Well my daughter Mandi came up today for a visit. She was considering staying for a couple of nights but her neighbour, Sheila, can't look after her cat Boo until next week.

She went to her school yesterday to see about returning to work (she's been signed off work for stress and anxiety for over a month now), and the Head of Human Resources (Personnel) said that she isn't happy for Mandi to return yet as she doesn't think she's ready to go back. I'm with her there. The situation in the school is horrendous at the moment. Apparently 36 members of staff (teachers, admin staff etc) have left!!! There were 9 people who were made redundant, and the others wanted to be made redundant but were refused, so they were so unhappy with the situation, that they resigned. That's over a third of staff - surely someone further up the chain will notice this and say "Whoa - what's the problem? What have we done wrong?"

Luckily Mandi was given the chance of having voluntary redundancy which she grabbed with both hands and now she is going with some money to sweeten the load. Although with the way things were going, I think she'd have had to resign anyway - such a shame as she loved that job and had given 13 years to them. So she's now looking for another job within the County Council.

I digress - she popped up today and she looked so tired. In fact she dropped off to sleep for about an hour while we were watching the qualifying for the British Grand Prix Formula One race tomorrow. We then went up to Asda - again what's new? and when we were on our way back - the car started juddering slightly. Then it seemed to go okay so we didn't think much of it.

Mandi on her way home

Well about 10 minutes after this photo was taken - she texted me to say the car had broken down on the top of a hill about 10 miles away!!!! She was waiting for the car recovery service to come. If they couldn't repair it at the roadside, then they would tow her back home (a journey of 50 miles) and it would probably cost £150!!!! I thought that having a comprehensive cover meant that it would be free - so I've tried to log onto her insurance company but couldn't get anywhere with it.

Suffice to say - I was concerned to know she was stuck on her own with a car which wasn't going anywhere. She'd been told it would be about an hour or so before the recovery man would come!!! That's with it being a priority with her being a female on her own.

Then after about 20 minutes she texted me to say the man had arrived and was hoping that he could fix it by the roadside.

Then she said - "Yeah - he's done it and I'm on my way home!" Apparently the rotary blade had sheared off and melted inside the distributor cap.!!!! Hell that sounds bad.

So thankfully I didn't have to charge my credit card to pay for her to be towed home!!

Been quite an eventful day really. Going to have a nice quiet day tomorrow hopefully. Do more sewing and then watch the British Grand Prix.