I’ve been doing a lot of driving recently.  This past week I drove from Somerset to Essex for a meeting in Chelmsford, and then back again.  The previous week I did almost the same journey for a meeting in Maldon.  Both times I went up the night before and stayed overnight in Colchester with some friends (thank you again, Phill and Phil, the accommodation and ironing service was much appreciated).  In case you’ve never done that journey before, at best it’s a 4 hour drive in each direction.  If there’s traffic on the M25 or A12 it can be a lot longer.

Now, I see myself as a very level-headed person.  I don’t get stressed, I don’t get angry, I don’t judge people.  Until I get into a car, apparently.  While on the roads recently I’ve noticed just how much I judge the other road users, mentally criticising their driving abilities and in some cases even their choice of car.  It came as a bit of a surprise, actually, that I would so easily fall into this habit of judgement.  So I thought I’d share with you what form this judgement takes.

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Let me start by reassuring my readers that I have not been cheating on my wife.  I’m talking about pulling of a different kind.

One of the great things about being married is that you also gain a whole new family, and whereas traditionally the in-laws are meant to be evil incarnate I’m pleased to say that I love my additional parents very much.  My father-in-law is one of those sort of people who has everything.  If you need a particular garden tool, he’ll have three.  If you need to rig up some lighting for an amateur drama stage, he’ll have more than enough cabling just lying around waiting to be used.  If it’s raining and you didn’t bring an umbrella, he has nine spares.  It does of course mean that going to visit is a battle of wills – if you even hint at not having something, it’ll have been smuggled into your boot before you’ve left.

And then he offered us a trailer tent.

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About a year ago I bought a new car.  Well, not new exactly.  Considerably second hand, to be exact.  Still, it looked to be in very good condition, despite the mileage, and I couldn’t fault it for the price.  £850 for a small family saloon.  Bargain.

Following that purchase the Escort became our daily runner, and the Mini was sold prior to us moving house – the sale of the Mini paid for the removals van and some of the white goods we bought when we moved in.  And the Escort has continued to drive beautifully without problems, and we have certainly appreciated the air conditioning a few times too.

However, it did come as a considerable worry when I checked the car over the day before we went to camp (which I still have yet to write about – sorry!).  The oil level was fine, if a bit dirty, and everything else in the engine bay looked fine, but I was aware that the exhaust had been rattling.  Closer inspection showed that it was just loose, and securing it properly would fix that no problem.  What I hadn’t expected to see was a large amount of rust on the rear subframe.  Not good.

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I know it’s Easter Sunday, and I really am excited and thrilled to know that Jesus rose from the dead, but there’s more – Neddy lives too!  It’s clearly the day for resurrections.  After several months of being garaged, my lovely Mini is now back on the road, healthy and alive and really loving it!

I was actually hoping to sell Neddy way back in November, when we bought our Ford Escort Ghia X, which was intended to replace our little Mini.  Unfortunately I couldn’t find a buyer at the time, what with the credit crunch driving car prices down, so Neddy sat almost completely forgotten in the garage, not seeing the light of day or feeling the tarmac under his tyres.  I did make sure the car was MOTed before Christmas, but due to lack of buyers I opted to SORN the car rather than renewing the tax disc, with the intention of getting the ball rolling again in the spring, by which time hopefully the car market would have improved.

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Actually, that’s a little harsh, it wasn’t quite that bad.  And second time around was much less stressful.  Not to mention gentler on the upholstery.

Oh, sorry, you’ll be wanting some context.  Ahem.  Allow me to back up and start again.

I now have a second person on my insurance policy, and much to my wife’s disappointment it’s not her.  My friend Sarah has another driving test coming up next week and wanted to get as much practice as possible before zero-hour, so I put her on my insurance for a week as an additional named driver.  Of course, that’s meant that I’ve had to actually take her out in the car, which was pretty scary, for both of us.

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I may be an adult, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that I’m grown-up.  After all, one of my favourite phrases goes something along the lines of “you’re only young once, but you can be immature forever”.  Our fancy dress parties are testament to that overwhelming tendency to revert to a child at any available opportunity.  With that in mind, today’s activities are quite out of the ordinary for me.  I’ve spent the day doing ‘Saturday’ things.

This morning I went to do the weekly food shop at Tesco, but on the way I stopped in at B&Q – that’s when I first noticed things were different.  After all, B&Q is not a child’s playground.  It’s more of a grown man’s playground, full of power tools, electrical items, things that need assembly, all manner of things that most people don’t recognise and wouldn’t know what to do with, and generally a lot of stuff that makes you feel more like a man.  I went in to buy a pack of staples (no, not for a stapler) for hammering into our decking (more on that in a moment), and ended up coming out with a wireless doorbell and a keyring torch as well.

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Some of you may have seen (or at least heard of) the film The Transporter, featuring Jason Statham as an executive delivery boy for the rich and infamous.  The first film in the trilogy (the third of which is in cinemas soon, apparently) starts with a hooter of a car chase, with a rather sporty and well kitted-out Beamer.  Unfortunately I’ve not actually seen more than the first 15 minutes of the film, so that puts an end to my review.

The reason for that introduction stems from my experience in the last half an hour, where I had to pick Sarah up from work and deliver her to the university campus where she was catching a coach, as fast as possible.  Not because Sarah was late, but because I forgot.  She had organised this with me several days ago, and yesterday evening I went round to her house so she could put a bag in my boot to save her worrying about it today.  And yet, somehow, I completely forgot about it until 10 minutes after I was supposed to have picked her up.  Grrr.

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As many of you will know, I am trying to sell my beloved Mini.  Some may say that this is the wrong time to be selling a classic car, what with the economic state of the country – the credit crunch means people don’t have much spare money, and petrol prices are so high that an additional car probably won’t be high on people’s agendas.  Still, I can’t really justify (or afford) to have two cars, especially if one of them is just sitting not doing anything.  So it’s for sale.

Unfortunately, having a Ford Escort as well now as my daily runner, the Mini has been left neglected in the garage.  Now, normally this would be a good thing; the garage is dry and safe, so in that sense it’s the best place for it.  What I forgot to do was disconnect the battery.  As a result, the month and a half it’s been sat stationary has drained the battery almost to its limits, the consequence being that the car won’t start.  Ordinarily, not the end of the world.  But it was supposed to be going in for its MOT today, so that’s had to be postponed until I can get the car running again.

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Today marked a significant transition into the real world for me.  Today I bought a new car.  Not brand new, but it is a reasonably modern, normal car, unlike my beloved Mini with whom I have enjoyed many happy hours.  It’s been on the cards for some time now, for various reasons, and today finally saw that goal achieved.

The car in question is a Ford Escort.  In fact, more than that, it’s a Ford Escort Ghia X, which is pretty much as posh as Escorts ever came.  It’s got such refinements as central locking, air conditioning, electric windows, heated windscreen, 6-CD multichanger, sunroof, power steering, airbags, and even a light in the boot.  A far cry from the more simple design of the Mini.  And a lot cheaper, too.

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It seems only yesterday I bought Neddy, my lovely little Mini Sidewalk, unadulterated and raring to get into the Mini scene.  I’ve since added my own refinements, like 5-spoke alloy wheels and a carbon-fibre dashboard and suchlike, but it’s remained essentially the same car.  Cute, friendly, stubborn at times, but a great friend.

Odd, then, that I should be even considering letting that car go.

Unfortunately, that’s the way life is at the moment.  Minis are great fun, and I can’t think of a car better suited to me, but in all honesty they’re not the most practical of vehicles.  For just me, it’s fine, but my wife wants to learn to drive, we want to have kids, and there just isn’t enough room in a Mini for all that.  I wouldn’t want Ellie learning to drive in a Mini, not because I’m afraid of her breaking anything, but more because I’m afraid of it breaking her – Minis don’t have crumple zones.  The inevitable upshot of that looming eventuality is that Neddy will need to go.

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