It was mooted some time last year that if I lived long enough (i.e. until my 25th birthday) and managed not to crash the Fiesta in the meantime, I might be able to get insured to drive my Dad's car, a 2009 Mondeo diesel estate.
I reached the old quarter-centenary last month. Without crashing the Fiesta.
As of early yesterday afternoon, I'm told, I am now insured to drive the Mondeo. So last night I went for my first spin in it. I have to say, it was quite a surreal experience, in that all the principles are exactly the same, but pretty much every single detail was different. Still an automatic gearbox, but a different type of automatic gearbox. Still got the indicator stalk on the left, but it feels different somehow. Still got brakes (as you'd hope, really), but much more bitey than in the smaller car.
But if you'll excuse the terrible pun, the big difference was how big it is. Compared to the Fiesta, the Mondeo is a bit wider, has a higher and longer bonnet, and sticks out half a mile further at the back end, which makes cornering that bit hairier. I spent the inaugural drive alternating between thinking "this is fine, I don't know what Mum complains about," and then having sudden moments of doubt whenever I came up to a corner, as the Mondeo's hugely increased wheelbase makes cornering a very different experience to what I'm used to.
But strangeness aside, I got it back onto the driveway in one piece, so it was all good in the end.
And then, out of sheer force of habit, I reached for the key to turn it off.
Which was silly of me, because I've known all along that you don't put the key in the steering column in the Mondeo. It signals its presence wirelessly, and you start or stop the engine with a button on the dashboard. But my muscular memory kicked in, and I reached for the non-present key anyway. Duh.
- The Colclough
Showing posts with label Driving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Driving. Show all posts
Thursday, 14 March 2013
Wednesday, 3 November 2010
Please evacuate Godalming...
...because I plan to destroy it, just as soon as I take over the universe and have all the planet's bulldozers at my command.
Mum decided this morning that we should go to Winkworth Arboretum, which from our point of view is on the far side of Guildford. I drove, and she navigated, while the younger siblings sat in the back seat, and for once in their lives made relatively few annoying noises. It was all going so very nicely - until we came to a really stupid junction on the Hog's Back, where the 'straight on' bit looks like a right turn, and the bit that looks like it goes straight on is in fact an exit, from which you get fed onto a random dual carriageway of doom, which cuts through the middle of Guildford, and then disappears on the other side - without any exits!
Well, by now we were heading north-east of Guildford, when we'd planned to turn right in the town centre and head out southwards, and we ended up doing a huge loop around the country lanes outside the city (at one point, we went through Chilworth, and I was very unhappy to find myself there, because in my universe Chilworth counts as very far away from home), until we found ourselves re-joining our planned route at Godalming.
Plain sailing from there on? Yeah, right. Godalming seemed to be just a huge mass of badly-signposted roundabouts, mostly surrounded by traffic jams. And one of them was partly shut because it was half-way through being re-turfed - by 7 or 8 workmen, who were just standing around eyeballing the stack of turf as if they expected it to lay itself. Needless to say, it did nothing of the sort. The whole town was the last thing I needed after our ridiculously huge detour. Hence my decision to bulldoze it someday.
Well... the arboretum was very nice, once we got there - I have photos, which I might get around to showing you sometime - but I've decided that next time anyone proposes a day-trip, I'm going to glue myself into my chair to make sure I don't have to go. Because I've had enough of a road trip today to last me for years.
Speaking of photos, I have graduation ones: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=303702&id=729711216&l=6994d1b393. Me in a funny hat and a superhero cape B]
So, rant over.
Hopefully I'll write something a bit more positive next time... 8p
- The Colclough
Mum decided this morning that we should go to Winkworth Arboretum, which from our point of view is on the far side of Guildford. I drove, and she navigated, while the younger siblings sat in the back seat, and for once in their lives made relatively few annoying noises. It was all going so very nicely - until we came to a really stupid junction on the Hog's Back, where the 'straight on' bit looks like a right turn, and the bit that looks like it goes straight on is in fact an exit, from which you get fed onto a random dual carriageway of doom, which cuts through the middle of Guildford, and then disappears on the other side - without any exits!
Well, by now we were heading north-east of Guildford, when we'd planned to turn right in the town centre and head out southwards, and we ended up doing a huge loop around the country lanes outside the city (at one point, we went through Chilworth, and I was very unhappy to find myself there, because in my universe Chilworth counts as very far away from home), until we found ourselves re-joining our planned route at Godalming.
Plain sailing from there on? Yeah, right. Godalming seemed to be just a huge mass of badly-signposted roundabouts, mostly surrounded by traffic jams. And one of them was partly shut because it was half-way through being re-turfed - by 7 or 8 workmen, who were just standing around eyeballing the stack of turf as if they expected it to lay itself. Needless to say, it did nothing of the sort. The whole town was the last thing I needed after our ridiculously huge detour. Hence my decision to bulldoze it someday.
Well... the arboretum was very nice, once we got there - I have photos, which I might get around to showing you sometime - but I've decided that next time anyone proposes a day-trip, I'm going to glue myself into my chair to make sure I don't have to go. Because I've had enough of a road trip today to last me for years.
Speaking of photos, I have graduation ones: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=303702&id=729711216&l=6994d1b393. Me in a funny hat and a superhero cape B]
So, rant over.
Hopefully I'll write something a bit more positive next time... 8p
- The Colclough
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