Hopes for Clemmie's arrival

We’re back in grey damp days. It’s not even a decent downpour, just a persistent drizzle, almost a mistiness. It’s gone on all week.

All week we’ve been going to wash our car, Paloma. She’s going to be turned in for a new car later this week – this one is already provisionally called Clemmie, short for Clementine like Churchill’s wife, as she is both classy, a BMW, and sunset orange in colour. However it hasn’t seemed worth the effort to wash her when it’s quite as wet as it is. We can’t help thinking by the time we’ve driven over to Lindale, about 23 miles away, Paloma will be as dirty as if we’d never cleaned her in the first place. There will just be so much dirty spray from other vehicles on the road. She will inevitably be given a good valet before sale whatever cleaning we’ve done.

We’re looking forward to collecting Clemmie. In our test drive the model was a dream to drive. The Fox is even contemplating driving down to the south coast so we could take her over to France on the ferry for a holiday in Brittany next year. I’m not entirely confident that that is such a wise move. Since his stroke, in 2011, he’s found driving much more tiring. A trip down to Stoke to see family or over to Harrogate to see friends is the furthest he’s driven. He thinks that easy driving Clemmie will resolve the driving issue as most of the time he feels fine now. However, there is no denying his loss of stamina. Before we commit to quite so long a drive, I think we should to have a weekend away somewhere a bit further than we have been of late but not as far as Poole, Portsmouth or Exeter, the ports on the south coast the ferries depart from. Only then, assuming all’s gone well, will I consider a drive to France. Air flight may be tiring, boring, hassle-inducing, but at least it is relatively quick & so that much easier to get over.

The other factor is that we have had several niggles with Paloma, especially since her last service a few months ago. She can be hard work to drive. Sometimes she seems quite unresponsive. We’re hoping Clemmie will be better. We’ll soon find out.