I am cold...

...back home now trying to defreeze...

I went to a new car wash today. Car badly needed washing, cleaning and valeting.

Again, the usual language difficulties. It was run a very long time ago by a Welsh lady called Suzi, and is still called "Suzi's Car Wash" although she has long gone, and East Europeans run it now, most whom do not appear to speak one word of English. It seems to be fine as long as you queue up for just the car wash itself because not a word is spoken, no verbal exchange takes place, and the guy opens your passenger door when he has finished and you pops your money in his hand and he closes the door...and you drive away...easy peasy.

But I needed a valet inside the car. So narrowly missing the jet wash aimed at my car I open the window and indicate I need the inside done. The guy cannot speak nor understand one word of English, so I say valet and £12. 'Cos that what it said on the board. Nope, he didn't understand. So got another guy whose English was zilch too. Then finally from the back comes another guy whose command of the English language appeared to extend to 5 words..."room", and later on "card","free" and "fifteen pounds"....

Anyway my car gets cleaned outside, and I have to say it is the most extensive external clean my car has ever had. Different sprays, the jet of water, another spray, soapy stuff, more jets of water, and finally a polish and dry...

But by this time the heavens have opened and it is tipping it down, so one guy waves me to a gravel area, hold the flat of his hand at me, and I wait inside the car, because I have no idea what to do, and he shoots round the back somewhere. I stay in the car because obviously the next stage is the vacuum and that cannot be done in this torrential rain...20 minutes later the guy comes back out again and the horrendous downpour has stopped and he opens the passenger door and says "room" and sort of waving me out of the car.

So I go to look for a "room". I find one with one of those low couches that once you descend in its depths there is no way you can ever leave...it was freezing cold. Then a little lapdog came along. I didn't know if it was friendly or not but it got in my lap and settled there. At least I had a warm tummy cushion. Then half an hour later it upped and went. I was cold again.

So I looked over the window in the "room" and check out the progress of my car. This is the longest car wash and valet I have ever attended...5 men are at my car, vacuuming, cleaning the windows inside and outside again, polishing inside, cleaning the wheel hubs...and by this time I am suspecting the £12 I had said and pointed to is a distant memory on their part. The highest price for a smaller car was £15. The car was getting its best clean ever so I quite happily count out my money so I have it ready.

By this time I have done "housework" on my phone...deleting a couple hundred emails, saving a pile of links to an external server, getting rid of some few hundred photos&editing, and getting rid of some apps & freed about a Gb data on the phone...and still I am waiting...I look over the window in the "room" and they are still doing my car... I notice the sun shining on a pylon and that lovely luminescent green you see at the end of the cables. I am too far away of course to get a decent picture, but the photo you have here is me taking a picture from the bowels of that soft settee through the window of the "room".

Finally the guy comes in and says "card". What card? I am not giving my debit card to him. So I hold out the money and he shakes his head saying "card" and holding his hand out. I try to put my frozen brain in gear, and it comes up with...is it a loyalty card he is talking about? So I say "No loyalty card". So he smiles and holds up his finger as though telling me to wait, and off he goes. It is 5 minutes later before he comes back and I am slightly wondering what is going on here and why any forays into a car wash place for me are...
1...extraordinarily lengthy
or 2...like a comedy set up when the jet hose broke and snaked like thrashing sea monster drowning the car wash attendant with every twist and turn and I am in hysterics
or 3...like a dating scene where the owner was doing his damnedest to get off with me each time I went and that was an embarrassing comedy in itself
or 4...the language difficulties with me being deaf and not understanding their English and finding it stressful to understand their words (I can only lip read an English speaker generally)...but there was no language difficulties for me today because they didn't even have broken English, so no stress in that way for me today.
or 5) It was a hot day the last car wash I went to and the car wash attendants became irritable and a big fight broke out between two of them and every one (customers and other car wash attendants fled for safety). They were by my car at that time...never went back there.
or 6...the list goes on...

Anyway finally he comes back waving a loyalty card at me...so that was that "card", and he jabs his finger at the remaining 11 spaces (the first was stamped) and on the 12th space he says "free" and smiles. I nod. Next thing he puts out his hand and says "fifteen pounds"...I knew it...but I didn't argue...my car had been brilliantly done outside and in. And I already had a few pounds in the other hand in case I decided to tip if it was a good job. So I attempted to give him a tip, but he didn't understand. I tried the words "tip", "good job", but from the look on his face I can see I am getting into deep water at this point, and I am not sure what he is interpreting from this. So I drop it in his hand and say "for you", and get in my car quick...and make my escape...