Round the Clock

Walking today:  3.9km

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Although I sometimes forget something I heard last week (had to text Adam on Sunday mid-conversation with the hockey team as I'd forgotten the name of the Bournemouth manager ....) I do know the registration numbers of every car I've ever owned. And their names when I used to give them names - I wonder if modern cars still get named now.

So:

Jessica the grey mini was GJT986E

Katy the blue mini was KAA388L

Sally the black Fiesta was SLL371R

A blue Orion C383PPK

and so on.

In the days when cars had mechanical milometers with five numbers they went round the clock and reset to 00000, nowadays it's an electronic display with 6 numbers (so presumably going round the clock now means doing a million miles). Sally was the only car I'd ever got past 100,000 miles - unless one of the others had been clocked which was entirely possible - and she struggled on to 125,000 miles before suffering multiple critical failures on the A5.

About the only similarity between Jessica and our current steed, a black Honda CR-V, is the wheel at each corner. Jessica passed away having gallantly struggled round Southampton for five months with a failed big end and terminal rust. I sold her to Tommy's scrap yard on Northam Bridge for £12 (would have been £15 but I'd sold the battery to a fellow student for £5). She had 74,000 miles on the clock.

Today, eight years to the day after we took delivery, the CR-V passed 100,000 miles. 

It's had a hard life since moving to France, towing in over 60 tonnes of sand and gravel for the build, driving down muddy country roads, pulling the caravan and sitting outside for three years before we got some cover for it. It's suffered half a day off the road for repairs in that time replacing a brake calliper that had failed due to grit, probably picked up at the quarry.

On a good run (ie: downhill) Jessica with her 850cc engine could manage 30 miles to the gallon, the Homda weighs at least three times as much, has an engine nearly three times bigger and, over the last 5000 miles, has averaged 43 miles to the gallon.

Car technology has come a very long way in the time I've been driving, unless we have some massive problem I expect we'll keep the Honda for another eight years. I don't think I'll ever give it a name though ...