When I bought my car (which seemed good at the time), the bloke I bought it from reckoned when the fuel light went on, you had about another 50K on it. So far it’s never caused me trouble — I’ve never tried to do a Krameresque “how far will it go”, and it’s never actually ran out.

So I was driving along on Tuesday, and noticed the petrol gauge was almost empty, but the light was off. I was in a bit of a hurry, and decided not to fill up just yet. Parked at my mum’s place, and after a nice cup of tea, went to head home.

The car wouldn’t start. I was pretty sure the battery was okay, having replaced it just last year, and I didn’t think the fuel gauge would suddenly start being super-sensitive. The light hadn’t even gone on.

And of course, having let my RACV membership lapse, they’d be no help to me.

Thankfully Peter wasn’t far away, and after theorising that maybe the tank was empty enough to stop the car starting, went to look for a jerrycan. He found one all right, but didn’t have a funnel, just a rolled up piece of newspaper. He remarked that it was like Bush Mechanics.

After buying $10 of petrol from the nearby 7-11, we managed to get some of it into the tank, and then started the car. It worked.

I rolled it over to the pump and filled the rest of the tank and drove home.

It’s not a long drive, about ten minutes, and a bit over halfway there, the engine stopped. I didn’t realise what had happened at first, as we were still moving. The power steering went, making the wheel sluggish, and changing gears wouldn’t do anything. The electrics worked, and I indicated and drifted over to the kerb and cruised to a stop.

Blargh.

The engine started again straight away, and got us home.

We didn’t drive anywhere yesterday or today, but tonight I took another look. Thought I’d take it for a short test drive, and see if it happened again or if it was some freak occurrence that I could ignore.

It happened again.

Dammit.

This time, it took a couple of goes to start again.

So I’d better ring the mechanic first thing in the morning and take it up there, and hope it doesn’t stall too many times along the way. In fact I’m half inclined to drive it up there tonight while there’s no traffic around that I’ll get in the way of.

I think something similar happened a few years ago. Don’t remember what it was, but the alternator rings a bell. Or the spark plug? Okay I admit it, I have no idea.

And just as my bank account is almost looking healthy enough to get rid of it and upgrade, too.

Bloody cars.

11pm. Drove up to mechanic. Of course, performance was flawless. Will ring in morning and hope they can look at it.

On Monday I took an early lunch and met my mum and Peter and the kids for a jaunt up onto the Eureka Skydeck. My mum had won tickets for four, but didn’t want to go up herself.

The lift had buttons for 1, 2, 86, 87 and 88. Hmm. The automated voice reckoned we were going up at 9 metres per second. Once the doors opened, we saw the view — impressive to say the least.

Quite spectacular views across the bay, along the river, and over the city. Toy trains and cars moved around below us.

The prize included tickets to The Edge — that vulnerable-looking glass box that you get in and it slides out so it’s sticking outside the building and you can look in any direction — including down.

From the nearby verandah, which was isolated from the main deck by an airlock, and damn windy, we saw it slide out. And having read Rob’s description recently, I was keen to go on it.

But there was a queue of at least 15 minutes — at least they say 15 minutes, but they really mean 30+ minutes — and I had to get back to work. And the kids were… uneasy about it. Peter stayed and queued, and enjoyed it — but the rest of us declined and scarpered. I definitely want to try it another time.

On the way down, the lift automated voice revealed that in high winds, the top of the building would move up to 60cm. I think I’m glad I didn’t know that on the way up.