Saying Goodbye to the Family Car!

If you follow us on our Twitter @lesbemums or our Instagram @lesbemums you’ll see that over the past few months we’ve had quite a few issues with our car. From the windscreen wipers (both front and back) giving up the ghost due to various connection failures or just because they fancied it to issues with coils and spark plugs (don’t you dare ask me to go into detail – I haven’t got a clue).

Basically, over the past few months (I’m going to go with three), she’s cost us in the region of over £700! £700 that we don’t have just lying around (thank the Gods for credit cards).

The last time she broke down was when we were on holiday of all occasions. Out of nowhere, my EPC light came on and the majority of my throttle was lost. Thankfully, we were only a few meters from Farmer Palmers, which meant I got her into the car park where it was safe and work out what the hell we do. After a phonemail to Sharon’s family and a trip to a recommended garage, everything was checked over and unsurprisingly, she was fine with nothing reporting back as a fault. Whoo-hoo for our wallet, but my anxiety levels hit a new peak.

I just didn’t feel happy driving her any more. She wasn’t a pleasure. AND WE STILL HAD TO GET HOME THE NEXT DAY! Cue a very anxious drive home where no one spoke and my heart was pretty much in my throat the whole way home.

A new car

Fast forward one week and Sharon cautiously approaches me and suggests that we think about getting a new car. The reason she’s so cautious is that this is depending on my finances and whether I’m ready to let the old bag go (the car, not Sharon).

You would think that after all we’d been through I would have been ready to throw her on the scrap heap, but this car has literally been with us everywhere and I was quite attached to her. From our holidays as a couple to holidays as a family. Hospital appointments and nursery tours. It’s stored our muddy wellies and our wet dog. I’ve fed T in the back when it was raining or when I wasn’t up for a staring match with Doris who didn’t like the fact my boob was out whilst she ate her lunch. We’ve had many a bag of chips in there and I’ve had the occasional (several) coffees in the car whilst T has slept after swimming.

EMBED: https://www.instagram.com/p/BMornIkjpkz/

She was a BIG part of our family!

But Sharon was right, we needed to do something. At that moment she was over 10 years old and was probably coming to the end of her life. Things, vital things, were starting to breakdown and unless we had an endless pit of gold, a tab at the local garage, or Sharon’s scooter suddenly sprouted rocket engines, there was no way we could afford to keep her going for the sake of sentimental value.

Now, I know this sounds ridiculous. It’s a car at the end of the day, but she was our first ‘grown-up’ car after my first car (a gorgeous Peugeot 106 – rock and roll!) and she was a bloody decent car. I mean, what car who is over 10 years old gets to 133,550 miles before starting to really fail? I don’t know many.

So we started planning ahead, looking for suitable replacements, and prepared to say Goodbye.

EMBED: https://www.instagram.com/p/BKuqz1HD0Gy/

Within a few days we found a car and I was giving it a test drive, and less than 24 hours later Sharon then gave it the once over before making a deal with the salesman (he really didn’t have a choice – she is ruthless!) and finally purchasing it that day to pick up two days later. It was done.

EMBED: https://twitter.com/Lesbemums/status/989505976003911680

Although I’m over the moon with the new car I still feel a little bit of guilt that I’m giving up on our car, but enough was enough. She’d let us down too many times in a short space of time. We had to say goodbye – for the sake of our wallets. And so I did. On the day I went to pick the new car up I said ‘Thank you’ and ‘Goodbye’ and ended that chapter and started a new one.

Although I’m sad about losing one friend, I can’t wait to find out where this one will take us.