You should see my kitchen floor

I take the car to a valet service and park it to the side. This is obviously out of the ordinary. The man in charge of the cleaners - all tall men and very muscly - comes over to me, frowning, and dismissively nods his head towards the queue for the car wash. He orders, 'over there'.

He thinks I'm here for a normal 30-minute makeover. The one where I drive it through the foamy brushes, they give it a once-over with the shake and vac, then I pay fifteen pounds.

I say, nervously, 'Can you have a look first?' I open the back door. He says nothing, but stares. Then he calls over two of the other muscle men. They stare too. One of them, looking like an action hero in his combat trousers, turns to me and shakes my hand. Then he says, in a quiet accent that sounds Eastern European, 'I've never seen anything like it in all my life'.

I feel both dismayed and a little pleased. Dismayed that I have been driving what looks like a battlefield from the Bosnian War. Pleased that I am a woman able to impress a man who bears a passing resemblance to Jean-Claude Van Damme.