On cars.

On cars, and specifically Fiestas, and how one has changed my life.

My mum learnt to drive in a Fiesta and so when she passed her test she bought a Fiesta and has loyally stuck with the make, aided by the fact that my uncle worked for Ford and could get her a discount. So when I eventually passed my test, her advice to me was, "You could drive a Fiesta!" and I laughed and shared my husband's Astra. Although once a Year 7 boy told me out of nowhere, "You look a bit little in that car, Miss - you could do with something small, like a Fiesta. " Cheeky thing.

Passing a driving test did not come easily to me. I left it a bit late starting lessons (age 18), and then was off at uni and came back to do (fail) the test. Then I gave up as it obviously wasn't going well with little practice, my theory test ran out, and everyone in Cambridge cycled anyway. When I came to apply for teaching jobs and realised how my lack of transport limited my options and also how embarrassing it felt to not be able to tick the little driving licence box, I felt very motivated to have another go.

Plus I had Mike, who is incredibly patient and calm and skilled, and who will definitely be the one helping the boys learn to drive. I got a job at his school so actually getting there wasn't an immediate problem with transport (pretty nice to get chauffeured there and do my make-up on the way), except the days when schedules misaligned were a bit of a hassle with the train. We got married and I passed my test and got said train to work and grinned so much all the way that when I was getting off a man asked me if I'd had some good news and I burst out delightedly that I'd finally passed my driving test. And then ran into school to tell Mike the news.

I felt like a proper grown up at last. The next day, Mike made me drive down the M11 to work, and at the weekend I had a solo trip to Tesco - what joy! So now I was Mike's chauffeur to work, and even when he changed jobs I could still drop him off on the way to my school.

I don't really know anything about cars. but fortunately Mike does, so that's all ok. When we were engaged, we had this book called, "Before you say, 'I do'" and in it there were questions about making decisions and we unanimously agreed that all car decisions would be Mike's.

Not that I didn't ever have an opinion. Mike bought a two-seater whilst we were trying to conceive and we collected it in Guildford and I had to drive the other car home and we took different routes but somehow got back at the exact same time, and then I did a positive pregnancy test, which is kind of like something from a film, when I think about it.

Yes, by then working different hours in different schools, we (Mike) decided we needed two cars. Then there was also a camper van which he converted which was fun when there were three of us but didn't work for four, so then we upgraded to a caravan and he had to sell the van he'd lovingly spent hours on, then later the two-seater which obviously wasn't exactly suited to family life. Pregnant with Son number 3 we realised normal cars don't fit three children's car seats across the back, even our relatively roomy Skoda, so we started to look at seven-seaters, which is a significant upgrade in number of seats from the silly little two-seater. I had bad pelvic girdle pain and the night we bought the Alhambra I drove 100 yards down the road to Budgens to try it out (yes, lazy, but my hips were really dodgy) and a lorry reversed into me and dented the bonnet. So soon! I cried, and tried to contact the police, trace CCTV etc. to no avail.

But seven seats brings wonderful opportunities. Seven seats obviously means space for my mum or our lodger, but more often, space for more boys! So if I am taking the boys out, they can each bring a friend. Sometimes at school collection, I'd load up up six small children to take to our church after school club. I really did/do love the Alhambra, and we were evangelistic about it and soon there were three near-identical cars parked in a line at church.

An Alhambra is apparently all you need (well, if one of you works in cycling distance and has a very small world of the local school, library, and children's centre) so then we were a one-car family again and I felt very Cambridge and very virtuous as I took the boys to their many Addenbrookes appointments etc by bike trailer, and imagined my (cyclist, non-driver) granddad smiling down at me. But then every so often there'd be a tricky situation eg my mum needed to be collected from the station, and I'd remember how very handy a car is. Occasionally people lent us cars, very kindly, and then when we planned to move out to a village we realised we definitely needed two cars again, which was kind of sad.

It's only last year that I was dropping Son 3 off at school, stationary in the car park, and a big landscaping lorry tried to get past me and bashed the back of the beloved Alhambra and ripped off the bumper. It caused quite the commotion, as zillions of other parents witnessed it and some came forward with offers of support/to be witnesses. One stranger offered to drive me to work, and when I said I worked in Letchworth her face fell (I drove home instead, the rear bumper bouncing about behind me).

The courtesy car situation that followed was laughably bad, as in some of the people at Auxlillis I communicated with were literally laughing on the phone at their inability to provide me with a car ("Pretty funny when you think about it - we're a car hire company and we have no available cars and no drivers!"), and repeatedly saying they would send one and then not doing. Both Direct Line and Auxliiis ended up paying us compensation (at one point I phoned them in tears saying that I was stuck in Letchworth and my children needed collecting from Cambridge and where oh where was the promised car so that I could drive to get them?!) When they finally did provide a car (me: "ANY car so long as it's a manual one.") they sent a massive keyless automatic and I just sat in it laughing because I couldn't even start the ignition, and then when Mike took me out for a little lesson, the car kept giving me unsolicited advice, like telling me it was inefficient to open a window with the air con on, and yanked me back to the left with a warning about crossing the centre line whilst I was trying to overtake a cyclist. Anyway, Mike quickly found another Alhambra, so it's all ok again.

All ok until I started working in the centre of Cambridge with a school with many great accolades like "Britain's only screen-free school" but also unfortunately "Britain's most crazy-small car park." So there I was trying to do mad manoeuvres to squeeze in and other staff/parents would often have to help and a couple of times, I kid you not, nice men would offer to take my keys and that they would park it for me. And friends would ask, "How's the new job?" and I'd reply, "The new school's great, and I really love it ... but the PARKING!" but then happily (for me) Mike's Mercedes died so we had to get a second car and we got TA-DA a Fiesta and now I can PARK AGAIN and I no longer arrive at work stressed - woo hoo! Hence, the life-changing Fiesta - removing daily anxiety from my worklife.

I think as someone who grew up without a car (Dad drove, Mum didn't until I was in upper primary) I don't take cars for granted, and I know what it's like to rely on public transport and bikes, and I want the boys to be prepared to travel like that too, which is pretty inefficient when you live in a village with not-great public transport links, and when paying for parking costs less than a family ticket. And whilst I wouldn't really say that I LIKE driving, I am very very grateful that I can drive, and yes I got there a couple of years later than many of my peers, but at least I can do all the things now, like pop to the shops, and visit my mum. And I used to imagine that being a good little wife/mum meant doing more sort of indoor things like baking, but actually being able to do things like pick up the dry-cleaning or take an elderly neighbour to hospital is actually a more practical blessing, even if I feel somehow less Amish and therefore less holy doing it (some very dodgy theology/psychology going on there).

So for someone who knows very little about cars and almost completely defers to Mike on all things car-related as agreed back before were married, it turns out I have quite a lot to say about them. And yes, I am damaging the environment for the next generation, and yes our lodger does somehow survive village life without a car, but I am very very grateful for my ability to drive and access to a car, and even if it's not always setting the best example to the boys, it does at least get me to work and them to their social engagements, so I think we should all be thankful for that.

More on my approach to commuting here: https://sarahhadfi.wixsite.com/website/post/on-running and on moving to a village here : https://sarahhadfi.wixsite.com/website/post/on-location-location-location