Bruised But Not Broken!

I got my car broken into this morning. And I’m feeling rather smug about it. Because even though my VW, green, golf is a little elderly now and obviously doesn’t have the sophisticated security measures of it’s SW6 neighbours – Jeeps, Mercedes, the odd Beamer…. I HAVE AN IMMOBILSER you w*nkers!!! Take that!!! Think you can joy ride off around Fulham – think again! They’d obviously had a good try because my steering wheel was jammed, but a little TLC and it was just tickety boo once again!

So following their immense failure in joy riding off into the winter rain, they’d then had a look to see if they could salvage their pride by nicking off with some valuable personal belongings. My car is not the tidiest, cleanest thing on the block, but they had obviously decided that there must be SOMETHING of value amongst the huge heap of junk. So they’d had a good sift through some old tissues, empty water bottles, a Top Shop bag, a petrol can, some sweetie wrappers, a pair of muddy wellies, a couple of tatty jumpers, a letter to my ex that I’d never sent, a piccy of me and my dad in a photo booth when I was seven and a wig left over from a fancy dress party. NOTHING worth tuppence ha’penny! So onto the CDs…Joni Mitchell, Aretha Franklin, Eva Cassidy and Shakira…all still happily present and accounted for – what a huge advantage it is to have music taste that everyone else thinks is terrible!

Not even the CD player was pinched – maybe they tried it out…and thought it wasn’t working…you have to give it a gentle nudge to make it work you see. So all in all, I have a bust lock and a new dent in the passenger side door…it’s nothing that my car and I can’t live with.

But I would have been gutted if they’d stolen it. Monetary value it has not – but it has oodles of sentimental value…for I bought it just after KP left. It had 127,000 miles on the clock and the retired granddad from whom I bought it, dropped the price to £200 because he thought I was struggling with the clutch on my test drive. (I just have a lazy clutch foot.) It was a horrible time but when the going got tough…my car got me going. It got me to work across Richmond Park when I couldn’t face the train through my hazy break-up tears. It took me to my family and best friends at the drop of a hat when I couldn’t face a lonely weekend in London. It took me on a liberating 800 mile roadtrip around the Devon and Cornwall coast, with the windows down and the music blaring and through all that, it hasn’t broken down on me once - not once has it let me down.

It had a dent in it when I bought it and since then it’s had it’s wipers snapped off by vandals, been towed away from outside my house by those criminals from Fulham council and from it’s latest adventures, it is now sporting a bigger dent in the passenger seat door. So I guess that you could conclude that my car and I are both a little bruised and battered around the edges from our trials and tribulations…but we are so NOT broken!!!