I set off for work early yesterday (around 7am) as usual to get into work for around 8:30am. As I drove down the M4 a few miles from work, I started to hear a noise from the rear of my car. There was an unusually strong cross-wind so put it down to that. As I continued, however, it became clear the noise wasn't the wind. My exhaust has been deteriorating over the last six months, so I concluded it must have finally developed a hole. I continued on my journey, deciding to have a look when I got to work.

As I drove a little further up the motorway, however, the rumbling noise suddenly became a lot louder and continuous. I pulled over the hard shoulder and went round to the back of the car. The exhaust didn't look like it had detached as I had feared but I did notice in passing that my near-side rear tyre was completely flat!

Now, I'm not sure if you've ever noticed this about me, but I am not the most mechanically inclined of individuals. For whatever reason I just don't have those genes. I can, however, change a tyre and vowed to get on with the job at hand. The canteen at work serves your personal choice of full English breakfast items on a Friday morning, including poached, scrambled and fried eggs cooked to order for a low price, so I had particular motivation to get the job done. I jacked up the car (slightly problematic as the hard shoulder on the M4 between junctions 6 and 7 is earth not tarmac - a little known fact). I loosened the locking nut. I unbolted all the bolts. I got the spare from its cage under the car. I got the old wheel off, the new wheel on and furiously started tightening the bolts.

I could smell the eggs - there was still time. The spare wheel safely on, I recovered the warning triangle of power (2ft tall), threw all the bits and bobs back into the car and got back in. 8:40. I calculated I would still just get to work and place my order in time. Tired but smiling, I turned the key in the ignition.

It was at around this point in time that I recalled that the battery in my car is temperamental. If one were to - hypothetically, of course - leave the car radio panel attached (so effectively on), the passenger door open to allow access to locking wheel nut adaptors and the like (resulting in the interior light being on) and the hazard lights of destiny powered to supplement the warning triangle of power with great beacons of light penetrating the daylight sky, then the battery tends to run flat in, say, the time it takes to change a flat tyre.

I was close enough to the office that I might ask someone to come and give me a jump start but, of course, conventional jump starts with almost all cars and cables aren't possible on the motorway as you can't get the bonnets close enough together to connect the batteries. I rang the AA, my poached eggs drifting over the horizon as the bored operator intoned that they would be with me any day now.

The moral of the story is: call the AA even if you're going to change your own tyre. Or buy a new battery. Or something. Interesting place, though, the M4. Naturally I took the opportunity to shoot a few pictures while I was waiting.

I need the kind of job where we'd take turns fixing each other fancy lunches and doing each other's paperwork. That would rock! From Good Housekeeping's Picture Cookery, published by The National Magazine Company, Ltd., London, England