How to get around inadvertently misleading the census people by our new wreck
28 August 2006
We have a water feature in the garden - serendipity played a large part in its construction. My husband found a granite birdbath that had been hidden in the shrubbery for 25 years and we had some old bricks left over from fixing a chimney - so why not a water feature, I said?
There is a reservoir of water beneath the bricks with tastefully round stones covering the mesh on top of it. Water flows out of a pipe at one side of the birdbath, down over the lip and into the reservoir and a pump recycles the water. The birds love it. Blackbirds, male and female bathe singly, long-tailed tits go in for communal bathing, the wood pigeons stand under the falling drops of water and the magpies drink and amazingly don't chase the other birds. I spend as much time as I can watching them. Few activities can be as relaxing.
When we bought this house there was quite a large pool and a little fountain at the end of the garden but expansion of the garage decreed its demise. Cars take up a lot of space and are not restful. They cause agitation.
Heading from Fishguard for a cousin's seventieth birthday in Wiltshire we were, as is usual in that part of the world on Friday afternoon, stationary on a bridge over the River Avon. A planned deviation by way of Bridgewater was to take place, I thought to see someone on "business". Looking at the traffic jam in front of us I anxiously enquired if the "business" would still be open. I was told I was becoming even more forgetful than he had thought in the past - we were going to see a car he had acquired, didn't I remember? He had gone down to London some months ago to Bury St Edmonds and bought a car there.
"Didn't I remember? I did not. I knew nothing about him going to Bury St Edmonds or any other religious-sounding place and not on a pilgrimage either.
There was little conversation until we reached Bridgewater where we found the garage easily. Such was his admiration for a wreck half-submerged under a heap of briar that it was quite an anticlimax to discover our wreck had four wheels and all windows intact and vegetation festooned all over it. All around its eyes was rotting and of the interior, enough said. Still, it had not been converted into a hen-house before we acquired it. I kid you not, this had happened in the past.
The goodies to improve the wreck's chances of ever moving were produced from the boot of our car. I got out of our car to give a closer inspection. I couldn't work out the name on the rear end apart from the fact that it was something "Super". Super! I ask you? Talk about hyperbole.
Having circled the remains a few times (the colour of which was a cross between beige and grey) I got back into our car feeling glum. Worse than glum; I realised I had misled those who compile the census figures. Inadvertently misled, admittedly, but I had told them we had eight cars when in fact we had nine. Did the Fiat 500 in bits on the garage floor really count? Perhaps I could redeem my mistake if I took one out of the landscape. I could quite easily take it to the "Bring" centre myself and then all would be well on the official front, at least.
He got back into the car. After a few silent miles I asked "Why did you buy it" (there is always a history. The huge Tatra was bought because the then Mayor of Prague arrived at the Standard Triumph plant in Coventry when he was working there and everyone stood around in wonder.)
The car was or would be an Octavia Super. A 44-year-old Skoda. He had owned one 42 years before. It had sat down on its original owner aged 1½ years old (that is the car aged 1½ years, not the owner) in Burlington Road. The owner could not get it to go, so our hero bought it for £40 - I would have thought he was robbed. I was wrong. You see, he knew the engine had seized (I don't know anything about seized engines but they seem to get this problem all too easily) and he knew it was because the oil had never been changed. So, out to Blackrock to a friend with a pit (thank heaven he as a pit of his own now), a change of oil and off the little beauty went.
It is not a dream but a total mirage that the yoke in Bridgewater will ever be like that car of yore. The man in the garage did ask what he proposed to do with said vehicle and the reply was "drive it around a bit, I suppose". As I write it is still possible to drive only one car at a time and they have first to be got going, if you understand what I mean.
I'm glad I have the birdbath, nearly as glad as the birds are. There is a robin who thinks he is in charge of bathing and hops six inches into the air with annoyance if any great tits or blue tits keep him waiting too long. It is amazing how soothing watching their antics is.
The old car show in Terenure College in aid of the Hospice Movement is over for this year. Next year there is a plan to have a stand for Eastern European cars - we may be able to stock it all on our own.
Senator Mary Henry, MD
