Drive Time

I'm reckoning that we're easily going to spend at least a thousand pounds this month just on cars.
It's our fault for being a 'two car' family. Just as I've got over spending a small fortune on my wife's car (not to mention walking to and from the garage in the pouring rain and driving the toy car loan vehicle for a day) I suddenly lose the power of my handbrake on the way in to work this morning. Halfway to Shepton Mallet I face the 'shall I turn back or press on?' dilemma. Pressing on, I realise just how many hills are involved in my daily jaunt to work.
After half an hour of careering up and down hills I pull into a garage on the outskirts of Shepton Mallet, what you might call the 'badlands' of town. Dirt tracks. I drive up one and park, handbrake off. I don't encounter Martin Sheen, but instead something from 'Deliverance'. A small figure leaning over an old wreck of a car looks up with a 'well, city boy?' look in his eye.
Luckily I avoid banjos, canoes, Burt Reynolds and squealing like a pig. The handbrake is fixed by lunchtime but I'm glad to get out of there, careering back to Bristol for five.