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Recently the time spent with my old Saab 900 is decreasing, the requirement for a cavernous load space to fetch parts for broken VW’s, take musical equipment to gigs or fledgling rock bands to press launches is far greater than my ambling around and so my large marshmallow suspensioned Swede is an absent friend.

Therefore this past couple of weeks I have been forced to find an alternative, with the prospect of having to make an epic school holiday schlep fulfilling my role as the ‘young, eccentric aunt’ to my pre-pubescent niece and the paraphernalia associated with said hormone timebomb, I needed something a tad more practical than my Spider (much to the 11 year old’s dismay) and the MGB frankly would never make the 200 miles to my sisters’ house and the subsequent 70 miles to the Northern Welsh coast where we had chosen to spend a week on vacation.

I turned to the automotive pimp. The hire car centre.

The life of a hire car is a thankless existence. The public convenience of the automotive world, merely present to fulfil a need, a requirement; so long as they’re clean, smell ok and a look half decent – it’ll do.

It is an unwritten law in this country that ‘those who shall grace the driving seat of a hired vehicle must henceforth thrash the engine within an inch of it’s rev limiter and not give care or attention to kerbing hub cabs nor the interior and especially not spare the rubber of the tyres'.

Hire cars are used and abused by all who grace the driver’s seat. They’re the beasts of burden, carrying loads, relatives, separated partners and their pet fish to new abodes; taking belongings up and down the land. I think they’re great. I fought the compelling masochistic urge within me to sample the wares of the appropriately named ‘Hire a Banger’ after seeing one of their banger fleet hazard lights a-flashing on an M40 slip road recently and so managed to cram an immense amount of female unnecessary baggage into the teeniest almost new hire fleet shopping car I could find.

The Ford KA...stuff it!

A 1.1 engined, so basic opening windows are probably an optional extra, Ford Ka. It was devoid of CD player, it housed a cassette player, had wind up windows, fairly useless cubby holes and odd set within the carpet not particularly deep cup holders, my Tom Tom Satnav I installed for the week was probably worth more than the Ka.

It felt like something you could make with easy instruction from a Blue Peter presenter using washing up liquid bottles and sticky backed plastic with an adult to supervise battery connection and petrol usage. But for £99 unlimited mileage for a week’s hire and an engine that runs on the smell of an oily rag (with petrol at 92p per litre), I sure as hell wasn’t complaining.

Well I was actually. I didn’t get on with the dashboard, the centre console was too intrusive for a long legged thing like me and the arcing plastic of the dash itself was styling trying a bit too hard, all of which condescended the simplest of instrument panels. The glove box ‘pod’ which reminded me of the little orange plastic wrappers you get lunchbox size jaffa cakes in, refused to close despite gentle coercion and a heavy clout from my Mother, I was scared to press any harder for fear of breakage. The cloth trim and plastic backing to the seats was easy to clean – essential for any hire car, but the finish I found to be fairly shoddy with bits of unfinished cloth left hanging. Either this car had already been seriously abused by its casual driving inhabitants; or this particular hire Ka happened to be a Friday afternoon car.

It had a frugal little engine with a decent gear change and a fairly balanced ride given all my crap in the back. I’m sure that would change given a gust of wind or two, the long winding A roads were gobbled up quite pleasantly albeit with a hint of understeer but the hills and valleys of Snowdonia became Everest to the little Ka, sheep were progressing up roads quicker than I was at some points, the engine wailing in pain at the punishment of the merest hint of gradient. 0 – 60 seemed to take longer than a decent French manicure.

If you fancy a change from your everyday car and don’t have the money to buy a new one, why not take out a hire car for the day, you get to try something new and the car gets to go on a good old fashioned road trip. Overly affectionate toward inanimate objects? Who me? I decided to take the Ka to some interesting places as it doesn’t get out of the city much, so included a trip for the car with the shortest name, to a place with a rather long name.

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch and er..a Ka

In hindsight a Ka is best suited for town and city driving with the occasional motorway hop. It’s ideal for this and designed just so. I really didn’t think I’d like it and my Mother, upon calling her to tell her what I’d be collecting her in vehemently refused to travel in it. The little Ka won us over though, it’s a very functional little thing, great as a cheap hire car and just the sort of vehicle my Mother would need for popping to work and the shops, if I could persuade her back behind the wheel. But for me, I’ll probably be hunting down something a big larger, with 4 wheel drive and a dvd player to keep my niece amused should I make the same trip again.

Testing, Testing, One, Two

So after a couple of weeks' radio silence whilst I've been on holiday sunning myself in far flung exotic locations (Wales), I'm back to my wittering with some exciting news. I have both my kidneys and other vital organs intact but have managed to finally procure a motorcycle!

As with most things I'm fond of; my little bike is far from shiny and has long since forgotten what it is to be new. Some might say it's rather rough round the edges, but quite frankly I love it.

My little Yamaha SR 125 is 12 years old so barely a teenager, the side panels don't quite match the tank and the seat is torn but has an MOT. I take delivery of it on Wednesday and plan to set to work improving upon it's slightly dishevelled appearance, but not too much.

I am undertaking my CBT this weekend and of course will divulge my exploits in full detail here. I am planning to use the services of a unique motorcycle training centre in West London, they wear pink tabards rather than the usual yellow and their classes are made up entirely of ladies. Girls Angels offers training by women, for women, so if like me you don't want to be laughed at by a load of scooter-mad 17 year old pimply boys, this is the place to go. I'm really rather looking forward to it.

So, if you see a 5ft 7 wobbly blonde on a learner bike in the West London area this Saturday please be gentle with me. I'm the one in the pink tabard.

To be continued....

'Back' in Business

Your back is a precious thing you take for granted. But when it goes, my god do you know about it.

There has been some silence on the Muppet keyboard the past few days as my recurring back problem meant an inability to sit for long periods at my laptop.

I squished my spine a few years ago when I used to compete in 3 day event horse trials, it was not, as some of my friends have suggested, the fact that I'm old and going rusty through lack of use. I came off my horse at a static cross country jump and lets just say it hurt alot. I few years later I had a car crash which exacerbated the problem so now I have a dodgy back which decides every now and then to make my life a misery, but my osteopath's life joyful.

So a few days of sheer agony (with no nursemaid, offers gratefully accepted), walking like the Tin Man from Wizard of Oz and driving in very very flat shoes. My spine has been manipulated (read: cracked within an inch of its life) by my osteopath and I'm on the road to recovery...until next time.

It's not often I write anything overtly personal like this but I think it's important. The number of back related absences from work are on the increase and it's the most common form of work related illness. I hurt mine participating in a nutty high speed sport, but even just sat reading this, are you slouching? Also in your car you have to consider posture and ergonomics. This is something I'm going to explore in more detail but not all cars have your bog standard wheel, driving seat, pedal alignment. I had to sell a Seat I used to own and enjoyed driving because long journeys were crippling.

So, a plea from a mobile Muppet, as well as undertaking some research of my own, I'd like to know if you have any information about motoring ergononmics, or even just experiences of car-comfort. If you've anything of interest leave me a commment.