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- 633
- Type of diabetes
- Type 2
- Treatment type
- Tablets (oral)
- Dislikes
- Impolite people, yobbish behaviour, pretentious people.
Well, it hasn’t exactly been a swinging start to the new year anywhere, has it? In Luxembourg all restaurants were closed, as were shops, bars and cafés. For us, our nearest UK family is in Whitstable, Kent, so that was a no-no as it’s a Covid hotspot. Our oldest son is in Western France with his wife, but that’s not a wise choice either. And our youngest son’s home is in Cathedral City, adjacent to Palm Springs and would involve a 9 hour flight there and another one back.
We had a hotel reservation for a room, breakfast and dinner over Christmas but another lockdown put an end to that. So it was just the two of us and a small turkey at the table on Christmas Day.
As for possible outings, although we have the French, German and Belgian borders within a short distance, each one has a different set of requirements for entering, so that wasn’t much of an option either.
The only bright light on the horizon was the delivery of our new car. I had put in the order in Februrary of 2020 because it was the period of Luxembourg’s auto festival, when they offer reduced prices, so I specified delivery in January, 2021. I always lease our cars and the lease on our then current car would expire at that time.
My choice, as I do most of the driving, was for a smaller car than the Mercedes E-Class 350 D we had then. The E-Class was a great vehicle able to transport 4 or 5 people and their luggage in great comfort, quietly and with fuel economy unusual in such a large car.
Our choice this time was for a smaller model, still a diesel and with plenty of extras to make our trips comfortable and thus safer. We settled on a GLC Coupe 400D with 4-wheel drive. We figured that winter tyres and 4-wheel drive would see us through virtually anything the winter would throw at us. We’ve been through the experience of being caught out by a heavy snowfall once before and as we live in an area which is higher than its surroundings we found ourselves with spinning wheels and a bunch of irate drivers behind. Normally, by the time it snows I have swapped the summer tyres for winter ones, but this was in October and in all the years we’ve lived in this country I’ve never seen snow in October. The result was that I had to pull off the road, leave Jackie in the car because she was having problems walking due to knee replacement surgery
that was soon due, and trek on foot for 2 miles through a heavy blizzard to home, get the snow off Jackie’s car, a Mercedes B Class, and drive it back to where I had left her. I was gambling on the fact that the B Class’s front wheel drive would get us through the snow, uphill to our village. Which it did, thankfully.
One of the systems which was on the new car, as it had been on our previous one, was the Eco Stop/Start program. This cuts the engine when you stop the car, for instance at a traffic light, and when you lift your foot off the brake pedal the engine restarts. It’s great for economising on fuel in town driving and particularly when you get stuck in a traffic jam on the motorway.
However, I discovered on the way home from the showroom that occasionally it would stop the engine, as it was designed to do, but wouldn’t start it when the lights turned green. Very embarrassing when you’re driving a brand new car with the showroom gloss still on it.
I called the salesman, whom we’ve known for a long time, as soon as I got home and he invited us to bring it in to him the next morning after I explained that it was one of those most irritating faults: an intermittent one.
Luckily, the fault displayed itself while he was driving it so an appointment was quickly made for the electronic unit that controls the function to be examined and replaced if that was the cause.
So there I was the next Monday morning handing in the car for the electronic experts to do their best.
Later in the afternoon I picked up the car and drove home, only to find after a 15 minute drive the engine stopping at red lights but not restarting at greens. I did manage to get the engine running after a couple of whacks on the starter button but I called the dealer when I got home so now I have an appointment for tomorrow to take the car in and pick up a replacement car, which I can keep until the new one is well and truly fixed.
Please join me in crossing my fingers in hope that the fault can be corrected quickly. I really do not want to live through one of those sagas where nobody seems to know what to do about a glitch that is untraceable.
We had a hotel reservation for a room, breakfast and dinner over Christmas but another lockdown put an end to that. So it was just the two of us and a small turkey at the table on Christmas Day.
As for possible outings, although we have the French, German and Belgian borders within a short distance, each one has a different set of requirements for entering, so that wasn’t much of an option either.
The only bright light on the horizon was the delivery of our new car. I had put in the order in Februrary of 2020 because it was the period of Luxembourg’s auto festival, when they offer reduced prices, so I specified delivery in January, 2021. I always lease our cars and the lease on our then current car would expire at that time.
My choice, as I do most of the driving, was for a smaller car than the Mercedes E-Class 350 D we had then. The E-Class was a great vehicle able to transport 4 or 5 people and their luggage in great comfort, quietly and with fuel economy unusual in such a large car.
Our choice this time was for a smaller model, still a diesel and with plenty of extras to make our trips comfortable and thus safer. We settled on a GLC Coupe 400D with 4-wheel drive. We figured that winter tyres and 4-wheel drive would see us through virtually anything the winter would throw at us. We’ve been through the experience of being caught out by a heavy snowfall once before and as we live in an area which is higher than its surroundings we found ourselves with spinning wheels and a bunch of irate drivers behind. Normally, by the time it snows I have swapped the summer tyres for winter ones, but this was in October and in all the years we’ve lived in this country I’ve never seen snow in October. The result was that I had to pull off the road, leave Jackie in the car because she was having problems walking due to knee replacement surgery
that was soon due, and trek on foot for 2 miles through a heavy blizzard to home, get the snow off Jackie’s car, a Mercedes B Class, and drive it back to where I had left her. I was gambling on the fact that the B Class’s front wheel drive would get us through the snow, uphill to our village. Which it did, thankfully.
One of the systems which was on the new car, as it had been on our previous one, was the Eco Stop/Start program. This cuts the engine when you stop the car, for instance at a traffic light, and when you lift your foot off the brake pedal the engine restarts. It’s great for economising on fuel in town driving and particularly when you get stuck in a traffic jam on the motorway.
However, I discovered on the way home from the showroom that occasionally it would stop the engine, as it was designed to do, but wouldn’t start it when the lights turned green. Very embarrassing when you’re driving a brand new car with the showroom gloss still on it.
I called the salesman, whom we’ve known for a long time, as soon as I got home and he invited us to bring it in to him the next morning after I explained that it was one of those most irritating faults: an intermittent one.
Luckily, the fault displayed itself while he was driving it so an appointment was quickly made for the electronic unit that controls the function to be examined and replaced if that was the cause.
So there I was the next Monday morning handing in the car for the electronic experts to do their best.
Later in the afternoon I picked up the car and drove home, only to find after a 15 minute drive the engine stopping at red lights but not restarting at greens. I did manage to get the engine running after a couple of whacks on the starter button but I called the dealer when I got home so now I have an appointment for tomorrow to take the car in and pick up a replacement car, which I can keep until the new one is well and truly fixed.
Please join me in crossing my fingers in hope that the fault can be corrected quickly. I really do not want to live through one of those sagas where nobody seems to know what to do about a glitch that is untraceable.
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