We got our first car Maggie when we first moved to Scotland in 2005. We lived up in the Highlands, in a village called Strathcarron. It took us an hour to get to the nearest supermarket, so it was very obvious that we needed to get a car straight away. Our friends Liz and Martin hooked us up and for £450 we became the proud owners of Maggie May.
BTW, how young/thin do we look?
The car was called Maggie because she was a Scottish car, named after the Rod Stewart song, Maggie May, because "The morning sun when it's in your eyes really shows your age, but that don't worry me none, in my eyes you're everything" Maggie, was to be honest, a little past her prime but she was brilliant, got us everywhere we needed to go. Once we moved to London it became obvious we didn't need her any more. Maggie went to the scrap yard, it was a sad sad day (a few tears were shed even), and for the next three years we went on feet, tube, bike, bus and (after a night on the town) taxi. In 2008 Andrew transferred to a new work site 25 miles out of town and it was obvious we needed wheels. Enter Nelson...
Nelson is an ex-armed forces car and is named after Lord Admiral Horatio Nelson (which is even more appropriate now he's been wounded in battle a couple of times!). We took him all around Ireland, doing about 200 miles a day, finishing a complete loop around the outside of the island, packed to the brim with all our camping gear. 2009 was a good year for Nelson...
2010 wasn't so good...We'd never had RAC (AA) cover before, and when we were offered it for free with our car insurance it seemed like a good idea (if a little un-necessary). How wrong were we...Our first call out was in May to change a tyre (Andrew "parked" a little too close to a kerb and put a hole in it-it was about the size of a 50p piece)
In July, on the last day of school, the engine blew up at 70mph on the M4...luckily for me I wasn't driving. After coasting to a stop we called the RAC again, and sat down on the hard shoulder to wait for them to arrive. Even though it was 5pm and the motorway was packed with peak hour/school holiday traffic, I managed to fall asleep while we waited for a tow! In my defence, I was three months pregnant with Chicken!
After a full heart transplant (AKA a new engine) we got Nelson back 3 months later, more or less a whole new car...
Unfortunately that's not quite the end of the story...At 7 months pregnant (and getting a bit big for riding the tube in the morning) I'd driven Nelson to school, and came out that evening to find the battery flat and nothing happening when I turned the key. Enter the RAC again, Nelson was loaded on the back of a truck and dragged home. Turns out the alternator had died, but once the (very helpful) man from the RAC had recommended a cheap garage, we were back on the road 24 hours later!
Most recently (and hopefully finally!) Chicken and I were on the way to my favourite Scrapbooking shop when the clutch gave up the ghost as I came off the motorway 25 miles from home. After a fair bit of panicking and another call to the RAC, when they heard I had a "baby on board" they bumped me to the top of the list and were there fixing the problem in about 45 minutes. Not long after that I was on my way home-having decided to give the scrapbooking a miss for the afternoon!
Unfortunately, on the way home I had to stop to pick up Andrew from Sainsbury's, and in the car park on the way out the same thing happened again. It's fixed now, all it was was a clip that kept coming off a pipe!
So there you are, six call outs from the AA in twelve months, I think we've had our moneys worth!
And finally, check out all that snow from December, Andrew drove to work on Monday and didn't feel the speed bumps at all!
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