MOTs always put the fear of God into me. It’s a bit like a visit to the dentist in terms of stress levels and anxiety. I have a lovely mechanic but even he picked up my car last week with a bit of trepidation – particularly when I mentioned that I thought the brakes were a bit dodgy.

So off my trusty Ford Focus went to meet its fate at the MOT testing station. Then I had to endure the torturous and painful wait to find out what it had failed on and more importantly…whether I needed a second mortgage to fund the repairs. It’s a bit like waiting to find out if you’ve passed your A-Levels.

Meanwhile I still had to get to work, so decided to embrace public transport and have a bit of an adventure. I have a train station in my village with a direct train to Oxford so that bit of the journey was delightful. A brisk walk along the canal towpath, a cheeky coffee at our local waterside bistro and quick read of the paper and then I was on my way. Ah the simple life! At the other end I bottled out of a bus ride and took a cab, however.

When I got into the office I felt really quite smug that I had arrived in one piece and on time without the stress of traffic jams. I fail to see what the fuss about public transport is to be honest – my train was on time, quite clean and had plenty of seats. I even suggested that I might do this more often as it had been such a lovely way to start the day However, my return journey was not quite as successful as I decided to take the bus. Despite comments from work colleagues who sucked through their teeth and said things like “you don’t want to do that at this time of day. Are you MAD?” I persisted with my plan.

It wasn’t too painful at first but then I realised that I was probably on the slowest bus in the world that stopped at every single stop it came to. It took the best part of an hour to get to the station and I arrived with minutes to spare and not even time to get a cappuccino. The bus ride may well have only cost a couple of pounds but you definitely get what you pay for!

Incidentally my car failed its MOT but with a replacement widget costing £20 it is back on the road. My initial notion of occasionally taking public transport to work has now passed as a moment of romantic madness...