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It never rains but it pours. The Maestro’s annual visit to the MOT centre always falls perilously close to the BMC/BL weekend in Peterborough. In recent years this minor complication hasn’t really worried me in the way you might expect it to because the car seems to have a habit of going straight through. Except this year where in the course of 5300 miles since the last test, faulty tail lights and a front suspension top mount were marked for attention. My local garage is one of those that offer a free re-test within seven days and to avoid risking the car not being ready in time I decided to let them get on with the repairs, simple as they were, because the chances of me finding time to take a look at it myself in that period looked about as likely as an encounter with the ‘Magic Roundabout’ in Hemel Hempstead ending with a fully intact no claims bonus (try it if you don’t believe me!).

So there I was having collected the car, congratulating myself on having all this years MOT tests, road tax payments and insurance premiums safely out of the way when all of a sudden, a kerb stone sprung from out of nowhere and savaged £85 worth of Goodyear tyre. Some of the narrow, wooded back lanes out here are full of hidden dangers like this and as the picture shows, the tyre itself is well and truly beyond repair. Having moved the car to safety in a nearby side road to change the wheel, it occurred to me how useless the can of emergency tyre repair foam sometimes included with modern cars (read: Rover 75) in place of a spare wheel would be in a similar situation. Needless to say it’s off to the local tyre specialist tomorrow for a replacement Goodyear. It won’t be cheap but for motorway work, a part-worn spare of unknown age isn’t something I’m going to rely on. Have you checked yours recently?