I drove a car today. Well that’s probably no big deal for you, but the last time I sat behind the steering wheel of a car was two years ago. And that was a single drive, there and back in an afternoon. I haven’t done any real driving since before Ingrid was born – when she was tiny I had to sit in the back seat with her and keep her pacified, so Eric always drove.
Our plan for today was to move furniture, again, to let the builders occupy our old living room and kitchen, again. But that got done much faster than we had expected, so we sat here at half past eleven, wondering what to do. It was raining outside so we couldn’t just while the day away by pottering around the house and garden and perhaps walking down to the supermarket. Confined to the house both Ingrid and Adrian get very annoyingly bored very quickly.
So Ingrid and I drove to the swimming pool in Husby. That’s another thing I haven’t done for a long time: Adrian hasn’t been fond of bathing so until now it’s been me at home with him while Eric and Ingrid go splashing. Now that he (Adrian, not Eric) can go half a day without access to my boobs, and without crying about it, I can go out and do things with Ingrid again. Which is good for both of us, I think. I suspect she feels she’s been pushed aside somewhat, even though she’s been a good sport about it.
Oh right, the car. We bought a car this week. After years of resisting car ownership I gave up. Mainly I wanted a car for our upcoming Estonia trip. Financially it makes much more sense for us to rent rather than own a car – we might need it every other weekend at most. It’s a bit of a hassle so we actually don’t rent that frequently. But we will definitely need a car in Estonia, and it turns out that no car rental firm will allow their cars to be taken to Estonia, or any other Eastern European country for that matter.
So here we are, owners a Volvo something something (V40? S40?) from ’98. Our requirements were simple: a robust car, spacious boot, tow-ball. Not too expensive. Eric did some research, found a car on Blocket (sort of a Craigslist equivalent) and this Thursday brought it home. In addition to our requirements we got a roof rack, too. I can’t say I’m excited about it but I guess it will come in handy for our trips to IKEA, Plantagen and so on.
It turns out that I still remember how to drive. I didn’t even stall when taking off at traffic lights!
You are a brave woman! I haven’t driven in over 5 years – since we left the wide boulevards of Canberra :) Driving in London just does not look appealing at all.
You know, I didn’t drive in London even once. Just like here (until now) we lived without a car and rented when we needed one, which back then meant for holidays only. All my driving in the UK was confined to nice country lanes in Cornwall, scenic routes in Scotland and so on.