The lease contract for my van came to an end in March, and not having yet made a decision about its replacement, I was in a bit of a panic about how I was going to carry all my work gear around. I visited a local mechanic for advice and was tipped off about an old Volvo estate car which was for sale in a nearby village. The intention was that I wouldn't need it for long, so the fact that it was fifteen years old, had 130,000 miles on the clock and needed some TLC, wasn't that much of a problem. When I say that it handled like a tank, that's not a reference to its size, but the fact that it was full of water from a leak in the roof. On hills and around corners, water sloshed about the footwells unnervingly. I had hoped that a bead of silicone sealant along the top of the windscreen would do the trick but, no, more drastic measures were needed. Before the car went off to have its windscreen replaced, I removed some of the carpets, the better to bail out the water and also so...