The Handbag

I sometimes forget that I've been blogging since 2007 but that many of my readers have not followed the Blog for anything like that amount of time.  So some of the historic posts will have been forgotten by some (including me!) and never seen by others.  Adrian asked if it was my car in the penultimate post.

Before I went to New Zealand in 2006 I decided that I had to have a car.  For years I (like many men as they grow older) had hankered after a rag-top. I'd had one as a youngster but this was my second chance. I decided on a Mazda MX5: fun, seriously good to drive, superb quality and not too expensive to run. As luck would have it I managed to find exactly what I wanted before I went out. It was in Auckland - a 'new' car. In New Zealand many cars are considered 'new' if they come in from Japan when they are 5 years old. Japan's motoring laws make it very expensive to keep a car after it's fifth birthday. The Company delivered it to Napier for me.

Wendy was to pick me up from the Airport. I was foolish enough to mention that I had two cases and that the MX5 wouldn't be big enough. Wendy's response was that the MX5 wasn't big enough to hold her handbag. From that moment forth the car has been known as The Handbag. Napier's climate is such that it is the ideal car for one person most of the time. When I am transporting the children I swap The Handbag for one of the Geddes people carriers. It goes without saying that a young blond looks a darn site better driving an MX5 than an old baldie. But wotthehellarchiewotthehell.

In actual fact the MX% is also an antidote to the staid long-distance touring car I drive in the UK which is affectionately known as The Nighthawk because it is Nighthawk Black or by one neighbour as The Hearse because it has black security glass in the rear windows.