June 17, 2007...9:09 pm
Running On 3 Cylinders (I Know The Feeling)
This morning I cycled to see my parents and primarily to give a fathers day card.
Dad was keen to show me that our long abandoned car left in his garage now actually started after 8 months of sporadic tinkering by my estranged brother (well I’m the estranged one - we agree not to 
occupy the same postcode for the sake of each of our blood pressure levels) but it only ran in a kind of spluttery way and apparently only on 3 cylinders, so no attempt to move it was made. Dad thinks it’s worth repairing but I don’t have the kind of ready cash to get someone to do so and have said on several occasions to get rid of it but he and my brother persist in their self belief that a miracle will happen.
I have no great hope that it’s economically feasible to repair (cars=bottomless pit of money and exploitative garage mechanics don’t help) and anyway we’ve got used to living without it though I admit it would be handy to have a small moped or an electric bike sometimes as arriving somewhere ‘glowing’ and with wild windswept hair is not always the desired look. If I could share a car with someone then I’d be happy with that as we only need sporadic access to a car.For the moment we hire as and when.
Otherwise we’ve adjusted our life accordingly and I don’t much miss the stress of sitting in traffic and popping here and popping there and popping anywhere just because we could. Perhaps I was a hermit in a former life or maybe it’s just that Cancerian attachment to the home that quells any wanderlust.
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