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Friday, April 19, 2013

R.I.P. little ha ha car






 Rest in peace little ha ha car. We had you for 12 years - you owed us nothing - we drove you every day to places local like the swimming pool, the post office, the butcher, the shopping for food shops, and occasionally a little further around town. You were parked on Smith Street daily and had often been side swiped but we had planned to keep you rolling along for at least another 6 months until we decided that you should be put out to pasture. You are the only car we have ever had where the windscreen wipers came on when the lights were turned on and even though you cost us $500 for fixing this and few other dramatics (caused by a side swipe) it was our prerogative to call you useless and a ha ha car.


However, Suzel, a p plater driving her BMW sports car (night photo above) fixed all of that. After a very busy day on Wed, we were enjoying a red wine in the back garden getting ready to drive off to Anthony and Kim's new restaurant Chilli Orange, when we heard a car roar around the corner at the bottom of Smith Street and crash loudly into an innocently parked car on the side of the road pushing it into another innocently parked car. How anyone can come around that roundabout at that speed is a wonder but who knows if she was texting or anything - the point is she didn't brake, possibly panicked and accelerated. She was all very dramatic. We knew it was the ha ha car because its very noisy alarm system started up. So we are in trauma.

Of course it doesn't look that bad but the side and back bashed in and the front bashed up and being an old car means it is not worth repairing. Since it is worth very little we will receive nothing much of nothing. Suzel's daddy has probably already bought her a new BMW sports car...... In the meantime we have hired a No Birds car- the ever popular white hire car from Bayswater. I have only been out in it a couple of times but already people are asking where the little green car is. Sadly at the knackers yard.


 Little car did get a little revenge - its alarm system went off twice through the night (poor Ian had to get up, put on clothes and go out to turn it off) and it held the rat run of cars up for a short while in the morning when the tow truck arrived. Boy, people are impatient about having to wait for a car to be towed onto the back of a truck. So sadly I will not bore you with tales of our little car again.

 On a brighter note - we had a lovely sojourn in Broome - Ian took this great photo at Town Beach

and we went to Port Beach to watch the sunset - don't you love how the rocks change colour?

Magazines - we have had 4 arrive in the last short while - Art Journalling and Modern Patchwork both sold out on the day they arrived. I always get extras but they went too. Also we got Somerset Studio (I took a copy to Broome with me and thought it is a good magazine - I used to buy it years ago) and Down Under Textiles 10 came as well - I have an article on de Colourant. We still have a few copies left.

So it has been a very busy but very traumatic week. We had a little wake in our back garden last night with a bbq - Jake at the butchers chose me a couple of lovely steaks and we enjoyed a lovely glass or two of Eldertons red for the passing of an era. We have now owned 3 cars since we came to Perth in 1978.

Let's hope that both the Hurricanes and Chiefs win their rugby games today.

6 comments:

Amanda said...

A fitting tribute to a good old plodder. Drive to the scrap yard in the sky knowing you are remembered little car.

Just grateful there wasn't anything other than metal involved but it's such a PITA having to sort everything out.

Teresa said...

Oh Dale, the end of an era. It sounds like little ha ha car did indeed serve you well and hopefully has a place in car heaven, although we know that's probably not going to happen. What does happen to cars when they go to the scrappers yard? Almost sounds undignified, doesn't it.....scrappers yard? Let's hope she returns as lots of tins housing the finest pate or foie de gras. And I'm so impressed....only 3 cars in 35 years, surely that's got to be some sort of record !! Amazing.....

Heather said...

Poor little car - commiserations. Many years ago we bought our first brand new car. It was not at all user friendly so we got rid of it and chose a second hand one which behaved impeccably and kept us going for years. You can get quite fond of a trustworthy car.
Wonderful holiday photos - gorgeous colours.

Virginia said...

Oh BOTHERATION!!

In NZ we can take people to the Small Claims tribunal where daddy's darling would have had to pay all your expenses - including your excess ... of course daddy would have paid that for her too. Does Oz have something similar?

I hope your replacement will last as well.

Peter Longshanks Whitehead and Cate Shortshanks Whitehead said...

Geez, Dale, I've just read about your little green car AND the burglary. My Pete says if you want some peaceful time away somewhere else, our little house in country Victoria will be vacant from mid-August until January 2014. It's as small as your little green car, and we do barrack for Storm! Thinking of you, especially when I'm in Ballarat in my tiny room, having my daily radiotherapy. Cheers from us both.

Jim O'Neal said...

This is certainly a great tribute to your green car. My old clunker was parked in the driveway minding its own business. A neighbor backed up in our driveway and demolished my twenty year old Volkswagen with their pickup truck. I almost cried when they towed it away. I certainly understand your pain at the loss of a great car.

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