We sold our car. We bought it in Belgium in 2005 just before the boys were born.
It suffered for us, taking three small children on holidays.
It allowed the Princess to have her own private domain in the boot for many years until she got too tall for it last summer.
We agreed to sell it just before we left Belgium, and when we went to deliver it to the purchaser the day before we left, he wanted an extra €1,000 off what we had agreed and Mr. Waffle walked away. It was a gesture I think he subsequently regretted. We brought the car back to Ireland and decided to drive it into the ground as we would never be able to sell it as the steering wheel was on the wrong side. In fact, that wasn’t half as awkward as you would have thought, except for car parks.
And on the plus side, the car served as a cat shelter in the year of the snow.
And the cat liked to sit on the dashboard as well.
It was spacious.
It took many, many journeys on ferries.
But it was made in 2004 and 12 years is very old for a car. We decided to sell it before the annual car test. We picked up the new car yesterday. Our heartless neighbour’s child with whom we have a car pooling arrangement for GAA got a lift in the new car this afternoon and pronounced it far superior to the old one.
If we hold on to the new one for as long as we kept the last one, all the children will be grown up when we get our next car which is a sobering thought.
European cars must not be as robust as the ones we have here. I bought a Toyota Corolla in 1987, and traded it in, in 2014 (27 years later) for another Toyota Corolla. I live in Texas where everything is very everywhere and you have to do a fair amount of driving to get from hither to yon. A Taiwanese friend remarked the other day that when he asked a local how far one place was from another, we didn’t give an answer in terms of distance, but as driving time — “Oh, it’s only about a 4-hour drive.”
I’ll never forget the one time I rode in your car. It was after the book club meeting where our hostess showed us her old class photo and you said, “Who was that unfortunate boy with the eyebrows?” He was, of course, our hostess. Your mortification when you drove us home afterwards was one of the best things I’ve ever seen.
God, I had completely forgotten that. Slightly alleviated by the fact that our hostess had grown into a very beautiful woman, I feel, but I am mortified all over again.
Yes, I understand Texas is enormous. I think the longest drive you can do in Ireland without driving into the sea is about 6-8 hours (actually just checked google maps says Malin to Mizen is 8 hours and 5 minutes and that’s about as far as you can go). To be fair on cars in Ireland, I imagine Texas is a lot drier and I don’t think that they like the rain much.