I want to drive fast today…I want to sit behind the wheel and let the gears slip fluidly through my fingers as I charge down the road…I want to find myself speeding round the Nurburgring race track in Germany…think I’d need a better car though!
I’ve always been a bit of a speed freak, a bit of a boy racer…My favourite line in Avril Lavigne’s ‘Anything but Ordinary’ is: ‘Sometimes I drive so fast, just to feel the danger…’ maybe that’s why I like the motorbike so much too!
The bike gives me freedom, the elements feel so close and you feel at one with the bike as you move with it, love it!
Cars are different. As a child I loved being a passenger, I liked going for drives and just sitting staring out of the window as the world goes by…
Then I went out with John, who professed to be a rally driver…erm, not sure about that…but he did race through the country lanes with disregard, and I loved it! Foolish, yes, but fun, and with rock music blasting out of the speakers we had lots of it!
Then I passed my test and bought my first car. A black (Inverness midnight blue, actually, black with a sparkle!) Honda Prelude. I didn’t even care when Mum frowned and asked whether it was too powerful for a new driver…From that first test drive, I loved it, the purr of the engine and the thrust of the accelerator.
Okay…I crashed it the second day I drove it…and put myself into debt getting it back on the road, but I loved that car sooooo much!
I was lucky, can you imagine an 18 year old trying to get insurance on a 1600 engine these days? What was under £300 twenty years ago would probably be ten times that or uninsurable today! Mind you, considering I wrote off two cars (the Honda was a financial write off too) with it the second day, that’s probably not a bad thing…
I’ve had a few cars over the last twenty years…none new, what’s the fun in that? Besides, I’ve never sold one of my cars either…my husband points out that I drive my cars into the ground before they get scrapped!
Anyway, I’d like to note, that I’m not a bad driver…maybe a bit impatient…and I’ve got way more careful since having kids, and a speeding ticket!
I love driving. I loved my Prelude, until it died…Our Maestro was a mistake, very boring, but I was eight months pregnant when we bought it, seemed like a good idea at the time. I soon learned that cars below 1400cc were just not for me…I loved our Cavalier 1800turbo, until it died…the Rover was a nice family car, until it died…and I enjoy driving my Vectra, which is slowly dying…I don’t know what I’ll have next.
Bekah is learning to drive…will I have to relax my driving methods and drive a small engine car and share it with my offspring? I might kill it before she does!
So soon I’ll have to watch my daughter step into a car and disappear into the distance…on her own…am I ready for that? Recalling my own early driving history…I’m not sure…
The Last Krystallos 