An unmanaged expectation is a dangerous thing.

I'm sitting in my kitchen. I'm not supposed to be sitting in my kitchen. I should be in work by now, really but thanks to the wonder of the interweb I can still work sitting here, Mini-Hell is trying to stop me though. Not ideal.

I'm here for two reasons - 1. Mrs Hell is unwell, so needed a slow start to the day 2. The free Golf GTI (more of which in a mo) needs a new windscreen before it goes for MOT later today. A windscreen fitter was booked for 9:30, so I'd be able to pick up the Golf at lunch and get it tested. We have no windscreen fitter here at this time (11:01). I am now annoyed. I couldn't get hold of the guy on the phone at 9:45, to try and find out where he was - his numbers all went to voicemail. Eventually Mrs Hell got him at 10:30, when he explained he had been 'tied up' or something. That's fair enough - I can deal with someone having issues, provided I know they're having issues. When I can't get hold of them I'm annoyed because I can't put a time on whether they're going to show or not maybe they've been in a shunt on the way here, maybe they're ill - I'm left hanging with no idea and totally unmanaged expectations and I bloody hate that!

So anyway, the free GTI. My mate Simon has an ex-German Poleizi Transporter T25, with a petrol engine, this has recently started doing a beautiful impression of a gurgling brook out of the head, so he needs a stand-in until he and I get his van sorted. Someone pinged me about a 1987 Golf GTI that was for sale for £100, no tax or test and it had been standing for a while, so I went along and had a look, after the vendor contacted me (secret squirrel stuff). I took a battery and some fuel.

When I got there it turned out that the car had been standing for over a year- bad - but it looked pretty solid (in the dark) - good. Sadly when I climbed into it and looked through the condensation on the screen I could see a dirty great crack on it. 'Oh dear, that won't pass an MOT' I said. 'Oh, I'd forgotten about that' he said. I climbed out and he said 'you could just take it?'. 'we'll see if it starts' I said.

So, I got a price for the screen, collected the car last night, spent some time driving with the brakes on, to try and bring the discs and pads back to life, while doing this I froze my ass off - the heater wasn't working. When we got back here I removed the pressure-reducer valves that were preventing the heater from working, then spotted a leak in the radiator, so that had to come out and be swapped for the one that was being used previously in the Syncro. There were a couple of other fiddly jobs and then I took it out to just make sure everything was OK - it kinda was, but the brakes still aren't all together right - it'll cope, hopefully, but I think it might need new numberplates.

Never mind cope - will it pass an MOT?! Tune in later to find out.