You Can Get Cheaper Than a Kwik-Fit Fitter...

My car went into Aitken-Walker for its MOT on Wednesday. It passed, but it was noted that all four brake discs were pitted. This is probably due to lack of use of the car - I only did about 1750 miles since the last MOT. I used to do more than that in 2 months when I was working down south.

Anyway, Iain at the garage gave a quick guestimate of about £175 for the discs and brake pads. I had had the brake pads changed about 3 years ago at Kwik-Fit and thought they may be covered by the lifetime guarantee. Iain suggested that I check and get back to him, as he would need to order the parts in.

We were going into Berwick anyway on Thursday morning as I needed to pick up my Scottish Open scrabble trophy - I had at last got around to getting it engraved - and do a 'food shop'. So we called in at the Berwick branch. Unfortunately I hadn't taken the guarantee with me so they weren't sure. The man said they could possibly do me a good deal if they weren't covered if I was getting the discs replaced, and a figure of about 120 pounds was mentioned.

In the afternoon I went over to Anne's. We had made an appointment to dig up some foxgloves from her wood as long as it was not raining. The weather was cold and windy, but dry... Anne dug up quite a large patch for me - the soil there was lovely brown crumbly stuff unlike my grey clay - and she filled two sacks with plants and soil.

Allan came over on Friday morning in the continuation of our second best-of-25 match. I won the session 2-1, but am 8-5 down.

After Allan left I drove back to Kwik-Fit with the guarantee. It was a different man at the counter. Yes, they would be covered if I replaced the discs... So I asked for a quote on the discs - front discs 78.80 for 22mm or 45.70 for 20mm, rear discs 47.70. That sounded good - until I was told that was the price each, not per pair! I was completely confused now. Had the first man assumed the price was per pair? Was the second man screwing me over?

I went home and phoned Iain to get a proper quote in case I had misunderstood the guestimate - Iain confirmed that the discs were cheaper than Kwik-Fit - 61/45 front/rear per pair and about 50 for the pads. It goes back in on Thursday for a service and they won the brake discs business...

On Saturday after the morning dog walk I went up the high bank - over 6 hours of hard graft that I am really paying for now. On Sunday morning I was back up there planting up the foxgloves in three large patches. I also dug in the soil from Anne's - it is great at breaking up the clay. I could do with another dozen sacks worth...

In the afternoon it was the Berwickshire Bridge Congress, my one bridge outing of the year. Anne was very kindly coming over to take the dogs out for us. Unfortunately Paul and I failed dismally to retain our pairs trophy from last year, despite actually playing well. We came equal fifth with Reg and Jean in the evening teams event.