West Country

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Tuesday – Key To A Good Christmas

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After embarrassing central locking moment, today we had embarrassing key moment. Last minute Christmas shopping isn’t for the feint hearted – and so it was that we found ourselves on the top floor of a multi-storey car park in central Bristol, in driving rain, loaded down with presents and minus the V40 key. All to the soundtrack of the Salvation Army brass band.

In the mayhem of Christmas, this is just about your worst car-related nightmare. With half the West Country under water, trying got get this one fixed was going to be interesting. I had given the key to Jessica on arrival and she promptly, erm,  misplaced it.

Volco Assistance must have been giggling in their mulled wine when I explained what had happened. The first idea was to recover the car to a dealership, who would wave the magic wand and open the doors. But then it was decided there wasn’t enough headroom to get a recovery lorry into the car park and perhaps a hire car would be a better option?

That would mean driving to Marlow to collect the spare key from the Volvo press office, returning to Bristol and unlocking the car. In this situation, being British it is always best to sit down and have a cup of tea.

As Jessica rummaged for her wallet, she spotted a small hole in the the lining of her handbag. Small but just big enough for a car key. And being British, we didn’t panic once, honest…

 

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Saturday – White Riot

cropped-alfa1.jpgThe White Lion at Aldeburgh is right on the beach. It’s painted white, the same as our Giulietta and, just like the Alfa, is rather well equipped inside.

I spent breakfast this morning staring out of the dining room window at the sea. Or to be honest, rather longingly at the Giulietta which had just whisked me here from the West Country.

The 150-mile journey is one of my least favourite – tortuous might be a better description. What the Alfa did last night more than any other car was take me back to my teenage years, when my 1971 Alfa GT Junior was the vehicle parked outside the family home.

The Giulietta is a throughly modern Alfa Romeo but there’s still more than a trace of ‘old school’ Alfa DNA about it. The ribbed leather seats, the speedometer dials labelled in Italian and the timeless Alfa grille, to name but a few.

The 1.4-litre TB engine is a revelation too – how did they squeeze so much performance out of such a modest unit? No wonder it was New Engine of the Year in 2012.

I’ve never liked white cars but like the drive to the White Lion last night, because of the Giulietta, I’m warming to them all the time.