spring cleaning

   

I spent this morning cleaning and polishing my new car. I say new, actually I have had it for six weeks but this is the first time I have given it serious attention. Odd behaviour from one who normally scrubs and wipes until all around him is antiseptically clean and gleaming like a mirror.

There is a good reason for this lax attitude. The weather. I drove my new, one-year-old Hyundai Elantra home from the dealership in snow flurries and have since swept off snow and scraped off ice every day until quite recently. This morning dawned sunny and bright so I drove through the car wash (an outrageous extravagance I know but apartment living doesn't easily lend itself to car washing).

I then polished every square centimetre, including under the bonnet and around all door reveals and hinges. All interior glass received Windex treatment and every plastic nook and cranny of the dashboard, cockpit cleaner. I vacuumed the carpets and took the floor mats into the laundry room for scrubbing. In the noon sunshine it looked pretty good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Dell XPS16 has been showing signs of age. It's four years old and still nicely spec'd but definitely suffering from too many files and programmes and not enough hard drive. I keep deleting my old restore points to create space.

I started looking around for a replacement some months ago and by the time I was ready to make a decision, Windows 8 was behind almost all new systems. Research had revealed that this was more akin to a mobile phone set-up with 'apps' being the order of the day. As a staunch traditionalist I still remember Windows 3, and having suffered the vicissitudes of Millennium, XP and Vista, I wanted to hang onto some familiarity. Every day my choices grew less as Microsoft phased out Windows 7.

I ended up switching from Dell to Asus and bought a nineteen inch hi-definition laptop with Blu-ray, Bluetooth and a backpack! It has 12GB of RAM and 1.5TB hard drive. Oh and yes, Windows 7. The last batch before it was phased out.

I'm pleased with it. The generous RAM means I can have several complex applications open simultaneously. It took a few days to install the software I use, load all 15,000 photos, 25,000 mp3 files, my Genealogy files and images, and a slew of Word and Excel documents. There have been a couple of minor issues which I was able to resolve. In particular, video 'tearing' was very evident during fast action but I tracked that down to using the conventional Windows desktop instead of one of the preferred 'Aero' themes. Using 'Aero' brings additional resources from the NVidia graphics card into play, such that video is now rendered smoothly.

So, the Dell has been relegated to the role of browser (and occasional kids' plaything!) The Asus is now the system of choice for writing, genealogy, photo and music.

in my parking bay

2005 Kia Spectra

2 litre

4 cylinder

Not much more you can say about a grey car is there?

(...yep, it's full of Eastern promise - especially as it was made in Korea).

Cars and bikes

Ford Sierra Sapphire 1.8 GLS - probably my favourite.
And here on Through the Lens are the other vehicles I have driven, raced and polished over the years.

The driver

Mostly I drive my car like a considerate road user and law-abiding citizen. I observe speed limits and follow the Highway Code. An old car like mine begs to be driven with reverence and sympathy, bearing in mind it has rolled some 90,000 miles. I was educated in the “mirror, signal, manoeuvre” school and reckon I could comfortably pass my driving test again, thirty years on. So how does all this mature motoring proficiency benefit me? Well, when the occasion demands, I know how to drive like a maniac!

The problem with cruising sedately and courteously is that it represses our natural instinct to race. That eight year-old Ford usually behaves like an armchair on wheels. You have to wind the motor above 4,000 rpm for it to become an altogether different proposition. From time to time this reckless behaviour bursts through and reasserts itself, transforming the faithful family saloon into a tarmac-burner. So often music is the trigger to this exuberance on an empty and inviting country road. “I been drivin’ all night man, sweat on the wheel…”

… floor the gas pedal and drop the clutch. Rubber screeches for grip on tarmac as old steel is pushed hard through the gears. In fifth at eighty all four wheels leave the road over a crest, hitting ground again just as I stand on the brakes for a sharp right. Throw it into third and scream out of the turn drifting left. Eyes scanning the open horizon, I see the empty roundabout ahead. Hold the needle on sixty and straight-line the junction, hands crossing on the wheel, tyres kissing the curbs left right and left before hurtling on.

A flat-out downhill stretch puts one twenty on the clock. Golden Earring thunders from the stereo, “…we gotta thing, that’s called radar love.” Unblinking I watch a tightening left approach fast and drop through fourth and third, shedding speed and listening as the engine note rises and the exhaust spits. Heavy braking now for a blind crossroads, then hard acceleration in second, gripping the wheel over familiar bumps in the road. Flicking left and right through back streets and slowing all the time as civilisation approaches with its speed cameras and pedestrians.

The old Ford noses gently into my driveway and glides to a halt. The softly purring motor belies its age. Now I think I fancy a lay down.