Older Cars & Their Love-Affair With Mechanics...

Cars should be discouraged from this type of loyalty.

Our cars are carefree and unbound when they are young. Add a few years into the mix and suddenly they seem to love doing that expensive two-step with your mechanic. As soon as they are a decade old, they seem to want to go steady with him.

Last week our car ( I do appreciate it as it has been there for us ) had the first taste of the mechanic's loving touch. Bob and I shouldn't have expressed our joy when it came home, because this week it ' booked ' itself in for more T.L.C. Does it even know that we have to pay for this?

Anyway, it gave me an occasion to cycle to Höll and back. Oh yes, yesterday morning I swung onto our hand-me-down metal steed and was momentarily transported back to my childhood. Bob was out and so I thought, a bicycle is a bicycle. How difficult could it be?

Well, Bob had left it in a fast pedalling gear ( almost a comical look where my knees seemed to go at double speed ) and eh, I couldn't work out the different settings. I flipped the different levers into various positions and as the panic started to grip, I found one reasonable gear. Believe me, I stuck with it up & down the hills.

It is fortunate that we do live in the country because I could find my cycling legs with only the odd tractor passing me. Once I felt comfortable enough, I could take in the kaleidoscope of autumn colours still mingling with the departing summer one's. Oh, it was too divine for words.

Yet there was one fact that I find astounding. These bicycles have such a low handle bar, that one has to more or less watch the tar strips of the road, instead of seeing the scenery. Unless one wants a stiff neck!

Well, if I were to get a bike, it would be one of those old-fashioned Holland bicycles, with the pretty basket and the ability to cycle in a more comfortable position. Oh, and I would make sure the seat is bigger and more padded...these smaller ones are far from comfortable.

Biggi