“National Windscreens” are replacing my car windscreen, which is cracked; arranged through my insurer I called them yesterday and booked in “as early as possible, please”… so this morning I get up early, hit the shower, get dressed ASAP, all so I can get this over with and get on with my life. I set up downstairs and start work on the laptop.

By 10am, I am wondering where he’s gotten to.

I then check my phone, to find a somehow missed call at 0905 saying (verbatim) “National Windscreens, please call me back” – and no phone number; fortunately my voicemail gives me the option to call him back with “press 5 and your standard call charges will apply”…

It turns out that he got here and phoned me because he could not find the house number – which is odd, because there is a sodding enormous sign down on the roadside saying “Access to Numbers 1 & 2” and it’s next door to “Number 3” – so you’d think that was a bit of a hint.

Anyway, it’s not like there’s a thousand houses around here.

He then said that he “couldn’t find the car, either” – which is faintly also disturbing, as if he would replace the windscreen of any car he had got booked-in without even bothering to find the owner or keys.

I told him that it was parked around the corner “in a side street”, and he said “In Sandy Lane? I went up there, that’s where I stopped” – which means that he must have stopped (or maybe U-turned) behind my car because I just checked, it’s still there, parked on the road, 40 yards up on the left and nobody’s nicked it. At that time of day there are only 3 or 4 cars there, so it should not be too hard to find mine.

So he says he’ll be back “in about an hour”. I wait in expectation.

I sometimes wonder why I bother trying to plan around other people.