First came the brush with a bus. The driver couldn't quite manage the gap I'd left him and in his turn left me at the wheel of a nearly new silver Golf Estate with a red smear and scuff damage on its rear bumper.
The repair was easily organised, but locating the car's data plate for its paint code brought the first shock. Made in Mexico certainly wasn't the provenance I was expecting to find on a vehicle I had chosen for its renowned standards of German engineering. Traditional non-PC associations of the "People's Car" with goose-stepping soldiers of the Wehrmacht were replaced by memories of dancing entertainment staff in Cancun leading regimented holidaymakers in compulsory renditions of the Iberostar Song.
I thought there couldn't be a more incongruous image, but right on cue whammy no.2 hit me with the news that Tetley's iconic Yorkshire bitter is to be brewed in Wolverhampton.
Let me hasten to reassure any Black Country brewers who happen to be reading this - or Latin American car-builders for that matter - that no disparagement of your skills is implied or intended. I also appreciate the economic factors that drive such decisions.
But that doesn't mean I approve.
And they're not decisions that the brand-owners are ever proud to shout about, are they? Made in Mexico was pretty well hidden on my Golf, which Volkswagen continues to advertise as Das Auto; and I doubt you'll see Brewed in Wolverhampton on the revived Huntsman pumpclip - you can bet your life Carlsberg will still proclaim Tetley's Yorkshire Heritage.
Contract brewing and brand relocation have long been facts of life. Tetley's itself has already lived in Warrington as well as Leeds. Beers called Ruddles, Ridley's, Gales, Courage, Stones, Mansfield, Morland, Hardys and Hansons, and Young's - to name just a few - live on only as echoes of their original brewing homes.
It even happens at the micro end of the market, so I cannot in all honesty hypocritically condemn it out of hand. It just so happens I fooled many a chauvinistic Tyke myself with that Warrington Tetley's in my first six months at the Swan in the Rushes in Loughborough in the 80s. And a couple of weeks ago a pint of Bass - now brewed under licence by Marston's - tasted remarkably like a pint of Bass.
It's ironic that if Marston's themselves owned Tetley's their current local brewing policy would keep it in Leeds where it belongs. They have recognised the value of genuine local provenance and are keeping breweries open. (Is that why they need big brewing contracts, I wonder.)
But whatever the rights and wrongs of the arguments, global thinking has no place in the hearts of the growing number of us who champion local drinking. And my next task, away from the day job that keeps me fighting for the health and welfare of local brewers, is to organise the first of my planned Tetley Bitter Pilgrimages - while there's still time - to the Yorkshire city that will always be the beer's only true home.