On Tuesday I sallied forth to do our weekly supermarket shop. We'd had our first frost of the season and it was only 7°C mid-afternoon. First I dropped off a load of laundry at the excellent laundromat in la Roche Posay. Then I continued on to the out of town supermarket, SuperU. I did all my shopping (which came to just under €200! Gasp!!). I loaded the car up and prepared to return for the laundry.
When I tried to start the car it just made click-click sounds, and the battery warning light was on. I knew the battery (Fr. batterie) must have done that sudden death thing that they do, often in response to extremes of weather or of age. I rang Simon to let him know and to tell him what my strategy for solving the problem was going to be. First, go up to Alizon, the Citroen garage over the road from the supermarket, then phone Alexandre Cosson, our regular mechanic in Bossay sur Claise. I suspected both would tell me to phone roadside assistance, and that is indeed what happened.
Roadside assisance Stéphane, from Alizon Citroen Garage, photographing the job for his records.
Roadside assistance (Assistance Mondial) is part of our car insurance package. We've used the same insurance company, Thélem, for 15 years and I've never had to phone Assistance Mondial before. Initially you get to speak to a robot, which tells you to go online to the link it's sent you and fill in the form. That's fine, except that my mobile phone contract is the €2 euro a month one with Free, and doesn't include much data. Naturally, I ran out of data about a third of the way through filling out the form. A bit stressed by this, I rang back and told the robot I needed to speak to a person. The robot was getting stuck on some of the voice recognition because of my accent. A person duly came on the line and was very kind and helpful. They asked me where I was and if the recovery vehicle would have any trouble reaching me ie was I in a spacious open air carpark (yes) or a tight underground carpark with height restrictions (no). They told me the average time for a recovery vehicle to arrive was about 40 minutes, and they would be a maximum of an hour away. I had been prepared with all the details of our policy, from the insurance documents in the glove box, but all they needed to know was whose name the vehicle was insured in, what the registration number (Fr. immatriculation) was and where I was.
Within minutes I got a text from roadside assistance saying that Alizon would come and rescue me. Then after another few minutes, Stéphane from Alizon phoned me to say he was on his way. Since he only had to drive across the road I could see him before our telephone conversation ended. I waved madly and he pulled up behind me. He did a quick check to make sure it was indeed the battery, then attached the booster and started the car. I explained that I needed to go and recover my wet laundry so we discussed a strategy for doing that whilst keeping the car running. Then he asked me who my mechanic was. I told him Cosson, and that I'd already spoken to him, and that they were half expecting me to turn up. The recovery mechanic, who clearly knew Alexandre, assured me they'd have a battery in stock.
There was no paperwork as such. I just signed Stéphane's device to confirm the roadside assistance had been satisfactorily delivered and Thélem will automatically pay the bill.
Yohann fitting a new battery at Garage Cosson, with Simon watching on.
So I drove home and picked up Simon. We then drove back to la Roche Posay to pick up the laundry, which was possible because Simon sat in the car with it running while I dealt with the washing. Then we went on to Garage Cosson where we were greeted with rueful smiles and sympathy, and the car went straight in for a new battery. On taking the old one out we could see it was dated 2015, so we'd had a good run with a battery that had lasted longer than the average of six years, according to Yohann the mechanic. Then it was just a question of flashing the bank card and paying nearly €250 for the new battery, labour and recycling. Ouf! The card was taking a beating, especially as the car had only been in the workshop the week before for the clutch!
Finally, back home, to unload ten tonne of wet washing and bags of groceries.
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