My litte Rover Metro has finally decided to call it a day and hang up his number plates after chugging me around town, on trips to Devon and Cornwall, days out in London and faithfully ferrrying me to work in other Sussex towns.

Now he (well you wouldn’t have a girl Rover now would you?) is leaking oil in great drips which make him seem as though he is bleeding, which a mechanic said was due to a cracked oil tank. Then there is the radiator which will soon need attention and is only currently held with some radiator leak stopping stuff (you can tell I’m mechanically minded can’t you?) His suspension is so low that I have to come to a halt and inch over sleeping policemen who stilll often graze his bottom. Then there are other problems like rust on the bodywork and high mileage which I have been warned about. The car itself cost less than half of what it will cost to put right and as an M reg I’ve been advised to let it go to the car burial ground (scrap heap.)

I will have to do without a car for the time being and keep trying to encourage myself with green thoughts, but it’s easier said than done when I often lug play equipment and junk around for children’s workshops, and live in a village.

Having had other bangers who have had to be scrapped, I know that there will be that wrench, as though the car were a real friend, when it first gets taken away followed by the feeling that I have forgotten something every time I go outside, and then suddenly realise I am now carless (I shouldn’t car-a-less, but I do!)