We sold our old renault to a renault mechanic's the other day - for spare parts.  Years of being parked outside in the snow, and driving on country roads and cobblestones had done their worst, and things got to the stage where fixing the car up to get our roadworthy for this year was too much of an outlay. On account of our kids never wanting to throw ANYTHING away - and I mean ANYTHING - we didn't tell the kids the car was being sold for scrap.  As far as they know, the car is still being driven by that nice renault mechanic who has a yard full of car bits.  But the boys were still distraught anyway.  They howled and sobbed on the way home like someone had died.  So we distracted the boys with stories of "cars we have owned and loved, had to let go - but still remember today".  And soon the kids were laughing at all our stupid stories.


Like the story of Jem's first car, fondly known as "the shark":  it had a racing stripe, and a pool ball on top of the gear stick, and as far as I can remember, ended up blowing up on the Centenary highway.  Then there was Jem's Austin, mega bargain vintage, with red velvet seats and indicators that weren't lights but little sticks that popped out of each respective side.  And what about the evil green Daewoo we had in Brisbane, all I remember about that one is that we would constantly be stuck on Milton road in that godforsaken after-work traffic in it, sweltering in the heat, and fighting about insignificant things.

Then there was MY first car - inherited from my grandmother.  A canary yellow Toyota Corolla, it was absolutely legendary, brown vinyl seats, one previous old lady driver, automatic transmission and a whole lotta spunk.  We moved to Melbourne and took it down there on the train, and I sped around Melbourne in that thing, thankful for the fact that I was totally visible in canary yellow as I drove through the Melbourne dark and mist and rainy days.   Once we took it on an adventure to Adelaide, but got cut short in Ararat when the head in the engine cracked (what the hell does that mean???).  A RACV guy called "Scrot" (short for Scrotum, he said) turned up in a black knitted beanie in the 30 degree heat.  Scared the life out of us talking about prisoners released from the local lunatic asylum and taking us for a drive down the back alleys of Ararat....

I wonder if I specially put that frock on to match the car in the photo...?