Car Two<\/strong> – a BMW. I didn’t care about the model, or the engine size, or the colour. I\u00a0just had an irrational desire to have\u00a0that blue & white roundel on the steering wheel in front of me.\u00a0I am currently on my 12th, in ninteen years, and have never been disappointed. They really are the ultimate driving machine, nothing compares. <\/strong><\/p>\n Car Three<\/strong> – A Landrover Defender. The ultimate utalitarian vehicle, beloved of the working class and royalty alike. The ‘go anywhere’, ‘do anything’ utility vehicle. A proper 4×4, and the best by far. And I think you know what is coming next…. On saturday, the long suffering, Amanda accompanied me to north Nottinghamshire to collect my new chariot, bought especially for my impending trip to Galicia. I’d\u00a0bid for, and won, the\u00a0blue 1986 Landrover Defender 90 pick-up\u00a0on e-bay on the strength of five photographs, and three e-mails with the seller. I never expected to win the auction.<\/p>\n I’d put in a speculative low bid and almost forgotten about it, but at 5pm on the 19th September (my birthday) I got an e-mail from e-bay and I’d treated myself to a ‘landy’, the car of my dreams, almost twenty-five years to the day after I passed my driving test. She’s also twenty-five years old but has covered just 90,000 miles, and I have all the past MoT’s to prove it. She worked on a farm for the first twenty years of her life, at the beck-and-call of a pig farmer, (don’t tell Carlos or he may get ideas) and only did 3k per annum. The three owners since then have put a few more miles on, but really she’s still only just run in.<\/p>\n The new addition<\/p><\/div>\n She does have a few foibles, but so would you after twenty-five years hard labour.<\/p>\n The choke has to be kept open with a clothes peg, the bonnet released with\u00a0 pair of pliers,\u00a0the hazard warning lights switch is jammed in the off position,\u00a0and you have to wind the window down to open the doors. She does 18mpg but mercifully is converted to run on LPG, although the down side is that there are only a small number of LPG stations in\u00a0Galicia.<\/p>\n I am also not the best shape for driving a vehicle that appears to\u00a0have been designed for very slim giants with short arms. The steering wheel will eventually polish a line in my jumper where it rubs on my ample girth, and I can only\u00a0really drive it comfortably with the drivers window wound down, to save me bashing my elbows every time I round a corner.<\/p>\n But I love it. My childhood illusions remain intact, all I am wondering now is ‘why did it take me such a bloody long time to buy one!’<\/em>. We’re going to have a great time together in Spain!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Although the Galician dream is only a few years old, it has now allowed me to fulfil a dream which I have held since I was a spotty teenager. As a child and young teenager there were always three cars … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/Landy2.jpg\" "\\"Landy2\\"")
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