Don't look down

I thought the above image would end up being a photo of my car as it was towed away to the scrapheap. After the guy quoted me for the repairs to get it through the MOT I was ready to give up on it. I'm glad I didn't though - she looks great doesn't she? (If your initial answer to this question is no, then there's probably something wrong with your monitor).

So why did I change my mind? The initial spark was when I drove to work from Bounds Green one morning and it took 30 minutes. Half the time it takes on the tube and a lot more fun too. The moment the idea crystallised was when we drove through central London to Pimlico on Saturday night. We drove down Baker Street and into the heady rush of Oxford Street all viewed from behind glass to a soundtrack of Madness songs. The traffic was flowing on Park Lane. If I hadn't been concentrating on the road I could have sworn I saw the doorman at the Dorchester look over at my car in pure envy.

Another reason to keep the car is scraping it just felt like giving up. I didn't want to give something up, only to find everything tumbling down after it. It's coming to the end of the decade and I'm trying not to repeat the domino effect that happened at the start of the decade. In early 2000 I was completing a course in web design. A month before I finished I lost my part-time job at the sandwich shop. Then they stopped the extra money they gave me for the course. And finally the course itself ended with no job at the end of it. So there I was back where I started, penniless in Liverpool. And things were about to get a whole lot worse. (Things never got much better until around September 2002). But that's another story.

This morning at the garage, the mechanic had all the old parts on the floor. It seemed like half the car was on that floor, while alongside them my car stood proud, all replaced with shiny new parts. Last year my car sat outside rusting away, this year I'm going to go places in my car. See you soon.