Farewell, Cherriot!

A few weeks ago I made a difficult but necessary decision. I bought a new(er), small car. An opportunity came up to buy a friend's brother's well looked after and cheap to run Mazda and, with the rapid decline of my own majestic vehicle, I had to jump at the chance. It hurt though. The test drive felt like I had snuck out behind my partner's back (or what I assume that feels like at any rate). Holding the new car key was like being busted with lipstick on my collar (likewise, except on drunken evenings when I have somehow managed to smear my own everywhere. Class). But the deed was done and I had to move on. An ad was placed in the paper, several people rang but nobody purchased, and in the end Mr Wrecker (the dodgiest man you ever did see) gave me 200 clams and took Cherriot, the Cherry Chariot - aka Chez - to the great mechanical farm in the sky.

Oh Chez, the times we had! Lots of road trips, just you, me and that Kylie Minogue collection cassette that I was forced to buy from the nearest servo when I realised your crappy radio didn't pick anything up outside the city. Camping trips, where your huge boot held everything - chairs, tents, cases of beer, fishing rods, bocce...all of which are now living on my study floor (minus the beer. That never stood a chance). Those cheeky hang-over induced fast food drive throughs you forced me to take you to all those times, and I'd order an extra hash brown just for you. The time you got graffitied in hot pink paint by The Youth Of Today and I had to scrub it off the windows with steel wool. Ah Chez, happy times.

The Volvo camaraderie I shall miss the most. Oh those who've never owned one can mock, but it's true - we're a special breed, a club if you will. There's no passing another Volvo without a nod of the head, a wave of the hand, a tip of the infamous Volvo hat. It's community, people! Mazda drivers, meh. Dime a dozen, common folk.

So now it's a new era, the era of Les (he came named, and gendered). Les is close enough to Chez to excuse any awkward slips of the tongue during the early courtship period, which is a relief. So far it's going well...but there will always be a soft spot in my heart for your embarrassingly loud revving, your constant thirst for ever-increasingly-expensive petrol, your 'get out of my way, I'm a VOLVO' attitude. I heart you, Chez!