Thoughts on cars

Wednesday 7 October 2015

Cool and showery 14 degrees

Woken up by the alarm clock and ran around, getting paperwork together and then off into the sheets of mist to the coast to pick up the new car.  OH had not emptied any of the car pockets or nooks or crannies so spent most of the journey packing things into plastic bags.  Discovered some of the Galician sea shells and they had already shivered into many small fragments - can possibly use these in any event as inclusions.  Perhaps I am going resin mad lol!!

Arrived at the garage and the new car was all under wraps with a label on it saying my name and welcome and a smiley face.   Looked at back at my old car and gave her a stroke and thanked her for being a good girl and for all the distance she had carried me safely and wished that someone who took her next would love her as much as I had.  She was generous and comfortable and lovely to drive.  I don't think I will love the new car as much as do her.

I have had a number of cars - the first was a Mini, many moons ago, and I didn't drive her much because I didn't actually drive and the people who came out with me were scared.  My cousin, after one hair raising session, said I should just stall the car where we were and she could walk to the pavement.  The next car was considerably later, the day our eldest started school.  It was a Suzuki Santana, Suki by name, who was great on the icy hills and fun and white and I loved her until she started developing many rattles and then a hole developed in the fuel tank and then she became very rusty and I think was scrapped.  OH turned up with a replacement which was a Landrover of mature years and which I instantly developed a hate/hate relationship.  I don't know how people ever get to Africa in Landrovers.  I had trouble getting to Cheshire in mine.  It broke down at the Tatton RHS flower show and in the middle of the immense car park.  I stood on the roof to attract the breakdown lorry.  A man with more money than sense bought it as a plaything for his 12 year old.  We turned up at the house and the nanny came out and took it around the grounds to test it before paying in cash.  My next car was a Volvo V70 automatic - pavlovo - and I loved her with all my heart.  She was a mile muncher - enormously comfortable and comforting but with a smooth acceleration that was exhilarating.  She came to France with us and her motor died and I cried when she was taken off to be scrapped.  I acquired her third hand - she had been OH's work car and was then looked after by our Brother in Law who did very little driving and then became mine.

So, we decided to go French and bought a Kangoo which was fun and very practical and I quite liked but she is now in a truly terrible state because, for the past seven years, she has been almost exclusively used by OH who has never cleaned a car in his life.  Seven years ago, I had a lot of spare money and didn't want to pay it to the tax man, so I went out and bought a brand new car.  It was the first Qashkai in Aquitaine and attracted many admiring glances and I loved her to bits.  She didn't like OH.  Her engine blew up in the UK at 100000 kms and he was stuck there for weeks whilst I battled with the French administration and the warranty people.  Every time he took her over the Channel, something went wrong.  The boot refused to open and then it refused to shut.  The windscreen wipers refused to work - twice - when it was hammering it down with rain on the motorways.  She had no objections to Spain, but that was when I was with her.

Now she is gone and we have a white French car and she has a lot of complicated things on her and OH spent the whole time driving back, looking at the dashboard and fiddling with things and nearly driving off the road.  Felt very fraught.  Went to McDonald's for lunch and then to see a house which was gorgeous.  The lady had a blind dog which had no trouble getting under our feet for the whole time we were there, and it also, like all dogs, loved having a lick of my legs. 

Back home and had rest of yesterday's chili and watched the end of a programme about the First World War from the French perspective.  It was more grim than even I had realised.