Making lemonade

The “Top up oil levels” message started flashing on my Renault Captur AGAIN this week.

That’s four months after the last time the service centre poured a vat of oil into it and assured me they’d fixed the problem.

We’re talking about a car that’s less than three years old and first started bleating about its wonky oil levels around the 18-month mark. I really, really want to get it sorted out before its out of warranty.

The service centre staff are always very smiley, smiley, nicey, nicey when I drop the lemon off, and act in a manner that inspires confidence they have the situation under control. But I’m beginning to suspect it isn’t and that they have absolutely no idea why the car keeps running out of oil.

Yesterday morning, I headed to to the service centre AGAIN about it. They had a gander and agreed the oil level was quite low, topped it up, reset the distance counter and asked me to return in 1000km so they could assess the oil useage.

Okey dokey …

As I advised someone in my local suburb’s Facebook page recently: do NOT buy a Renault. They are shite boxes.

You have been warned.

However, since the phrase is “When life gives you lemons make lemonade” I thought I should focus on something positive in my life.

I constantly resist the temptation to go all doe-eyed about DD. I could blog about him every day, but it’s a bit dullsville for anyone not in the relationship with me.

I will say that love makes the bitter pills easier to swallow.

And I am so thrilled to have been given a chance to find it again. There are parts that feel like I’m finding it for the first time.

I know many women decide they are done when they get to around my age and either haven’t met the right person, have been burned by a long-term relationship or are sick of compromising.

Me, I’m just getting started. I spent 45 years feeling like something was missing. I ticked off all the big stuff: marriage, successful career, two great kids … but I felt like I was inhabiting my life rather than living it.

Being left by my husband and meeting DD somehow freed me from all – OK, most of – the rules I’d imposed on myself and my world.

The lemons that land in my life might be sour, but the lemonade DD and I make together tastes so sweet.

Song of the day: U2 “Lemon”