And, it’s not quite a Jag-u-ar. In fact, it’s not much of anything at the moment – seeing as when I left the house this morning to toddle up the M18 it point-blank refused to start. At all. Turn key….”click click click click”. Damn. I suspected the battery, but all of the interior lights seem to work, the radio switched on when I put the key in, and the central locking worked fine.

I call out Mazda Assist, who tell me that they’ll have someone out at 11. So, I ring work and arrange to work from home today. When the recovery guy turns up, it’s around 11:30. He clearly already suspects the battery, as he’s arrived at the door with a portable battery charger/car starter ready to fire the beast up.

He pops open the bonnet, and hooks up the battery charger, whistles and wanders around the car to the drivers door, gets in and tries to kick the engine over. “click click click click click”. No dice. “OH”, says the man. He clearly wasn’t expecting that!

After an hour or so of fiddling around he finally does get the car running, but it sounds terrible. It sounds like it’s misfiring like hell. Both of the traction control lights are illuminated on the dashboard too. It wasn’t like this on Friday, when I last used it! The Mazda tech appears nonchalant and starts saying that plug failure is a “common fault on RX8′s” and that it’s relatively easy to rectify with a new set of plugs. He does some ‘reset’ procedure which cures one of the traction control lights, but the other one persists.

As it was, Mr Mazda Assist didn’t have any replacement RX8 plugs with him, so he said he’d try and get the installed plugs out and inspect them, so see if he could remove any fouling in order to get me by until the car could get booked in and looked at properly at the dealers. No dice – he can’t get the original plugs out! They do look fairly inaccessible, and his fancy tool didn’t do the trick at all. Left with no alternative, he rings up his people, and organises for GK Mazda in Sheffield to get the car tomorrow.

The dealers do at least agree to drop me off at work tomorrow, which is better than spending another day working from home. Hopefully it’ll all be sorted – the car is under Mazda warranty, so hopefully there’ll be no nasty surprises.

In other, more positive, news – I started another of my New Year’s resolutions today – Exercise.

There’s no escaping it. I’m a proper fat bastard, and unless I do something to sort it out, I’m going to end up in a (rather large) hole in the ground before my time is due. Melodrama, perhaps, but I’m big enough and stupid enough these days to actually get my finger out and do something about it.

Swimming is something I’ve always enjoyed, and it’s something that I’m actually able to do – unlike going for a run – so it seems the ideal candidate to at least start with. So, when the wife was finished with her motor this evening, I nicked it and went up to Hillsborough Sports Centre, and did an almightly huge </sarcasm> half a kilometre’s swim. Not very far, but it’s something to build on. Especially when I’ve not done any exercise of any sort for around 10 years. I could have gone further, I’m sure, but the place was beginning to get busy, and the lane-swimming pool was becoming over-run with middle aged women.

I plan on going at least once a week, until my stamina is up to a level where regular exercise becomes an option. I do plan on sticking to this regime, I need to sort myself out, and after all – anything is better than nothing at all.

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