Gather round, there’s a bit of a story here. It started nearly eighteen years ago, before Carol and I had even met*, and ended with an incredulous look on her face that I will treasure to my dying day.

Carol is many things; exceptionally tolerant of my generally selfish behaviour, a proper parent to our two rather lovely daughters, a calm head in crisis’ generally of my making and the glue that holds our little family together. After fifteen years of marriage, she knows me better than anyone so stoically deals with a level of spousal impulsiveness than would have left most males by the age of, say, 11.

All this and attempting to steer the good ship fiscal probity through the rocky rapids of Al’s toy obsession surely merits some reward, other than often muddy andoccasionallybloody husband pitching up late at night to break the washing machine. While many of these toys have passed through my hands, the only materialpossessionCarol ever came back too was this tiny two seater sat in at some obscure car show back in 1995.

This, in a rare moment of introspection, was the line of thinking which arced from way back then to right now and sparked an idea perched on the exciting ridge separating brilliance from total stupidity. Logically complex and financially tricky, this secret project could still be absolutely fantastic if I could pull it off. But, based on my history of over-promising/under delivering, it was more likely to the Wikipedia citation for a cluster-fuck.

So instead of careering off alone with my somewhat limited knowledge of how cars actually work and what stops them working, I roped in a number of long-suffering friends who’ve all been burned by a ‘project Al‘ sometime in the past. Yet they still came to the party, bringing with them short term cash loans**, proper mechanical knowledge, ownership of a large warehouse and contacts for serious tradespeople skilled in the arts of stuff that seventeen year old cars need.

Yeah you read that right, this was a one year import of the Japanese Kai Class Suzuki Cappuccino which totalled just over a 1000 cars. Since 1995, that number has dropped to about 350 road-worthy examples – most of which are never going to be for sale and many of the remainder in what we shall call ‘restoration project state‘.

Like I say, logistically tricky but rather than spending the rest of this post describing the web ofdeceit/tales of Al’s low cunning and downright heroism in the face of all sorts of difficult shit/the so-many-almost-disastrousslip ups/the sleepless nights wondering if she’d even bloody remember why she wanted one, let’s concentrate on what’s important and that’s how it was received.***

The only way I’d managed to keep this a secret from Carol for the best part of a month was to tell everyone else. It was what we call in the industry an EFK (ever fcker knows) secret which included both the kids who share their father’sinabilityto keep their traps shut. But having recruited an entire support team to make this happen, my only job was to get Carol out of the house long enough for ‘package to be delivered‘

So day off booked. Unseemly haste to get Carol on the Mutt Walk. Furtive phone glances showed nothing and I was running out of excuses to drag the hound round yet another field. Finally ‘The Eagle Has Landed’ confirmed it was time to Wake Up Little Suzy leaving Carol mildly confused as I strode off in an entirely different direction to the one advocated some four seconds earlier.

I have to say I was shitting it. For so many reasons; firstly it’s not the most practical present. It is the size of a well apportioned shoe with a roof that you candetach- with a week or so’s training – in about an hour. There’s a tiny boot but you can’t use that because that’s where the roof goes. It has no power steering, no brake servos, no ABS, not much other than a tiny 700cc engine with a big fuggin turbo strapped on all driving a pair of ickle rear wheels. It’s a proper little sports car and I’d no idea if that’s what Carol liked about it.

Secondly it’s Tiny. I know I’ve mentioned this already but honestly somebody asked me if it’d fit in the back of a VW T5. It’d fit in a T5 GLOVE BOX. During aparticularlytraumatic motorway journey in the pissing rain, my friend Jason remarked from the loftiness of my Yeti that you couldn’t actually see the Suzuki at all as it was all below the window line. Chances of getting crushed by a lane changing BMW X5? About 100{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2}. I didn’t want to give Carol the motoring equivalent of ACME bomb with a burning fuse.

Thirdly, it’s not the easiest thing in the word to drive if you’re a *ahem* normal sized human being. At six foot, I found it a bloody trial. It’s about an inch off the floor which precludes anyone over the age of seven entering or exiting with any dignity. Pretty sure if I checked the manual, the official entry procedure would be 10 quick steps onto a Gym Horse finishing with a double pike into the front seat. Remembering to take the roof off first. Assuming you ever do manage to find a driving position where both your knees and arms are in the same side of the car, your eyes will focus around four inches above the windscreen giving an excellent view of the roof lining.

As for exiting the vehicle, the only thing I’ve found thatconsistentlyworks is to open the door and just fall out. Try and park near some soft ground and take your chances would be my advice.

Anyway you now have a share of my worries as we rounded the gate only to find my enterprising younger daughter had covered it in various tarps and blankets exposing just one wheel. Carol’s quizzical look translated to a verbal ‘have you hired us a sports car’. Me ‘Not exactly, take a proper look‘. She did while Mr. Smug here bathed long in the joy of knowing he’d actually done one bloody thing right for someone else.

“You’ve bought me a car” / “Yep, it would seem so”. “You’ve bought me the one car I always wanted and we couldn’t afford” / “Indeed”. “How did you manage that?” / “I had a bit of help, anyway get in make sure it fits”

She did and it does. Soon after we were spinning along the local lanes with the roof off under – for once – perfect blue skies. All my fears were unfounded; this is a car that fits Carol in every way. And while I’ve always had her down as quite a sensible driver, within 15 minutes I was genuinely in fear for my life. Comparing notes with Jess later on suggested this experience wasn’t a one off.

We had a fab day. No room for the kids of course. The two things might be co-incidental but probably not 😉 I think – and I’m not sure because my understanding of this stuff isn’t much more than guesswork – Carol loves it because she’d never consider buying one herself. It’s impractical, it’s certainly not going to replace her Honda****, you probably get to drive it with the roof down 30 days a year and it needs proper looking after including a place to hibernate for at least four months of the year.

But it puts a massive smile on your face and dishes out joy with every bend. It’s not a tool to go from A to B. A to B is the journey with the destination being largely optional. Of course it’s silly. I like silly. Always Have. Really bloody brilliant to find out Carol likes my kind of silly too.

As an anniversary present for 15 years of marriage, it’s pretty cool even if I’m somewhat biased in that opinion. It let me take all the mad stuff I know drives Carol nuts and make it work for her. It hopefully says something I’m not very good at saying.

And for that and the look on Carol’s face when she realised it was really hers, it is worth ten times the time and money spent to get it on the drive.

* well we had met, but she had me tagged as an immature show off and I had the hots for her best friend. Not much has changed. Except for the bit about her best friend. Just to clear up any possible misunderstanding there.

** Carol and I have nothing but shared funds. I’ve never worked out why you’d want to operate differently. But this did present a potential financial hole that ‘Wow, that was a big shop‘ was unlikely to cover.

*** There will be later posts covering off these points in probable tedious detail. But you’d expect that.

**** Wow more vehicles than you can use at one time. I wonder how I could have thought up such a concept.

 

On a number of fronts. Firstly the entire garden was visibly swaying* in terror as this big boy was unleashed from the back of the car. Stout stemmed weeds – largely impervious to trowel based disruption – cowered as the full majesty of my long shafted weapon**was revealed. It’s has the girth and length of a mid-sized field gun – a proud dynasty from which it is clearly descended.

Indeed the demonstration from my good mate Rex – who knowing my low boredom and high stupidity thresholds kept it brief and to the point – spoke of a legal conversion to a wicked looking blade apparently designed to quarry stone. He tried to engage my interest in important safety and maintenance tasks which was largely pointless as I was lost in the sheer vastness of the thing.

Some important nuance around usage scenarios likely to result in limb amputation may have been missed, but based on my almost unblemished history of strimmer use I fail to see how my natural talent around mechanical objects will not save me here. An excellent example would be the previous incumbent of Al’s favourite gardening tool which lies abandoned, somewhat ironically, under a blanket of weeds. When started, it was a brutal slayer of unwanted green, but the key word here is ‘when‘.

Which became more of an if and then a bugger and then a fuck as an increasingly desperate individual hauled the starting rope around the garden dragging the lifeless machine behind him. And after much priming, jiggling of the choke control and, inevitably, the alternate ‘percussion starting‘ approach, the bloody thing would grudgingly fire up for about 10 seconds before reverting to its base state of mechanical sulkiness. I could feel those weeds laughing at me.

They are not laughing now. No mostly they are drowning frustratingly so delaying the magnificence of my new toy being unleashed on anything above ankle height. It’s a relief of sorts though because once Rex brought the mad bastard to life in a plume of choking smoke, I must admit to being more than a little frightened. The saving grace is the business end being some twenty feet from anything organic and appendage-y. I probably could have strimmed most of the garden from the safety of Rex’s shop in Ross such is the length between engine and cable.

An engine which was rather warm during my careful placement of the smoking end between the front seats of my car. It wasn’t until the smell of burning upholstery began fizzing in my nostrils that the concept of putting the hot end in the boot presented itself as the less incendiary option.

Even if I am unable to pilot it on its maiden voyage this weekend, this matters not. Because it means I can save the entire tank of fuel for a more worthwhile purpose. Namely taking to the office and demanding nay PLEADING someone/anyone make an innocent enquiry re: shredders. At which point I shall demonstrate the awesome shredding capability of the whirling strimmer of certain death.

I think that’ll be fine. Proportional response and all that. If, however, you become aware of an ice cream van shaped vehicle with a bloodied strimmer poking from the sunroof accelerating towards a well known outsourcing provider then please do the right thing.

Get out of the way to make damn sure I get a good run up.

* although this may be the ‘unseasonable’ gale force winds and lashing rain that pass for Summer in the UK.

** Had to be done. Similar mirth was induced during a mud tyre purchasing transaction which included a conversation on the exact width of a Beaver.

But not for long. This tired bathroom was on our list of things to fix when we moved in. Four years ago. For once apathy wasn’t the strategy here, many other expensive priorities came first; heating, windows that didn’t let in anything but light, a garden that wasn’t merely a 1/3rd of an acre of pea shingle, my workshop* and all sorts of other stuff nefariously stealing cash and time.

Until now. Now being a week away from the spare room being occupied by our pal Jason for the next four months. This was the only way I could persuade young Jas to come and work on this rather vexing project that’s 83 working days away from being finished** was to offer him free board and lodgings chez Leigh.

Said lodgings come with the only working shower in the building, other than having to cross the threshold of either of the kids rooms. And spending a shed load of cash on a new bathroom pales into absoluteinsignificancecompared to the horror of even contemplating something as fatallycourageousas that.

So in normal al&carol fashion, we waited until the absolute last moment before scheduling a bevy of tradesmen to come fit baths, showers, tiles, sinks and all manner of – what I’ve come to understand is amusingly called -sanitarywear. The original quote for this pantheon of drilled, white MDF put me in mind of NASA’s budget for a moonshot and put us in front of a keyboard for internet scourage.

Aside from some taps fantastically shaped like a pair of WWII gun turrets***, all major bathing items have arrived on pallets from various anonymous warehouses. Not so the tiles that have taken almost an entire Bank Holiday weekend to procure. If there’s anything moresoullessthan an empty tile barn peopled by desperate salesmen, it’d put even the most balanced individual on suicide watch.

Eventually tiles were procured, loaded into the now suspensionally challenged Yeti and unloaded by a man with more than a hint of a back injury. Fourteen massive boxes of something soon to be wall mounted currently sit creaking on the kitchen floor. Taking them upstairs was clearly about 12 steps to far especially as any remaining energy had been expended on destroying the current bathroom.

The space previously occupied by a massive immersion tank and some accompanying damp will soon house a new bath with a proper shower. From there loveliness shall expand outwards to new floors, sinks and bog. I care little for these but am childishly excited by the prospect of a LED movement activated mirror with ‘a full length demister pad’.

I’ve no idea what that might be, but it must surely be linked with the word ‘sanitary’. Chances of all this being done by next weekend? No idea, but those who have to work close to me might smell the answer a few days after that.

* well obviously. In fact that was done before the heating. Like I say, priorities.

** Not that I’m counting or anything. Or panicing. Oh now, not a seasoned professional steeped in the art of impossible deadlines. No, instead I’m in denial.

*** I am already thinking of the bath as my personal ‘Atlantic Wall’.

Previously on the hedgehog, snoot has been cocked at the naming of things that are certainly not animal, possibly a bit of vegetable* and quite a bit mineral. However, in the spirit on ongoing hypocrisy, our new family car has been named after the tremendous if deeply flawed movie of the same name. Not because we’re intending to rape and pillage the Kingdom of Mercia, rather the registration plate begins VK which is enough for this resident film geek to baptise the the non-organic chap.

It’s an improvement on naming our Christmas Tree Colin, or directing confused visitors to deposit their rubbish in Derek The Dalek. And we’ve moved on from Rog mainly so I can bring forth my own Dane-Law variant during difficult traffic situations. Predictably the handover was not without a touch of angst triggered firstly by our first sight of ‘our‘ car being driven rapidly away in what looked suspiciously like an opportunistic car-jack.

Our furrowed brows were smoothed when it was explained that the sales fella was merely chucking in enough fuel to make sure we didn’t conk out on his forecourt. On his return, I signed 437 bits of paper without reading any of them. With an almost equal split of draconian penalties for financial misdemeanours and arse covering for the dealer to ensure no chance of successful prosecution for a selling strategy only slightly less dodgy than ‘would Sir like PPI with that’, there seemed little point in making a fuss.

Finally we were directed outside to a car now fully owned by a interesting transaction from an earlier rape and pillage of one of our company accounts, which coughed up a sum of money so large it ran into five digits. With no decimal points. While the kids piled in and began destroying pristine upholstery, I was subjected to a training programme based apparently on an assumption that the concept of a door and a steering wheel would be all exciting and new to me.

However, this did highlight a tiny issue where the operation of the fog lights ended with the entire switch-gear in the salesman’s hands. I felt this was an entirely appropriate juncture to reflect on the outstanding build quality much trumpeted only a few days earlier before we’d handed over the cash. A hurried conference outed Jamie from the workshop who – through a double jointed thumb roll/masonic hand shake – snapped it back in with the airy observation that’ they all do that sir’

Salesman Steve was keen to wave us off in order to lock up the premises and remove any record of our purchase from their systems. I was keen to drive the bloody thing. Carol and the kids were keen for some Viking like sequestration of the local fish and chip shop. Nothing like paying for that new car smell only to mask it with the greasy odour of much vinigared cod.

Off we finally went leaving Steve to spend a couple of days to count the money. Immediately we had a problem, now the old X-Trail – abandoned and unloved as far from the showroom** as possible – was lavishly equipped with sufficient instrumentation to document a reasonable approximation of current speed, and some knocked off switchgear from a 1970s Datsun Cherry randomly lit by clunky switchgear. The Yeti is something else entirely – think NASA wrapped up in airbags.

My friend Mike’s assertion that the world today is nothing more than an informational tornado smacked me right between the eyes when everything started talking to me. The SatNav, the Radio, the CD stack in the boot, the one on the dash, the kids and Carol who was nose down in the manual. “Turn Left at the next junction” intoned a rather well spoken young lady while the middle of the dash and what I’d mistaken for a colour TV bombarded me with graphics, colours and arrows.

Somehow at the same time, a further icon demanded I change gear, another one reminded me that the car was still running on Fumes+, yet another whirled through a dazzling display of fuel consumption, average speed, possible Acts of God and Engine temperature. With all this going on what the FUCK was I meant to do about Engine Temperature. 86 degrees. Is that good? Bad? Is something on fire? Shall I get the family out now because soon the entire shebang will be ablaze?

Carol worked how to turn most of it off while I concentrated on parking within binocular range of the curb, before setting off to the chippy leaving me to play with the stupendously clever electronics that’d discovered my phone, cuddled it in bluetooth before raping*** the memory for contacts and presenting them on the screen. A random button press chirped “Voice Activation On” to which I replied “what the fuck am I supposed to do with that?” / “Calling Bob Pluck” No, No, don’t do that, Cancel, Desist, JUST STOP FOR A SODDING MINUTE WILL YOU.

To be fair the voice recognition is way better than SIRI on the iPhone which is good news in the same was as waking up in hospital after a car accident only to be told “The bad news is you’ve lost both legs and an arm, the good news is your Volvo started first time“. Having turned off the ignition to create an facsimile of calm, I was in no position to do anything but adopt a Munch’s Scream fizog as a battered old people carrier approach at ramming speed with my front bumper clearly in their sights

Missed by a whisker. That’s a pair of pants that are going to need some special cleaning I can tell you. Eventually we arrived home with most things intact other than any remaining composure. Ensconced in my favourite chair, I confidently whisked out the manual to better understand the magic going on between the doors. As a man steeped in technology with twenty+ years behind the rampack, the SatNav instructions held no fear for me. Right until I opened the manual.

No idea. No idea at all. Active Button X to Trigger Flange Z thereby enabling Menu B which is only available in certain countries on a Balmy Wednesday Evening during the month of June. I gently closed the booklet of despair and reverted to my standard strategy of reading nothing, but having a mallet on standby.

It is a nice car. It’s still a nice car even after a fat gentleman with the spacial awareness of a dead stoat slammed his door into it earlier today. I’m not a nice person tho, I’ve hidden his body in the frozen food aisle at our local Morrisons.

Proportional response I’d suggest based on everything I’ve gone through so far this weekend.

* Any parent knows that crossing children with cars creates a unholy union best described as ‘ugh something is growing in the back seat. Might once have been a fruit shoot, now is a leafy fungus‘

** It was all working. But I have a suspicion that it might not be for too much longer

*** I will get bored of Viking jokes soon, I promise.

So said – with scripted sincerity – the small child barely filling a cheap suit predictably accessorised with a clip on tie. Being such a callow youth, the concept of using the time between his soundbites to actually listen, rather than cue up the next cheesy missive had yet to register.

Which goes at least some way to explaining how a spluttered ‘you are fucking joking aren’t you’ spectacularly failed to prevent the launch of the good ship ‘further stupidity‘ into the choppy seas of an irate customer.

“Now Sir, we profile our customer using the PRICES method” [ignore crossed arms and darkening scowl] “That’s P for Prices, R forReliability, I for Image, C for Claptrap, E for Ectoplasm and S for Surely this is some sick joke, yes“. I may not have parsed the entire mnemonic correctly, yet I do remember being asked innocently whether “Image” and “Reliability” were important to me.

Allowed to speak at last, I caustically informed the young pup that as a middle aged man with the dress sense of a blind stoner and a hair line starting somewhere south of my spine, image was something that happened to other people. As for reliability, frankly if I’m handing over a suitcase of cash for some design exercise splattered with ‘my first plastics‘ I’d be pretty fucking irritated if it didn’t start first time every time until I’m long gone.

A frown passed over his youthful countenance as the literally hours of sales training failed to deliver any answer other than calling for the Sales Manager to escort me off the premises. Eventually he sucked hard on his pencil before scrawling ‘Mature Driver‘ on the crib sheet. Which I assume put me in line for some incremental selling involving cardigans, brogues and term time cruise offers.

I entirely disproved his categorisation with a flounce-out refusing to even consider a test drive of something clearly styled by a man with pointy sideburns, a pony tail and a razor blade. Things improved not at all with other brands; the Kia hawker ignored Carol completely on the apparently justifiable grounds that anyone without a penis could have even the slightest influence over the next car purchase.

The Nissan Salesman was some kind of gone-to-seed Rugby player crossed with a failed game show host. I can only but admire his chutzpah attempting to offload a car barely two years newer than the old knacker I was trading in, while demanding the thick end of twelve grand for the privilege. And having dragged the family around most of South Gloucestershire in an attempt to buy something that might transport me to work without bankrupting us all, we ended up back where we started.

At the Skoda garage where a nice man called Steve sympathised with our pleading of poverty while gently explaining that customer financial hardship in no way invoked some kind of hidden discount clause. I’d already told him in no uncertain terms that only snobs and mugs bought new cars and, as a man who had already trodden that idiotic path at least twice before, I was ready for his sales’y wiles.

Mainly by introducing Carol who is brilliantly immune to every sales technique ever devised, responding simply that ‘that’s too much money, come on let’s go back and see the bloke who was BEGGING us to hand over about a fiver for a new car down the road“. Me? Bloody Useless. I just see something shiny and fail to worry about how we might pay for it because I WANT SHINY NOW.

In summary, Carol – adult with good judgement and fiscal sense, Alex – small child with attention span of special needs moth and financial perspective similar to dictator of African country. I did advance an argument that purchasing a new car in the colour we didn’t want infested with toys we didn’t need was such a stupid idea not even I was buying it. Steve countered this offering us a second hand car with none of the toys but in a more pleasing colour for slightly more than the new one he was attempting to shift.

I gave up. Having decided we couldn’t afford the car we liked the best, we ran around for two weeks looking at more sensible options which we really didn’t like at all. There’s a history here; put three things in front of Carol and I and we’ll ignore them all instead selecting a fourth at double the cost of the most expensive. It’s not snobbery, or even good taste (well on my part). It’s just some hard wired issue of choosing expensive things that will cost even more once ownership is ours; exhibit A: this house.

But the kids loved the Yeti. So did we. It’s kind of fun even in the cooking 2WD version* with a not terribly lusty Diesel engine. It’s resembles most closely a Labrador in its desire to please – if such an emotion can be transferred to metal and electronics. There’s some justification in the cost of running the now aged x-trail, the great MPG, the need for the dealer to shift it – but honestly it’s really a shit load of money for something that loses 20% of the value when you drive it off the forecourt.

Once you get over that, it’s fine. Apparently. But otherwise I was going to beat the next salesman to death with his calculator, and I couldn’t ask my family to traipse around soulless car showrooms for any longer.

It’ll be a nice thing to drive a 100 miles a day for the next few months while I wrest this latest project into some kind of shape. And while I’ll be sorry to see the X-Trail go, the next 10,000 miles were going to be significantly more expensive than the last 50,000.

All I can say is it’s a bloody good job that new is – indeed – the new used.

* I wanted a 4WD again until I saw the price. Then I wanted some snow tyres instead