Mini and Me

Before I head down the A34 to the ferry, as I will be doing shortly, I do a sort of vehicle check on my mini. As I refuse to devote more than two neuron's worth of in-brain space to car maintenance, it does mean learning how to open the bonnet all over again and a few minutes matching the pictures in the manual to the stuff under the hood. This time I'm low on a liquid in a white Tupperware box that balances on the top of the engine which means a trip to buy brake fluid top up apparently. Hopefully insertion will mean nothing more than prising off the snap tight lid and pouring the stuff in. Need someone to develop the necessary processes for getting a landscape off the back of an envelope and onto about 600 square meters of enamel and I'm your woman, but anything car related beyond slopping liquid into various tubes is further than I want to go.

Last time I was down at Wells the furnace man informed me that my car was rubbish* and that all minis have in fact been rubbish since they were made by BMW. This was news to me on several fronts. I should have known about BMW: the fact that I bought the car from a BMW garage could indeed have been a hint, but in the fairyland of my imagination I like to think that the Issigonis grandchildren are overseeing production in a workshop somewhere British and rural. The rubbish bit seems unfair to me, though I agree it would be nice if the boot were designed to hold more than a slim volume of poetry and a lamb cutlet. In its defence, the car is a lovely shade of true red which is rare in car paint, the inside is as pretty and practical as Barbarella's spaceship and, since the car is very short and I am very tall, it fosters the brief illusion that I have the legs of a Thompson gazelle every time I climb out of the driving seat. What mortal woman could ask for more? Well, except for the keys to an eight litre Veyron of course. The minute I have diplomatic immunity and £800,000 to spare that's what I'll be driving.

In the meantime I'll top up my rubbish car's brake fluid, fill up its rubbish boot (and I must agree with you on that one Kev, it is a rubbish boot) along with its rubbish interior and hope that it's rubbish brakes work on the way over to the factory this weekend.

*words have been changed to protect reader's sensibilities.