As I walked out in the drizzle at 06:00 this morning, I felt far from hopeful that my ramble would be long before being compelled to squelch back home. There were two horses in the field where there are usually three, and only two of the highland cattle remained in their straw-strewn barn. I wondered about the great slaughterhouse in the sky where long-furred, long-horned, teddy-bear coloured cows are painlessly transformed into steaks for people with above-average amounts of wealth. However, I discovered the rest of the herd in a field further on down the lane. Jessica, one of two sanctuary donkeys, poked her head out of a stable door, but the drizzle discouraged her from venturing further. A field sardined with ewes and their adolescent lambs bleated plaintively - whether about the rain, about their lot in life, or about the impending demise of the lambs, who knows? The free-range hens sounded disgruntled about being still locked up in their barn. The turkeys expressed indignation that no-one had come to let them out. I heard the goats moving about restlessly in their stall. Two dogs came to greet me.
The walk was punctuated with scurrying bunnies. Some of them looked awfully young. Last weekend there was a dog-sized hare that I watched run for over a mile. A grey squirrel fussed about in the leaves, probably looking for last year's beech mast. A red deer trotted purposely across a field and over into the wood. When I peered down the bank, the deer sprinted off amongst the trees, barking with alarm and annoyance. Another red deer, with horns for antlers, startled as I rounded a hedgerow, leapt high in the air over a fence and across a field of fluorescent-yellow oilseed rape.
Somebody twanged a ruler on the desk - I think it was a great spotted woodpecker. Later I watched another as it peered fixedly and obsessively for grubs dislodged by its hammering. Chiffchaffs, impossible to see and impossible to mistake, called from the tree tops. Blue tits, great tits, coal tits and long-tailed tits flittered. Chaffinches and greenfinches fluttered. House martins darted, and sand martins mobbed. Robins chirruped, and wrens piped their flutey trills. Skylarks busked above empty fields. A yellow-hammer was after some bread without cheese. Thrushes sang their hearts out, and blackbirds called out the news, sometimes about the bully magpies that coughed and choked their way around the woods. There were jackdaws and rooks, and suspicious-looking crows watching what was going on. Last week a kingfisher darted along Hett Burn. A sparrow hawk arrowed along a hedgerow. A mallard duck quacked noisily as it lofted out of a wood frequented by foxes. A pair of greylag geese, honking softly, flew formation circles over the old farm buildings. Wood pigeons and collared doves cooed from oak branches. A family of white doves circled the white dovecot, looking for all the world like an Athena poster. A heron flew lazily from one side of the sky to the other. And all the time in the hedgerows, the chatter and busyness of small brown birds of indeterminate kind.
There were banks of celandine and yellow primroses, and a scattering of cowslips. Beneath the hedgerows were purple violets. The woodland floor had been touched by the flame of the first bluebells.
It seemed that I was the only person alive in the springtime world.
27 April 2008
25 April 2008
Welcome to the new Avensis
I bought my dark blue Toyota Avensis on 25 April 2008. The car is three years old, and odometer reads 25,453 miles.
I feel safe in an Avensis, and since the road traffic accident in November 2000, safety has become a matter of which I am aware and about which I am concerned. There are more airbags in my new car than ... and not only are there anti-lock brakes but also traction control (whatever that is - the dealer told me that I must switch off the traction control when driving through deep snow - when I am next in Canada I think I shall hire a car rather than take my own).
I test drove a Toyota Yaris some months ago, but realised that I ended up feeling remarkably travel sick. The same was true of the Vauxhall Corsa that I drove for a little while when my Toyota Carina was written off in the accident. I assume that, with a longer wheelbase, a larger car lurches around rather less than a small car. I also considered buying a Toyota Corolla on the basis of its smaller engine (1.6 litres, as opposed to the 1.8 litres of the Avensis) and assumed smaller carbon footprint. However, the CO2 emission figures were not significantly different, and neither were the forecourt prices. I should like to have bought a Toyota Prius, which has a hybrid pertrol/electric engine, with much lower CO2 emissions. However, the forecourt prices were much higher than what I was willing to pay. I am hoping that by the time I come to change this Avensis, hydrogen fuel cell cars, with zero CO2 emissions, might be being sold. Alternatively, the Tyne & Wear Metro might have been extended along the mothballed Leamside line to my village, in which case I would no longer require a car in order to get to work.
I have been driving since my seventeenth birthday, and passed my driving test some three months later. I have owned many cars, as well as a moped and a motorbike, although I have only ever had one vehicle at a time. I equate wheels with freedom. The times when I have been without a vehicle have been difficult
... to be continued ...
I feel safe in an Avensis, and since the road traffic accident in November 2000, safety has become a matter of which I am aware and about which I am concerned. There are more airbags in my new car than ... and not only are there anti-lock brakes but also traction control (whatever that is - the dealer told me that I must switch off the traction control when driving through deep snow - when I am next in Canada I think I shall hire a car rather than take my own).
I test drove a Toyota Yaris some months ago, but realised that I ended up feeling remarkably travel sick. The same was true of the Vauxhall Corsa that I drove for a little while when my Toyota Carina was written off in the accident. I assume that, with a longer wheelbase, a larger car lurches around rather less than a small car. I also considered buying a Toyota Corolla on the basis of its smaller engine (1.6 litres, as opposed to the 1.8 litres of the Avensis) and assumed smaller carbon footprint. However, the CO2 emission figures were not significantly different, and neither were the forecourt prices. I should like to have bought a Toyota Prius, which has a hybrid pertrol/electric engine, with much lower CO2 emissions. However, the forecourt prices were much higher than what I was willing to pay. I am hoping that by the time I come to change this Avensis, hydrogen fuel cell cars, with zero CO2 emissions, might be being sold. Alternatively, the Tyne & Wear Metro might have been extended along the mothballed Leamside line to my village, in which case I would no longer require a car in order to get to work.
I have been driving since my seventeenth birthday, and passed my driving test some three months later. I have owned many cars, as well as a moped and a motorbike, although I have only ever had one vehicle at a time. I equate wheels with freedom. The times when I have been without a vehicle have been difficult
... to be continued ...
Farewell to the old Avensis
I bought my chianti red Toyota Avensis on 18 December 2000. My previous car, a grey Toyota Carina, written off in a road traffic accident on 12 November 2000, died saving us from serious injury. The Carina was about ten years old, and for all the thousands of pounds that I had paid to them, the insurance company gave me little compensation. However, I felt determined to buy a car that would help me to feel less completely destroyed by the accident.
I am not especially car-proud, and see little point in buying a car from brand
new given that 50% of the depreciation takes place in the first three years: why pay twice as much for a car that will last almost as long? At nearly three years old, it was the youngest, and smartest, car I had ever owned. Were I a demanding driver it is unlikely that I would choose to drive either a Carina or its successor, an Avensis.
Prior to the accident I had been doing a lot of driving. The car crash threw many aspects of my life up in the air. I decided to change how I earned my living (then a portfolio of business, lecturing, training and counselling) which has resulted in most of my driving now being limited to local commuting. Given that mine is a second car, were there a rail service between where I live and where I work, I could probably manage without a car. An Avensis seems to me to be over-specified for my requirements. However, the intensity of the motion sickness I experience, including when driving, makes travelling in a smaller car a nauseatingly disabling experience.
Prior to the Avensis, when I had been driving much longer distances, I had typically shopped at Sainsburys. In fact, I had word processed a multi-page tabular shopping list with my usual purchases set out in store-aisle order. However, restricting my driving to local commuting, meant that I could shop more promiscuously, adding visits to the Co-op, Asda, Tescos, Morrisons, Waitrose and Julian Graves. Not only could I sniff out bargains, but I could also shop on the way home from work. The Avensis became my shopping trolley.
The Avensis also became my mobile office. I found that if I kept a lot of teaching materials (stationery, lecture notes, assignments, recording equipment) in the car, I would always have access to whatever I needed. Whilst I overstate my case, it was also a reality that it would take me half an hour to empty the car prior to its annual maintenance service.
Unlike in the Carina, I made very few long trips in the Avensis. The most notable was the day I climbed Scafell and Scafell Pike. The trip was very nearly a major disaster, of which the car was the safest aspect. I recall that at one point during the outward journey, the brakes were smoking badly as I descended one of the Lake District passes. I parked the car very tightly in the only place I could find, and noted its location on my map. Booted up, adequately equipped, car locked, I set off. Scafell I managed okay, but Scafell Pike I found difficult. Having telephoned home from the summit of Scafell Pike (as one does), I set off on the return journey and almost immediately the outer sole of one of my expensive but old mountain boots peeled off. I was close to the top of England's highest mountain, surrounded by scree slopes, and one of my feet was virtually unprotected. Not prepared for this event, I sat down for a while to work out my options. I seriously considered calling for rescue (I have always wanted to ride in a helicopter). To this day I do not know whether my choice was wise or foolish: I chose to walk away from my car, to the nearest habitation about six miles away. The route, though rough, looked to be a good deal safer than trying to walk directly to my car. When I arrived at the pub it was already dusk. I was able to telephone for a taxi to take me back to the Avensis, fifteen miles away, the location of which I had carefully noted on the map. Disorientated by the sour turn of events, I was anxious and relieved to see the car. Whilst I later found that the front bumper skirt had been scraped, the car was otherwise un-interfered with. As a drove back to Durham, I felt as though I had had a lucky escape.
During my period as the car's keeper, I drove about 100,000 miles, and when we parted on 25 April 2008 the odometer read 127,177 miles. I wonder what will become of the Avensis. I am reminded of Black Beauty.
I am not especially car-proud, and see little point in buying a car from brand
new given that 50% of the depreciation takes place in the first three years: why pay twice as much for a car that will last almost as long? At nearly three years old, it was the youngest, and smartest, car I had ever owned. Were I a demanding driver it is unlikely that I would choose to drive either a Carina or its successor, an Avensis.
Prior to the accident I had been doing a lot of driving. The car crash threw many aspects of my life up in the air. I decided to change how I earned my living (then a portfolio of business, lecturing, training and counselling) which has resulted in most of my driving now being limited to local commuting. Given that mine is a second car, were there a rail service between where I live and where I work, I could probably manage without a car. An Avensis seems to me to be over-specified for my requirements. However, the intensity of the motion sickness I experience, including when driving, makes travelling in a smaller car a nauseatingly disabling experience.
Prior to the Avensis, when I had been driving much longer distances, I had typically shopped at Sainsburys. In fact, I had word processed a multi-page tabular shopping list with my usual purchases set out in store-aisle order. However, restricting my driving to local commuting, meant that I could shop more promiscuously, adding visits to the Co-op, Asda, Tescos, Morrisons, Waitrose and Julian Graves. Not only could I sniff out bargains, but I could also shop on the way home from work. The Avensis became my shopping trolley.
The Avensis also became my mobile office. I found that if I kept a lot of teaching materials (stationery, lecture notes, assignments, recording equipment) in the car, I would always have access to whatever I needed. Whilst I overstate my case, it was also a reality that it would take me half an hour to empty the car prior to its annual maintenance service.
Unlike in the Carina, I made very few long trips in the Avensis. The most notable was the day I climbed Scafell and Scafell Pike. The trip was very nearly a major disaster, of which the car was the safest aspect. I recall that at one point during the outward journey, the brakes were smoking badly as I descended one of the Lake District passes. I parked the car very tightly in the only place I could find, and noted its location on my map. Booted up, adequately equipped, car locked, I set off. Scafell I managed okay, but Scafell Pike I found difficult. Having telephoned home from the summit of Scafell Pike (as one does), I set off on the return journey and almost immediately the outer sole of one of my expensive but old mountain boots peeled off. I was close to the top of England's highest mountain, surrounded by scree slopes, and one of my feet was virtually unprotected. Not prepared for this event, I sat down for a while to work out my options. I seriously considered calling for rescue (I have always wanted to ride in a helicopter). To this day I do not know whether my choice was wise or foolish: I chose to walk away from my car, to the nearest habitation about six miles away. The route, though rough, looked to be a good deal safer than trying to walk directly to my car. When I arrived at the pub it was already dusk. I was able to telephone for a taxi to take me back to the Avensis, fifteen miles away, the location of which I had carefully noted on the map. Disorientated by the sour turn of events, I was anxious and relieved to see the car. Whilst I later found that the front bumper skirt had been scraped, the car was otherwise un-interfered with. As a drove back to Durham, I felt as though I had had a lucky escape.
During my period as the car's keeper, I drove about 100,000 miles, and when we parted on 25 April 2008 the odometer read 127,177 miles. I wonder what will become of the Avensis. I am reminded of Black Beauty.
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