Five minutes later I get another call to tell me the battery is connected but the horn is going off continuously
I think you can guess why. In the panic Mrs hadn't paid attention to the battery polarity. Not helped by the fact that Citroen in their wisdom colour the positive terminal black she had connected it back to front. Instant toast and public transport to the airport.Initial diagnosis shows multiple blown fuses, burnt out alternator, every light on the dash lit up and alarm sounding continously. Amazingly it still started after a bit of coaxing, but not much else works. Consequently I've given to a local acquaintance who is a keen amateur mechanic and Xantia fan and seems dead keen to try and resurrect it. He's a Romanian and has a pal back home who is a Citroen specialist and mainly works on C5's. He says he will ship it back to him if he can't get it going here.
Still, every cloud has a silver lining, it means my hand now has been forced to go off and buy something which will hopefully not demand so much of my attention to keep it usable.
