Three cars to get you noticed

I may extol the virtues and personality of my Volvo XC60, but I do realise that the name 'Volvo' will forever signify something rather boring to a whole section of the population. Which is of course coded language for 'most men'.

I also believe that, on the whole, modern Volvos appeal strongly to women, who like their comfort, solidity, carrying-capacity, and the feeling of security that they give. Well, that was true in my own case, anyway!

Perhaps I'm maligning car-owning men as a class, but I sense that for many of them image, handling and performance matter more than comfort and safety. And despite the current trend for Volvo to go upmarket and sporty, to challenge The Premium German Carmakers - let's not name names - I don't think that Volvo's Worthy But Slightly Dull image will disappear very soon from the minds of red-blooded men.

Who cares? I love my car. And she loves me. Despite the high expense of buying and running her, she has given me Very Good And Faithful Service for five and half years. We have a bond. We are sisters. I have wept for my car, whenever she has ever been damaged or in some way stricken. I really don't care if some Opinionated Know-all Self-important Male Person wants to pooh-pooh my chosen steed. Let him. A thunderbolt will strike him sooner or later.

All this said, I do respect other cars, and certainly hanker wistfully after a few, generally those that must forever be beyond my reach. They all have snags of one kind or another, of course, and not just the price. Practicality is the king of virtues, and they mostly lack that. But who, male or female, would not be seduced by some of the exotic cars that one might conceivably buy and drive? And they don't necessarily have to be Italian, though that helps. I'm always on the lookout for fancy chariots, and even though I remain steadfastly true to Fiona - not errant in either thought nor deed - I can still admire a four-wheeled creation of character and distinction.

What do I mean by 'character and distinction'? Well, these following photos of mine might give a clue. They are not all 'supercars', though some were in their heyday. Such as this vintage Alvis, seen in London in 2010:

Or this DeLorean, seen in Winchester, also in 2010:

Or this Jaguar, seen at Chipping Campden on the Cotswolds in 2014:

What a lovely red colour! What presence!

They don't have to be prestige cars - merely unusual in some way, such as this Nissan Figaro, parked on a drive near my village in 2014...

...or this Citroen 2CV, spotted at Lavenham in East Anglia in 2010...

The French have always tended to make quirky cars, even though some recent models are tediously boring - such as this Citroën that I saw at Bideford in North Devon in 2013 - redeemed, however, by its Gallic-seeming plate (it's actually an Irish registration):

But the British can also make uninspiring motors. Consider this Rover Stirling, seen at Seaford on the Sussex coast in 1992:

Again, it's redeemed by its amazing number plate. And what a number! A1, no less, which was the first-ever registration issued in Britain, to the second Earl Russell by the London County Council way back in 1903. I was extraordinarily lucky to see it. This plate must have graced a long succession of cars, but this Rover wasn't worthy of the honour in my opinion. My books of reference tell me that it changed hands for as much as £2,500 in 1959 (that's well over £50,000 in today's money), and by now - with the superheated market for rare plates being what it is - it must be almost beyond price. Well, let's say you might do a deal for five million pounds.

I'm sorry to say that F1 ONA (which 'spells' FIONA) is also out of my price range. That too went for a small fortune some years back.

Anyway - would you believe it! - I encountered three cars of 'character and distinction' on New Year's Day. The first was parked on the quayside at Ramsgate harbour. It was a 1967 Chevrolet Impala SS:

Try parking that at Tesco! Eye-catching, though. Next up, a Citroën DS from 1973, looking like a sophisticated manta ray on wheels, as seen parked behind Bleak House at Broadstairs:

My Dad had one of these, in red and white, seen here in this 1975 shot of my then-teenage brother Wayne holding a kite:

And as seen in these other 1975 shots, taken in Newport, South Wales:

Dad's in the beige shirt and dark trousers. Uncle Laurie is in the green shirt and light trousers. My cousin Sylvia is seated in Dad's car, and my brother Wayne is standing behind dad in the bottom shot. It was a difficult car to drive, unless you had learned its ways. It had a steering-column manual-gearchange, and a hyper-sensitive footbrake which wasn't a pedal, but a button on the floor. You also couldn't just get in and drive off. You had to wait for the hydraulic suspension to lift the body off the wheels. French quirkiness at its very finest! Even so, the ride was superb, the acceleration quiet and exhilarating, the seats offered armchair comfort, and the interior footroom was limousine-like. A pity it was so unreliable!

My third New Year's Day car was outside the famous Walpole Bay Hotel in Cliftonville.

This hotel offers Edwardian standards and Edwardian decor to people who love nostalgia and are prepared to pay for it. See http://www.walpolebayhotel.co.uk/. It's an institution. I parked Fiona and had a closer look. I didn't actually go further than the front entrance, as there seemed to be a wedding reception or something similar going on. I hovered, pretended to be reading local tourist brochures. Then I took a nonchalant stroll past the blue car. It was a little Bugatti.

Now isn't that a neat-looking little car? It must surely have been the baby of Bugatti's model range. I didn't know enough about Bugattis to say which model it actually was. Nor could I decide whether it was new or not - the plate was obviously inherited from an earlier car. I will simply say that if ever it becomes necessary for me to own a sports car, then this will do nicely. Whether I could get into it - or more to the point, get out of it again - is the particular snag I spoke about earlier, in connection with fancy chariots of character and distinction.  That, and the lack of carrying-capacity. Fatal defects. But I'm sure it would be fun to drive!

Of Charles Dickens, parrots and volcanoes

So...how did my New Year's Day Adventure go?

I'll admit at once that it wasn't completely successful. I didn't make it to North Foreland in time to see the sun rising from the cold morning sea. Despite leaving home at 5.20am, the same time as I did last year, and with not so far to go, I ended up a few miles short and had to witness the dawn at Ramsgate. This is what I saw:

At least there was a sun to see! Last year at Stonehenge it was dull and overcast, and there was no sun at all. So this genuine sunrise was a big fat plus point. And I might have made it to North Foreland if (a) time hadn't been lost clearing the frost on Fiona's windows before setting off from home; (b) I'd used motorways all the way to Ashford - the M23, M25 and M20 - and not just from Ashford; (c) if the Folkestone Services building on the M20 had been designed differently; and (d) they hadn't imposed an incomprehensible 40 mph speed limit on the fast A20 dual carriageway between Folkestone and Dover.

Another thing. Last year I'd set off westwards, racing ahead of the following sun, which had to 'catch up' with me. In fact it was still dark enough to need a torch when I arrived at my carefully-chosen parking spot on the A303 near Stonehenge. This time, the sky was already getting quite light (in a pre-dawn way) as I approached Ramsgate. The sun beat me to it.

I know...lots of lame excuses. I should simply have planned this better!

But it had been the first frosty night in many weeks - quite a surprise! - and I had to pussyfoot around outside my home, wiping the frost off Fiona's windows with tepid water from a bucket, as quietly as possible. Scraping the stuff off would have been much too noisy. I didn't want to wake my neighbours.

The route I took was fairly direct as cross-country routes go, but I should have known better. Wealden roads twist and turn alarmingly, and you can't rush them. But motorways are dull and monotonous, and boredom and high adventure do not mix.

Folkestone Services was a very long building, quite new, rather like a posh warehouse. Having parked one end, close to the entrance, it wasn't clear where the toilets were. Unbelievably they were right at the far end. The walking distance there and back cost me precious minutes. It was an eerie experience, too, with nobody about, like dropping in on a deserted film set:

At the far end, behind their shutters, two bleary-eyed young men were already at their bureau-de-change desks. It was at least some sign of human life.

The M20 motorway ends above Folkestone, but continues seamlessly as the A20. It looked fit for a high-speed dash north-eastwards, but I had to hold Fiona at 40 mph for the entire six miles into Dover. Why? They didn't explain. But I kept my foot on the brake and held Fiona back. We both grew very irritated. Grrrrrr.

These cumulative delays meant that I made it to Ramsgate just as dawn broke. I had to stop there, to see what might be seen, parking Fiona illegally on the pavement overlooking the harbour:

I wasn't alone. An entwined couple were there, cameras out; and an ambulance drew up nearby, the woman driving it leaping out to snap the sunrise with her phone. Well, that was more company than I had last year! I drove down the hill, and parked at the east end of the harbour. It was just after 8.00am. I ate the first batch of sandwiches I'd made. Then I got out to wander around the harbour and then the town centre.

I hadn't been here at Ramsgate for ages, maybe not for twenty years. It hadn't changed much. Still a bit tatty. Perhaps it would look better after the street cleaners had done their stuff, and more people were around to give it some life.

I think I can defer my next visit for another twenty years, and not miss anything vital. It'll still look like this in 2036.

I drove on to Broadstairs. What a difference!

Actually, the first thing I did was to search for a place to have coffee. I soon saw this establishment overlooking the beach:

Morelli's turned out to be a pukka Italian ice-cream-and-coffee parlour, clearly very popular with early-rising locals. I splashed out on a mocha. It was very good. I'll go there again. (Walking around, I was struck how many Italian-sounding names there were on shops and restaurants. Just like Swansea. Or Weston-super-Mare. But then I suppose this is the same with any Traditional British Seaside Resort)

Broadstairs is also very strong on Charles Dickens. There's a Dickens Museum:

And a pub called The Charles Dickens, no doubt where the famous author wrote Bleak House:  

And lo, Broadstairs is the location of Bleak House itself, presently a hotel. It's that brown-and-white crenellated building overlooking the beach:

As you can see, Broadstairs looks sunnier, brighter, better-swept, neater and nicer than Ramsgate. And you can take it from me that it looks sunnier, brighter, better-swept, neater and nicer than nearby Margate too. Putting this another way, if you felt - for some reason - compelled to move to Thanet (which is what this far eastern tip of Kent is called), then your money should be on Broadstairs as the plum place to live, forsaking all other choices. Trust me. Look, the local feral parrots have made Broadstairs their especial home. I saw them:

Would you argue with a parrot?

North Foreland was just a short distance north along the coast. It was mid-morning by now, but I still made the effort to trek along the clifftop to where the easternmost bit of Kent must be. I was anticipating quite a view. I was still fresh-faced and cheerful.

It was by a cabbage field. Or at any rate greens of some sort. The field stretched all the way inland to the lighthouse. Something about the aroma of the crop told me that it had gone rotten, and wasn't likely to be harvested. Poo!

And the sea view that I could have seen at dawn, had I made it there on time?

The Easternmost Extremity Of South East England. Hmm. Not even the most dazzling sunrise could have redeemed this dull scene! Not even if France - just out of sight over the horizon - upended, blew up, and sank with a gigantic gurgle. It's irredeemably boring.

But then, it's so often the way. When in New Zealand in 2007, M--- and I raced hell-for-leather along a dirt track in our hired Maui campervan to view the Second-Westernmost point of North Island, Cape Egmont. And it too was underwhelming:

As with North Foreland, the view inland was much more interesting. There was a jolly lighthouse, and a huge volcanic mountain eighteen miles distant, Mount Egmont, aka Mount Taranaki:

The North Foreland lighthouse knocked the spots off the Cape Egmont lighthouse...

...but, alas, there was no brooding volcano. I consoled myself with a KitKat.

Well, that's the end of the Adventure. Or at least the main bit. I did some other things on New Year's Day, but they'll have to await a future post.

And do I revere the many works of Charles Dickens? I'm afraid not. They are so nineteenth-century and Victorian. I have no affinity with homely English character-types with funny names. And I dislike beards, no matter how high-minded the wearer.

My New Year Adventure

Last year my personal New Year's Day Adventure was to see the sun rise at Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain, more than a hundred miles away to the west. I was up super-early and drove through half the night to be there.

This year I am looking to do the same, but in the opposite direction. I want to see the sun rise at North Foreland on Thanet, the easternmost tip of Kent. It's not the most easterly point in England - Lowestoft in East Anglia is that - but it will do; and, like Stonehenge, it will take me about three hours to reach. At the moment, the weather forecast indicates a cold and cloudy Kent dawn at 7.59am, but sunny within the hour, and if I'm lucky I will actually get a shot of the red sun as it comes up out of the sea.

I'll say, 'Hello, 2016!' and (if not already said) 'White rabbits!' for luck.

Then I shall look for a decent hotel for breakfast, explore Thanet, maybe take a butchers at Sandwich and Deal, but in any event gradually make my way to Canterbury for lunch, the shops, and the Cathedral. After that, a slow drive home. On last year's experience, I will feel dog-tired by the late afternoon, and I'll time my homeward departure accordingly.

I'm really looking forward to this. I haven't had such a long day out since the autumn, and although by no means stir-crazy, I do feel a great need to get off somewhere on my own.

The drive will do Fiona good too. She still hasn't done as much as a thousand miles with her new auto gearbox, and it remains a trifle stiff in comparison with the rest of her mechanical bits, which by now (at 85,000 miles) are nicely loose and floppy. By 'stiff' I specifically mean that although her gear changes are smooth, at town speeds the gearbox seems a thought sluggish at changing down to a lower gear - auto gearboxes like to change up, and then stay there for as long as they can. Flexibility is gradually coming, but it'll need a series of good runs over varied territory to get that box to the same pitch as the old one. A drive through half the night to North Foreland will definitely be a treat for her. Another lesser matter is the state of her battery. It's nearly six years old, and although I haven't yet experienced any problems with starting, it must be feeling its age. A long drive will keep it nicely charged up.

You might think that a trip like this requires no planning at all, apart from having fuel in the tank, going easy on (or even avoiding) any New Year's Eve celebrations, and setting the alarm for 3.00am. But there is a little more to it. Where can I go to the loo on the way, or once there? What about breakfast - will anything really be open for travellers before 9.00am? I can (and will) make myself some sandwiches to bring along, but something hot is another thing altogether. Tea, coffee and soup all present handling problems inside a car that has no flat surfaces to speak of; and I don't fancy pouring fluids out while standing in the dark by an open rear hatch - that would make me a target for any prowling weirdo or mad axeman. What? You can imagine the headlines:

Sussex Woman Hacked To Death at North Foreland. 

Blood-spattered Volvo. 

Empty Thermos Flask.

Sandwiches Missing.

Dismembered Body Found At Foot Of Cliff. 

Police Question All Thanet Axemen. 

No, thank you - not the way I want to spend New Year's Day, as a lurid news item.

All such problems would of course be solved by taking the caravan to some site in East Kent, and using it as my warm and comfortable base. But of course you can't do that without prior booking, such is the winter demand at the few sites available.

All this said, I'm sure good fortune and serendipity will be my friends. I didn't suffer any discomforts last year, and don't anticipate suffering tomorrow morning. The whole point is to make it seem like a mad adventure with a definite goal, and that means you need to wing it. Let the gods, or good luck, provide.

Cramp

On Boxing Day I drove down to Gosport (in Hampshire), to spend the afternoon and evening with my sister in law Glenda and her second husband Colin. My niece Jenny and husband Kieren were there too. We had a jolly time chatting and eating and playing a board game; and then in the early evening we settled down to watch a film. First, though, we had to decide on what to see. It had to be something we all might like. This meant something that was a bit sci-fi, a bit James Bondish, with action and lots of gadgetry. I suggested Kingsman, which I'd seen a few months before at a friend's. It was a good choice.

All the while I was in a reclining seat. It was very comfortable. The foot-rest was raised by releasing a lever on the side. The one I used at home, my 'green throne' that was once Dad's, was electronic, designed for old people, and it operated slowly and steadily. But this one must have used a very strong spring (or springs) instead. The footrest came up with a rush, rather suddenly, and you were sort of thrown back. Oooh! Well, that was a surprise! But not really much of a problem. Getting out of the recliner was another matter, though! I couldn't just press a button on a handset.

I struggled to see what to do. The lever on the side seemed to be only for releasing the mechanism, to recline you back, and not for setting you upright again. Help!

It was explained, with a demo. All I needed to do was pull my legs in sharply, and the footrest would then come down and click into position. Then I could stand up. I tried this tentatively. It didn't work for me. No, bring my legs in harder and more sharply. OK...

Oooooow! 'More force' induced sudden, devastating cramp in my right leg. The entire calf.

I won't say that it was like no pain I'd ever known, but it was severe enough to bring tears to my eyes, and force a great piercing sobbing wail of agony from me. Rubbing the calf gradually eased the problem, but I had a sore leg and a sick feeling inside. I wasn't used to hurting myself. Nor were my muscles used to sudden contractions. I limped a bit, and hobbled around until I felt confident again about moving my leg normally. I hadn't thought that I could feel such pain so easily. But cramp is always pretty awful.

By now the sick feeling had gone, and my right leg seemed all right to drive with, and so I said my late-evening goodbyes, got into Fiona, and set off back to Sussex. Fortunately the leg muscles had settled down, and pressing the accelerator pedal didn't set them off again. Nor did they cramp up again once home.

Relaxing in my own recliner, I pondered my physical state, and decided that although I might not quite look like an old age pensioner, I was nevertheless the owner of an ageing carcass, and I mustn't assume it would cope nonchalantly with unaccustomed movements - not without protest, and possible consequences. This episode wasn't a sign of mortality, but it was a sign of general bodily decrepitude. I must take heed, and not move so suddenly and unwarily in future! I had visions of pulled muscles and torn ligaments. And, who knows, snapped bones!

I'd always been afraid of cramp since childhood, particularly in connection with swimming. Not swimming in the sea - although I didn't care much for that because it was so cold - I mean swimming in public swimming baths. I associated swimming with humiliation and embarrassment. You must imagine me as a gawky and thin twelve year old, with a body I felt acutely uncomfortable with, and having to be in the same pool as lots of younger children who were already swimming like fishes, my young brother Wayne included. I'd been avoiding physical stuff for years, whenever I could get away with it, but I was still in the grip of a school regime that required me to swim. Mum and Dad were also keen to see me learn to swim and do well at it. Wayne loved swimming, in fact excelled at it, and they thought I should too.

But those visits to the evening Swimming Class at Southampton Baths terrified me. Quite apart from the misery of being forced to do something I hated, and the embarrassment of being the odd person out, I desperately didn't want anyone to stare at my body and my awkwardness. I screamed inside. Given all this, it wasn't surprising that I was in a state to get cramp. In fact, I expected to, and sure enough, I'd hardly enter the water before I'd get cramp in one leg or the other. It was agonising. And it drew attention to me, the very last thing I wanted. Nor did I get used to the swimming class and what I'd have to do. It never became a bearable routine. I felt a failure, a mockery. I also felt resentful. But I had no power to opt out. I came to loathe it all.

Thankfully, Mum and Dad realised quite soon that I wasn't going to be a swimming star. I still had to go along, because Wayne wanted to show what he could do. I sat silently, just watching, bored but clothed, and kept out of anyone's notice as much as possible. At least the cramps had magically vanished. Odd, that!

And even though I did, as an adult many years later, occasionally go to public swimming baths - not voluntarily, but as a tolerated lunchtime activity with work colleagues at Bromley - I never got cramp. But by then, I was far less sensitive about how I looked; and, as a big cheese in the office, nobody was going to say anything disrespectful.

Would I plunge into the water now, voluntarily? Not a chance! I still have no love of swimming. If my doctor insisted on my taking exercise that way, an hour twice a week say, I'd listen and probably do as she wanted me to. But unless there was the possibility of a social dimension - chatting while treading water comes to mind - the whole idea would get a big No Thank You from me. And that, for safety reasons, really debars me from all water-based activities excepts luxury cruising.

I do wonder what would now be the case, if instead of being forced to take those swimming lessons when young, I'd been allowed to discover swimming for myself, in my own good time, after perhaps realising that someone who looks confident in the water can look like Someone Well Worth Knowing. The same thinking with other things I was pushed into. The pushing put me off - permanently.

Huh. 'Compulsory games' - the phrase that blighted my childhood.

Wiping music off the PC

In my 11th December post Changing habits I'd explained how I had now switched to buying mp3 music tracks from Amazon using my phone, and downloading them directly to my phone for storage and all listening. This bypassed the desktop PC entirely. It was another way in which modern mobile technology had eliminated the need to use an old-fashioned fixed-location computer with an annoyingly long start-up time.

Despite the phone becoming my music machine of choice, all the many tracks in the Music folder on the PC were still there. They were not now being added to, and I did not need to access them, but I hadn't got rid of them. These music tracks took up 8GB of storage space on the PC. Not a great amount really, but as the purchase of a new super-capable laptop with at least 2TB of storage on it had been put back to 2017, I really needed to free up space on my PC for all the photos I'd be taking in the next year or so. Even 8GB would help.

And yet it felt like an enormous step to expunge all my music from the PC! Even though all of it, and more besides, was on the phone, and it was all backed up. I couldn't possibly 'lose' any of this music. At the very worse - if both PC and phone were destroyed while I slept by aliens, or marauding pirates, I could reinstall it all onto another device from (a) the backup on an external hard drive, or (b) the CD collection, and of course (c) Amazon. Common sense said do it - wipe it off the PC. I just had to navigate to the Music folder on the PC, select all, and then delete.

But I hesitated. This was psychologically difficult! It felt like hanging from a rope over a void, and then deliberately cutting the rope to supposedly fall into oblivion. Fancifully, a form of suicide.

But I screwed up my resolve, and did it in the end. And life went on.

I now have 97GB of storage left on the C: drive of the PC, and 40GB left on the D: drive. This ought to get me through to the end of 2017, when my PC will be ten years old. There is a different danger, however. By then Microsoft may have pulled the plug on support for computers running Windows Vista. I rather think that will force me into buying a replacement super-duper laptop, rather than simple memory-saturation on the old PC.

Hmm. All the more reason to save those pennies, and put sufficient by. Who knows when the blow may fall.