The Voyage into 4th Gear.

It has been, shall we say, something of a journey already. I’m not talking about the jazz-hands, don’t-stop-believing kind of journey either. I’m talking about the long hard this-will-get-funny-soon-it’s-so-ridiculous kind.
Allow your mind to drift back to Sunday. It was cold and wet, much like the rest of January so far, and we were on our way to Romford to meet our new business for the first time.

Monies changed hands, pieces of paper moved in various directions, keys were explained, as were buttons, methods to kicking at the right angle and long wheel base driving. The thing that struck me was that long wheel base driving looked much, much longer than it had on the pictures. No matter, I just felt extra glad that i couldn’t get insurance.
Barny took the helm, my dad and brother, who had braved the early start to come and kick tyres and make disapproving noises on our behalf (neither myself nor Barny know much about cars), took the 4×4 and we narrowly missed a tree on the way to the main road. The main road itself was an abundance of traffic. The van didn’t mind. It was not going to hurry. We did our best to swear at it; universally accepted time-honoured way to make any car go faster, but 30 miles an hour was apparently quite enough. This would effectively rule out motorway travel, which meant arriving back in Leamington some time tomorrow.
Spirits dampened we considered things, flooring the dear van at the same time. A brief stint of downhill, and 40 miles were achieved!
Considerations abandoned we gunned slowly for the motorway, engine screaming and mildly embarrassed 4×4 pottering along ahead of us. The slip road was steep, we crawled up it, fairly sure that 20 miles an hour was too slow for 3 lanes of traffic. Then gravity came to our rescue. We caught up with my dads 4×4, waved and gesticulated frantically (poss. some swearing – unconfirmed) and they got the message and sped up. 56 miles per hour, finally we salute you.

The van, which now effectively blocks our entire living room window, sits just behind me, doing its best to intimidate the lesser motors in the driveway outside. It made it all the way back, and you know, I’m still strangely glad we bought it.