I am currently mourning at the grave of a great little part of English life. Well, certainly of my life.
Not so many moons ago I would put the dog in my little motor, my mind in neutral and the car in gear, off I went, tootling around the leafy, sun drenched lanes of Sussex without a care in the world. I would sing to myself loudly and badly (poor dog); I could shout kindly or offensively (with the window firmly shut obviously) to riders and bikers; I could think un-pc thoughts all on my own and undetectable; I could smoke should I wish...which I don't; I could stuff my face with wicked chocolate; in fact the world was my little clam, and I felt free and unassailable.
Also I could get quite poetic and genuinely moved by the season, the views, the weather, the music, the landscape et al.
You know what's coming. Now I have to concentrate, strain every sinew, crane my neck, screw up my eyes and clench all the muscles in my body, particularly my posterior.
Is that dark dappled patch a hole as deep as Vesuvius? Is that puddle a lake or a swimming pool lying in wait to wreck my tyres...again? Arriving at your destination in shreds and exhausted, not to mention cross as two sticks on the subject of upkeep. All the pleasure in driving has gone and I appreciate the fact that there is no money anywhere, and that the work done is shoddy, but I fear that like a lot of other tiny pleasures and aspects of my old life, pleasure in driving has gone, never to return.
