Madame's "holiday": Part 2

As you know, Madame was pinged doing 183 in a 120 zone, the penalty for which is a AED1,000 fine and poor Madame has to be impounded for a week.
It was decided that, on the Sunday we moved out of Satwa, we’d take Madame down to the Place of Incarceration for her week in the joint/the Greybar Hotel/the slammer. I was going to drive the Disco for the week that she was “inside”. On Sunday morning I went to the garage at Satwa, pointed the key at Madame, pressed “Unlock” and......nothing happened. Tinkle of alarm bells in head. I opened the door manually, oh I already knew what was up but even so I got in and attempted to move the seat forward.....Colin had driven her last so the seat was so far back that it was almost in Karama.....but again, totally dead, nothing happened. Her battery was flat as a pancake, odd considering she was fine the day before.
It took a couple of days to get her going again, we had to borrow a power pack from a friend who also owns an RS6, kick start Madame and then take her to get a new battery. She ran fine, and Colin drove her down to Abu Dhabi to Citiscape, so the battery was fully charged. We decided that the following day she would go into the Pound. I confess here that, STUPIDLY, we discussed this plan in front of Madame and sure enough, the next day when Colin tried to start her........nothing happened....again! The brand new battery was flat. How did the battery go flat overnight eh? Who didn’t want to go to the Pound eh? Who was telling us “Hell no! I won’t go!”
Unfortunately for Madame her protests were in vain. Colin used the powerpack again and got enough juice into the battery to get her out to the Pound. At the Pound there was the obligatory paperwork. If you live in Dubai, this scenario will sound familiar: stand in queue at Counter X and eventually you're given piece of paper and told to go to Counter Y which is somewhere else, exit building, walk round the corner and out the back, stand in the sun, join queue at Counter Y, another man hands over another piece of paper and you're told to take it back to Counter X, walk back into first building, take the piece of paper from Counter Y back to Counter X to be given yet another piece of paper and told to park the car with the Nissan Sunnys (boo hiss). So now the Audi is parked out there and she's in the sun too as they wouldn’t allow a car cover to be put on! Poor, poor Madame!

Madame's "holiday": Part 1

Madame with her American friend

You may have noticed that I've often mentioned "Madame" in past posts. When people here talk about a Dubai Madame they mean a woman usually an expat, living the worry-free shopping/poolside/manicures life of luxury here (that's definitely not me then!) But no, this "Madame" is our car; a 505 bhp bi-turbo V8 Audi RS6, a muscle car supreme. I have her all week to go to and from work and Colin says he gets to drive her at the weekend "If he's a good boy." The car was named by Soirse as we ripped along the Hatta Road down to Oman on a visa run: "This is such a Madame car" she said, and the name has stuck. We're both so impressed with the Audi, she handles beautifully on the open road at speed, but is also very "well mannered" in suburban traffic (which is lucky when, like last night, it took me over an hour to travel the 5kms from BurJuman to the Trade Centre).

Anyway, it turns out that Madame was pinged in March doing 183kph in a 120kph zone (for heavens sake it was on a highway in the middle of the desert near Bab al Shams, we're talking "back of beyond" territory here...) As a result not only is there a fine but the car is being impounded for a week. We have to take her to the main police station in Dubai where she'll be locked up in their parking lot for a week.....eeuww.....it'll be full of Kia micro-cars and evil Nissan Sunnys with overdue parking fines.....poor, poor Madame! Our friend Allen's LandRover Discovery has also been impounded for a week so maybe the Disco and Madame can sit next to each other and glare at the other cars.

And before any smartypants(s) say anything, it wasn't me!