Take that!

I am sitting here in my sister's spare room in deepest darkest Hampshire unable to sleep because tomorrow I and my sister are going to see Take That in Cardiff.
Pathetic!
I mean come on I am a forty five year old mother of two and far to grown up for this sort of thing but I fear I am reverting really rather rapidly. I drove down tonight from Suffolk in three hours flat. And that is not good, for at some point I must surely have broken the speed limit in my exuberance. And it doesn't help that I was driving the MX5 on one of it's rare outings these days, it just begs to be driven properly, no mummy driving allowed. Milton Keynes was a joy just what the car was built for lots of gear changing, lots of tight manoeuvring, lots of corners and for once clear of small boys in the back each and every roundabout was a joyful challenge rather than a potential sickness hazard.
Then I arrive, welcomed with open arms and an open bottle of fizz perfect. But there was a tiny little fly in the ointment my sister has taken on the task of seeing Take That with military precision. She has downloaded the play list - I can cope with that.
She has downloaded the words to every song - I am not quite so sure about that as I have visions of her forcing large print folios in my hands in the middle of the concert so I can sing along without straining my eyes. (She knows I will refuse to wear my glasses).
However, I think I may be off the hook as she has already told me that she has the CD in the car so we cN sing along on our journey down. Bet she makes me sing each song until I am word perfect!

Review: Skoda - "By gum! It's game!"

I had never been so nervous in all my life as I waited for the bods at Skoda to collect their car. I had gone over it with a toothcomb and as far as I could see I hadn’t done it any damage and it looked nearly as clean as when it arrived – well it should do I’d been washing it down and hoovering it out for what seemed like hours.

I reflected on my week with the Yeti and can honestly say I’ve not had so much fun in a car since Dear Charlie first allowed me behind the wheel of his sports car in 1998.

Oh Wow! I remember that day. He had knocked on my door and led me out of my subterranean hole into the afternoon sunlight one Sunday. And there she sat positively purring on the other side of the road, a sleek sculpted vision that just begged to be touched. I had no idea he’d let me drive but he showed me over and gallantly held the driver’s door open for me to sink into the cream leather sets. She was so new.

I remember feeling terrified and excited at the same time as she drew away from the kerb. The feeling of freedom and trepidation warring with each other as I drove her over Chelsea Bridge and then: then the real fun! Cruising down Kings Road and everyone staring. I had a grin a mile wide and it appeared to me to be infectious, for everyone I looked at, or caught the eye of, seemed to be smiling back – and even then that was a result in London.

And the car I drove that afternoon? Well it was making headlines back then though now possibly people would laugh; it was the Mazda MX-5 NB (the first one without pop-up lights). At the time she was a revelation. I’d like to say she still is for we still own her and at present she’s sitting outside on the drive, still going strong and I’d like to think- especially in the summer – still turning heads!

With a Skoda the last thing you would think was that it turned heads – but it did, not necessarily for looks, more like curiosity. I let my curiosity take wings and I was surprised. In my one week I had determined that I would really put the Yeti through it’s paces school runs, trip to the vet, furniture removal, off-roading, weekly shop, family outing, towing the horsebox, the works.

And the real question was would the Yeti be able to do everything I used to do with my Duchess, Dora the Land Rover Discovery – the car I had had to reluctantly send to the scrap heap only 18 months before?

Let’s just say that for starters, unlike Dora - may she rest in pieces - I didn’t feel like I was driving a tank. In fact it was exactly like driving the Golf but more fun ‘cos it is higher and I could once again peer into everyone’s front rooms and gardens again and more importantly I could see over everyone else’s car to find out why there was a traffic jam. It’s these small things I find I miss so much in an ordinary bulk standard car.

Apart from the drive the most notable difference between the Yeti and Dora was that the Yeti didn’t drink nearly as heavily. In fact I averaged over 40 mpg the whole time even on the school run. Now Dora even on a good day struggled to make 28 mpg on that run!

Now there are many reasons why people have 4x4s and for the moment I will not indulge myself, especially with those who have 4x4s when they live in towns and cities. However, in the countryside a 4x4 really starts to work.

I have livestock that has to be moved around and taken from field to field and a 4x4 is most useful and more convenient that borrowing a neighbour’s old tractor - it’s also warmer and is more often than not fitted out with at least teh most rudimentry in-flight entertainment. Anyway, the most important thing about most 4x4s is that they are large. There’s usually enough room in the back of a Disco to bung a few sheep. In the past I’ve seen up to eight ewes in the back of one and that’s before you slap on a trailer.

And that is where I found my first problem, not in the volume capacity of the Yeti but in its pulling power. Although the engine had no problems, the fact is the Yeti is just too light a vehicle and you could really feel the animals moving around. Braking was scary as I didn't feel 100% confident that the horsebox wouldn't push us on. Admittedly I was trying to pull a large horsebox with a 18 hand hunter in the back – I’m sure we weren’t far short of one and a half tons so quite a big ask for a relatively small 4x4 – but as Eric, a farmer friend of mine in Yorkshire, would have said: “By gum it’s game!” 

(Look out for Part Two - The real problem with the Yeti...)

Silver Dream Machine

I am now hooked on getting the most miles per gallon out of my car. I’d like to think this will make me a better driver, safer, more considerate and a better bet for my insurer. But I don’t think so.

Nope. There is a tiny, iddy biddy bit of a glitch about all this, although it will help me save money on fuel and of course make me feel all warm and green woolly as I can do my bit for the environment - even if I am driving a turbo charged diesel around the country lanes – what they have done is kinda distracting.

It’s all VW’s fault, honest! They’ve got this computer thingy in my new Volkswagen Bluemotion Golf Estate that tells me how efficiently I am driving. Of course, the better I do that, the better my miles per gallon is and it tells me in real time too - there on the screen, in front of me; all in bright, angry glowing red so I can see it even in the dark.

It also has a clever arrow icon that comes on telling you when to change gear but I think it’s a bit slow on the uptake and I am already a little ahead of it. I tried to follow it on the drive home from the showroom earlier today, moving through the gears as, and when, it suggested. It got a bit exciting on the very steep left hand corner at the top of the hill where there is a reverse camber in the road and it told me to change up to fourth. I sloshed round the bend mightily fast with the big back end doing a cracking imitation of J-Lo shaking her derriere.

Good thing was I also got to test the ABS braking system at the same time, as I narrowly avoided ploughing into a tractor carting corn off the field next to the road. The farmer was pretty impressed too as he stopped to wave at me as I darted past – a flash of silver, a swirl of dust and all at 54mpg.

I don’t think that the short four-mile run from Barnards to home has helped me to get accustomed to the sheer size of the new car and I think I was a tad previous when I overtook the Tesco courtesy bus - but there again things are supposed to look larger in your rear view mirror are they not?

I was sad to say goodbye to the VW Polo but to be honest it was a bit of a mistake to buy it in the first place. The BIG idea last year was to exchange my beautiful but defunct Land Rover Discovery for a car for everyday rather than every eventuality. However, we went too far on the scaling down side and it became a bit of a problem deciding whether to bring home the weekly shop and the children at the same time. Eventuality I solved the problem by getting a lovely aerodynamic Thule Roof box and the shopping, rather than the children, came home in that – but it was usually a close run thing. Space was a premium in the Polo and with two booster chairs in the back there wasn’t much between, which usually led to much Argy Bargy, screams and whining and me blowing my top and vowing to attach the boys to the Thule just for the sake of some peace! Needless to say this was one threat my boys practically begged me to carry out. But, as I have said to them in the past, the purpose of a parent is to continually disappoint its offspring.

Another problem that came with the Polo was that I could not for the sake of love nor money get Bog Boy my youngest’s Mclaren buggy in the back without twisting the chassis and/or scratching the rear window – suffice to say Bog Boy learned to walk distances a tad earlier than his brother.

But these were minor day-to-day problems and easily outweighed by the fact that the savings on running costs compared to the Land Rover were in the region of £150 per month on fuel alone. Then there was the fact that being a much smaller, closer to the ground sort of vehicle, the school run was done considerably faster and dare I say it more safely, with less queasiness than previously.

The decision to get a slightly more spacious vehicle came about after the annual camping trip to Wales. This was when my husband, Dear Charlie, became personally aware the problems of trying to accommodate four dogs, two children, one Kyham six berth tent, four sleeping bags, four wet suits, two boogie boards, two double lilos, four pillows, buckets, spades, teddies and food for a small army - as he hates to shop when we are down there - all into a vehicle with a somewhat limited cubic capacity.

We still managed to get down there and back, not once but twice just to make sure. But the second time down we took the sports car too tossing a coin for who would drive the Mazda MX5 and have the relative luxury of only having to cope with one vomiting whippet plus sundry goods.

So, as with all decisions in our nuclear family, once made plans have to be put into action as swiftly as possible. It is with many thanks to the long-suffering folks at Barnards in Stowmarket, in particular David Webster, that within the space of three weeks the exchange was made.

Going Topless...

There is something wonderful about going topless; it’s exhilarating and, well just liberating.
Dear Charlie says I don’t do it often enough and complains that I am not exactly spontaneous. In my defence I have been known to do it abroad while on holiday, in fact I went topless on a train all the way across France on our honeymoon.
Yesterday I went topless on the school run and had to endure looks of approbation from all the other Mummies who either couldn’t or wouldn’t do the same.
I blame the credit crunch and the eco-stasi.
Mostly the eco-stasi.
The eco-stasi would put the kybosh on most things really but I suppose the thing that drives them nuts is when people flaunt it.
Yesterday I flaunted for all I was worth and I felt great. I had a smile on my face so large the sun probably had to put shades on.
It was absolutely fabulous!
I do love driving sports cars. I especially like driving my own without the top on. I know it’s not the thing to do, that I really should be trying to save the planet and not drive a thirsty little fuzz bomb around the lanes of Suffolk scaring all the locals but I really really needed to blow off a little yesterday and well it seemed so harmless.
It’s not the fastest sports car in the world and for sports car aficionados it probably doesn’t rate at all but for me it’s a taste of all the things I once was or thought I was before children, before commitment, before mortgages and well before I knew the planet really could be saved by regulating how I drive and remembering not to put black plastic bin liners in the recycle bin.
Babe, as she is affectionately known, is an 11-year old Mazda MX5 – the first of the non-pop up headlight versions and she is so sleek. I love her lines. She is a work of art to me and if it wasn’t for her Dear Charlie and I would never have got together in the first place – seriously!
Way back then DC had a problem he couldn’t get a girlfriend and he wouldn’t go out with me in case he ruined our friendship despite the fact that that was all that I had longed for, for years. But hey there are none so blind who cannot see.
So that summer Operation Girlfriend was launched. DC underwent a makeover, went to cordon bleu school to meet girls and bought a car. Having looked at Mercedes, BMW, MG and the like, he finally settled on the new Mazda MX5 ‘cos he could fit his golf bag in the boot.
The car was to act as a lure to attract attention, preferably from girls, and in preparation we decided a road trip would be a good idea. So Dear Charlie and I hopped in the Mazda and drove through France down to the Pyrenees and fell in love – finally!
So when I drive the Babe magnet, I cannot help remembering what she means to me and now 10 years of marriage later it reminds me how thrilling it all was to be free and topless of course!