During Covid, my beautiful little blue mini (Mildred the Mini) developed a serious illness. Sometimes, but not every day, she would vomit water all over the road and blow out huge plumes of white steam. She did it in a quite spectacular way.

One day the carabinieri or it might have been the police decided to stop me. As I pulled to a stop Mildred decided to do her thing…

The carabinieri looked on in amazement and maybe a little humour as my car belched white steam and deposited 10 liters of green antifreeze and water on the floor..

They decided I had enough problems to contend with and waved me on.

A duo of Albanians (who thought they could fix my mini) bought it. I was a little sad to see Mildred go, I asked the garage if we could drop a new engine in her. They said sure, but look at her mileage, what will go wrong next?

Now this was during Covid. In Italy it was very strict and leaving the house to buy a car was a no no, unlike in the UK where Boris and his pals were partying the day away..

So I paid for and bought a sleek, black BMW without actually seeing it. I trusted a French ‘friend’ who had a part share in a garage to check it out and organise the purchase. On hindsight, it is no wonder the Brit’s don’t particularly like the French and we like to sink their navy. Even when they are on our side, Brit’s sink French Ships, again.

After an hour I realised

A) The handbrake didn’t work properly ( I finally managed to get that repaired 2 months ago.

B) The steering had a little play in it, ( scared the bejesus out of my son, when he drove it)

C) The radio would only tune into Radio Maria, the Italian religious station.

Now I am fine with religion, but there are only so many Hail Marys and Glory to Jesus, I can listen to while driving to work.

The BMW, was obviously a very religious car and so we named her Sweet Maria

She managed to pass two MOT car tests despite having no hand brake, a fog lamp that never worked and a little play in the steering.

Yesterday afternoon, Sweet Maria and I set off to Germany to visit Fräulein, everything was going tickety boo, until, she started to lose power as I climbed up the Alps.

I checked my mirror to see if I was holding up the traffic and saw what looked like water spray behind me, it had been raining so I never thought no more about it.

As the road leveled, she started to cruise again and I again looked in my mirror. Expecting to see the happy faces of Swiss drivers happy that we were now at the top.

I couldn’t see them and for sure, they couldn’t see me. Sweet Maria was blowing so much smoke out the back you would think we were on fire.

I hit the hazards and coasted to a stop, right outside a hotel.

Say what you want about religion, but if Sweet Maria hadn’t been religious, she would have died right in the middle of the San Gotthard tunnel, instead she gave up her last in a hotel car park.

“Fräulien, please come and rescue me Sweet Maria has died. I am stranded in a hotel where the bar closes at 10:00“

Unfortunately, her car was in for service and she tried for an hour to borrow a car.

“Fräulien, I can get a taxi to Chur and then a train home or a train to you, but I need to change trains 5 times!”

“Pecora Nera, there is a Flix Bus that leaves from Chur and drops you off here”

So as I type, I am sitting in a Mexican restaurant, eating spicy chicken wings and drinking Mexican beer, waiting for my Flix Bus.

I will update this is if I manage to reach Fräulein in Lübeck.

So a little question, how do I recover Sweet Maria who is currently, dead and sitting in a car park in the middle of the Swiss Alps.

A) send her to the graveyard in Switzerland?

B) try to get her home?

It is a problem