I glanced at my watch that was on my bedside table and pressed the temperature reading button 27.9ºC, that ended up being the low of the day. The time? 4am.

I decided that enough was enough and I resolved myself to tackle the daunting task of fitting the fuel filter to Christine. I already had the little filter and the tubing so all that was needed was installing the thing. I started by removing the air filter, being super careful not to drop anything into the air intake hole. As I pulled it off, the air filter that is, something fell from the underside of the filter and bounced around the engine compartment.

“Shit, what was that?”

Must have fallen onto the floor, I thought, I got on my hands and knees and peered under the car.  There was nothing apart from a fag-but, that couldn’t have been it, and a small stone, that wasn’t it either.

“Here we go” I said to myself as I scrambled around the engine looking for something I didn’t know what I was looking for.

A small shiny silver metal tube caught my eye stuck on a ledge at the bottom of the engine…that’s it and after fishing about, in the grime for 5 minutes, I managed to get it out.

All went well until I connected the fuel line and realised I should have taken the bulldog clips of first as they should have been the other side of the filter, instead of removing it all again I just bought a couple more bulldog clips for the other end. One thing for sure it aint comin orf.

British Bulldog

It was time to wash the engine compartment so I got a bucket of water, a scourer and a dish sponge from the flat and proceeded to get rid of the worst of the 28 year old grime. After a minute the water was black and I had to throw away the scourer but kept the small square dish sponge that although quite dirty by now with oily grime, I could use again to clean up oil around the cylinder head. I threw the water down the drain, threw the scourer into the bin and placed the dirty dish sponge on top of my wheel under the wheel arch while I went upstairs to get a new bucket of water.

I came straight back down with the clean water only to find …someone had nicked the oily, dirty dish sponge!!!!

Unbelievable.

"I'm in the money...yes in the money , la la la la la la la la la la la la"

I turned the ignition key and it started first time so I decided to celebrate my new fuel filter by testing out my own internal fuel filter also known as kidneys. As I locked my door to the flat after a French shower,   I bumped into my next door neighbours Jesus, the jockey, and his brown girlfriend Estephania who spends any and all of her spare time on the beach.

They bought their dog Bimba, great, who barked and yelped.  As we sat at the table at the bar, the dog sat under the table and I noticed that the harder you kicked him the louder he yelped but the longer the silence between yelps.

Then he was quiet for a while and I peered under the table and noticed he was throwing up and pissing on the pavement, but that’s enough about Jesus.

We were joined by our other next door neighbour from the 2^nd floor, interestingly named Africa, and we all raised our glasses to the 2^nd floor gang..

“Yelp”said Bimba.

"Are you going to stop barking now hmm?"