying Ben manoeuvring the manual and chanting “2 to 3… 3 to 4…” in my head as the gears shifted. Then the oil light came on. And then the engine died. And then the power steering cut out. All this while we were going quite fast along Parramatta Road. Fortunately Crunk had enough steam and Ben had enough wits about him to idle into a side street without causing too much chaos. We knew there was nothing wrong with the oil – a new filter had been put in the day before. This is the second time this had occurred, but the first since we’d sold a kidney to pay for repairs. Ben got the car started again and we elected to head home rather than challenge the volatile teenaged wreck with our lives. The horses weren’t going anywhere (well, not out of the valley anyway).

So the car still sucks, and no horses – double whammy.

On the plus side, it freed up our afternoon to go and crash Carla’s birthday non-party. We fitted in a BBQ after all, just before a massive thunderstorm ripped through north Sydney, all lovely and humid.

The rain continued the next morning and almost washed out our gig. They cancelled all the acts right up to us and just told us to “sit tight”. I gave up and went to bed with my Danny Wallace book, but then it cleared enough for them to get the gear onstage, so I had to get my shit together. Thank goodness for that. It was only 3 songs, but it was such a treat to play on a stage with enough room for me to jump around on when usually we are trying to avoid giving each other concussions with our instruments.