It's been a while since I wrote a
blog, my own fault, (if fault it is), because I've been concentrating on other
things and have largely forgotten about it. I daresay there are many who think
that this has been a benefit! Anyway, I thought I'd start writing one again,
and then came the usual dilemma: what should I write about?
As ever, I thought I'd start with
the grain of an idea, and just rattle away, see where it takes me.
Many years ago, we were booked for
a family holiday abroad, and the day came when we were due to set off, early
the next morning. That evening, dad's car broke down. I guess perhaps we
shouldn't have been that surprised, he had bought the car (a Mk9 Jaguar)
second-hand a couple of years previously, and in that short time it seems to
have a habit of things breaking or going wrong.
If you don't know the Mk9 Jaguar,
it looked very similar to a Rolls-Royce or Bentley of the day, quite a tall,
imposing car, with a fair dose of power under the long bonnet and a pair of
large headlamps each side of a tall radiator grille. It had a fair turn of
speed, and two fuel tanks (one in each wing) to satisfy its thirst.
But not the night before we went on
holiday, when a big end went on one of its six connecting rods, and it had to
be towed to a garage. Clearly, it wasn't going to whisk us across Europe the
next day, it wasn't going anywhere for a while. So we postponed the booking for
a day, and the very next morning then contacted a local Ford dealership to
arrange for a new Zodiac (Mk3 in those days). There was one at Ashford, "take
it or leave it", so he took it, and they spent the day getting it prepared
and on predelivery checks.
It arrived after work that evening,
a nice looking car the Mk3 Zodiac, for headlamps, and two wings, it would have
been perfect, but it was battleship grey with a red inside, a most peculiar
mix, and not difficult to see why it had gone unsold, still, beggars couldn't
be choosers, so we loaded it up with our luggage and parked it in the garage
overnight.
The next morning we were up early,
it was the second half of August, and basically just beginning to get light. We
all piled in and the short trip to Dover to catch the car ferry (12 miles?) Was
our first journey in the new car. We were all excited by the prospect of going
on holiday, and I guess the new car, with its new car smell, and unfamiliarity,
added to that.
There were downsides to a new car
back in those days, downsides which have largely ceased to exist in modern
times, and we found ourselves limited to 45 miles an hour of the first thousand
miles to run the car in. Back in those days, there were few motorways across
Europe, other than those that Germany built in the midthirties, and we pottered
along what were generally "A" roads, with the odd "B" added
for good measure.
We got to see a lot of the towns
and countryside where we went, lots! Certainly in far greater detail than we
would have done. I remember being on a long straight Avenue in Holland and
seeing a church spire at its end, the church spire that didn't seem to be
getting any closer for quite some time, and similar things happened with
windmills and other landmarks.
It was a strange journey where most
vehicles passed us, usually staring at us because we were going at a slow
speed, sometimes hooting, and occasionally, gesticulating. You make many
friendly people travelling in Europe but on this journey we seem to see more
than our fair share of angry people, and it was mum in the passenger seat
(sitting on the left) that took the brunt of the anger.
The original journey had been
planned to overnight somewhere well into Germany, or near the Danish border,
but our sightseeing tour became a two-stop extravaganza. The first evening we
got well into Holland, and ended up in a motel not far from the German border,
the next night was spent in a motel in Denmark, and eventually we completed our
journey in Sweden, about two days later than planned, or three, by the early
evening that we finally got there.
A couple of weeks later we returned
through Europe, and although the car was perhaps well on its way to being
officially run in, we took it fairly easy back and still stopped twice. I
remember being in Holland early on the second day and thinking how odd it was
that there I was in Holland having breakfast and the next morning I would be
starting primary school with a new winter term. Of course, in the meantime,
travel has changed for everybody and you can wake up in your own home, and find
yourself going to bed in another continent. Back in the day, holidays were
infrequent, and distances far more modest.
Is there a point to this tale?
Well, yes there is (although it seemed to take me forever to get to it!). We
lived with the grey Zodiac for perhaps 18 months, but eventually it was decided
to replace it with another that was more cheerful, and so dad ordered a white
Zodiac with black interior, and traded the old one in.
Exactly the same model, but in the
intervening months there had been a few cosmetic changes, and one or two
additions. The rear chrome bumper now sported two built-in reversing lights
which in those days was quite an innovation (they actually came on by selecting
reverse gear, how clever is that!), And there were changes to some the
instrumentation and switches. All changes for the good, and I daresay one or
two modifications mechanically, what is certain is that the later car was a lot
better than the first, and I don't think it was just the colour, I think the
production line had settled down in the meantime.
Which finally gets me to the point.
Today, change is an integral part
of life. We buy a new whatever, are happy with it, find it does exactly what we
want, is well made, and reliable. Then the next thing you know a new one has
come out, and the one that you had is no longer front runner. It does
everything that it did when you bought it, and does it well, but its list of
features looks decidedly short when compared against the new model, in fact,
you wonder if you can still cope with it!
That, is my point. Today's products
are so refined and superb that even years old they are better than what we once
bought brand-new, yet despite that the world's economy has been set up to keep
producing in vast numbers and keep selling, and we all seem to be trained in
this to a greater or lesser degree. Well, some of us are, anyway. Enough, no
doubt to keep the factory in full swing.
These days I look at what I have
and tend to hang onto it for quite a while, and the important thing is to
choose carefully in the first place, not buying with the idea that if it
doesn't work out you can soon replace it with another. It's best to choose the
best spec you can afford, rather than by cheap and often. These days,
I’d wait for the white car to be
available rather than simply by a grey one.
