How could I have known when I woke up this morning, that today would be the day that I would fall in love?

I should probably start at the beginning. I had to be in Durham this week for a work thing, so I got a rental car to drive up north. It’s about a 4-5 hour drive, so the plan was to load up the car with all the equipment, drive up the day before, spend the night in a BnB, do the event the next day, and then drive back down south again.

So there I am, halfway up the M1, when it happened. I fell completely, madly, deeply, head-over-heels in love. Her name is Glenda. She has tinted windows, power steering and six gears (Six! My last car only had 4 gears! What does the extra one even do??). I know it’s unconventional, but never in my life have I driven an actual new car before. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever driven a car that was made in the same decade.

It was the smoothest ride of my life. It was like gliding gently over the tarmac in a cloud. All of the cars I have ever driven have been old and quite shaky, and getting up to 70mph on the motorway was a chore – you have to grip the steering wheel for dear life as each bone-juddering moment you assume the entire car is about to collapse beneath you.

But not with Glenda. Glenda drifts gently into 70 as if it’s nothing, even with the driving rain and miserably grim weather, cushioning your body in her ridiculously comfy seats, absorbing all the shocks while pumping out funky tunes on her awesome sound system. I never thought I could be sexually attracted to a machine, but Glenda may well have turned me. She is like champagne, and she makes every other vehicle I’ve ever driven seem like hot Bovril. It turns out that after all these years, I am a car person after all – I just hadn’t met the right car. I’m not even embarrassed about the fact that she’s a Ford Focus Estate and not some tiny little sporty number. She may be on the large side, but our love is pure and transcends such labels. Continue reading →