Overcoming all obstacles

Are you sitting comfortably? I'm not. I'm sat, cross-legged, in a car park, in Harbour Road industrial estate in Inverness (it's a long story. One that I'm about to tell). Actually, it's not that uncomfortable, so I shall begin my epic tale of lust and one man's fight to overcome all obstacles.

My Fiesta is starting to get on a bit now. It's not much over a year old, but I have been racking up the miles. I have been leasing my last two cars and, perhaps understandably, the lease company aren't too happy with my mileage. So, it was beginning to look like the sensible thing was to buy a tuition car.
What car to get? I like my Fiesta. I liked my Clio. I liked my wee Fiat 500. I would be happy to get any of those. Maybe it's a defect in my personality, but, somehow, I knew they wouldn't quite suffice. Just as, no matter how much I love most of the music I have collected over the years, I always want something new.

There are some cars which are just achingly beautiful: The 1950s Mercedes Gullwing

, the Jaguar E-type

, the Alfa Romeo 8C

, AC Cobra (see below) and Ferrari Dino

immediately spring to mind. Alfa Romeo are also bringing out the 4C, which is possibly even more beautiful than its big brother

. All of these are more than slightly out of my league. And not really cars that I would be happy to let a learner driver loose in.

The world's your oyster, as Frankie (goes to Hollywood) once said (although I'm pretty sure they didn't coin the phrase). If I was to buy my own car I could choose anything I liked (although DSA regulations rule out a convertible and various other vehicles). My wife just traded her monster Navara pick-up for a wee Fiat Panda, which I think is fantastic - so easy to drive and park. It really would make a very good tuition car. And I also hear really good things about the VW Up and the similar Seat and Skoda versions. But.... I don't know. I guess I want something slightly bigger because, effectively, my car is my office. I want something I will be very comfortable in for ten hours or more. This still left me with a lot of choice, so I started looking.

Jordan admiring an AC Cobra

A couple of weeks ago I took my grandson, Jordan, to a classic car show in Forres. It was a beautiful morning and we had a great time looking at some amazing cars.

A beautiful Bugatti

What really struck me was how much character these older cars had. Some of the interiors looked really uncomfortable, some looked really naff, but some just oozed class and individuality - I particularly liked one Lotus which had a button labelled "cigar"..... Not a common cigarette lighter, a cigar lighter. Perhaps it was not a good idea to look at such cars when I was looking for a tuition car - it's a bit like the theory that it's not a good idea to go shopping in a supermarket when you're hungry - because it made me yearn for something different (no, I didn't decide I wanted a Lotus with a cigar lighter).
After quite a bit of research and searching I found a car advertised which seemed perfect. Just one problem.... It was in a garage in a village near Dunfermline -  Over 150 miles away. There was nothing else locally that compared, so I drove down to the garage for a test drive. Luckily, the car was everything I was looking for and more. They accepted my offer and the car was mine..... I just had to try and work out a way of getting it home.
So last Friday I had it all planned. Train ticket from Forres to Dunfermline (changing at Inverness) was bought, then I would have to get a bus or taxi to the garage. Simple. Or, at least, it should have been.
With hindsight I obviously should not have agreed to a lesson that would leave me just enough time to catch the train. A chatty pupil meant that I missed the train. No problem; I could drive to Inverness and make the connection there. I had fifty minutes to make a journey that should take forty. A tractor was holding up the traffic. Don't panic. The tractor finally pulled over. With Inverness in sight I could see the traffic ahead slowing to a halt. Roadworks. No, no, no! If I didn't catch the train there wasn't another one that would get me to the garage before they closed. After what seemed an age, the lights changed to green. I got to the car park with five minutes to go. I just had a couple of minutes walk, through the shopping centre, to the station. As I approached the shopping centre exit a smiling lady stood in my way. "Hello! How are you?", she asked. It was a former pupil, who passed her test last year. I hurried my reply, asked how she was getting on and hastily condensed a conversation I would have loved to have had into 30 seconds. Then I ran to the station and just made the train.
Well, it is disappointing to tell you, at least as far as the theme of the day is concerned, that the train journey went without a hitch. Not even the smallest delay. I just had to either get a taxi, or make the ten minute walk to the bus station and catch a bus. I made the wrong choice.
Catching a bus. That's a fairly simple thing to do, right? The garage closed at 6.00pm. According to the timetable, the bus would get me to the garage at about 5.20pm. I could relax. I didn't know this part of Fife, so I kept an eye out for my stop, having made a mental note of the villages that preceded it. Just as I could see the garage a couple of hundred metres ahead, the bus turned right. I assumed that the bus would do a loop and come back this way. Ten minutes later, we seemed to be heading further and further away, and the last remaining passenger was getting off the bus. I was beginning to feel that something was not quite right. I asked the bus driver if I had missed my stop. "Yes, it was about ten minutes ago." No need to panic, I thought. My best option would be to get off the bus, call the garage and ask if they could collect me. Luckily, I got my phone out before I got off the bus.... The battery had run out!
All I could do now would be to get off the bus then hope that there would be another bus in the next five minutes that was going back the other way. My final salvation came when the bus driver said that this bus would be going back nearby, then I would have a ten minute walk to the garage.
Finally, after over six hours, a stressful car drive, a walk, two trains, another walk, a stressful bus ride, then a final walk, I arrived at the garage about ten minutes before they closed. They could have given me any old car at that point, I was just relieved to be back in a car and in control.
So, I had my car. I also had dual-controls, but not in the car. So the latter part of today was set aside to get the controls fitted, and also to have my logo put on the car. I dropped the car off at the garage and wondered how I was going to kill three hours in Inverness. After nearly two hours the garage called...
"We seem to have a bit of a problem......"
Don't you just hate it when someone starts a conversation like that.
"...... The dual-controls don't seem to fit."
My heart sank. "But I ordered the controls specifically for that very model." I now had visions of having to send the dual-controls back to He-Man (the manufacturer), then having to wait maybe a week before I could finally start instructing in my car.
"We have been in touch with He-Man and they don't understand it. We at waiting for them to get back to us, but it may be that it is not possible."
This was serious. I couldn't contemplate using the car for instruction without dual-controls. I even began considering the awful prospect of having to sell the car, after just four days, and going through the whole process of finding another tuition car. So I walked back through Inverness to the garage, probably looking like the most miserable man that ever lived.
It was, therefore, a very slight glimmer of hope when I got back to the garage to see two men with their heads buried deep within my car.
"Any news?" I asked, hopefully, but fearing the worst.
"Yes. We think we've cracked it," was the beautiful reply.
It turned out the previous owner had a Bose sound system installed, and the rather substantial amplifier had been fixed exactly where the dual-controls were supposed to go.
Would I have to make the ultimate decision? Sound system or dual-controls? I bit my lip and hesitantly said "If it's a choice, the amplifier will have to come out."
And so I sat, cross-legged in the garage car park, like an anxious father waiting outside an operating theatre at an hospital.
The surgeon, I mean mechanic, finally came out. I tried to read his expression.....
"It's good news.... You now have dual-controls."
Ah, the relief! I couldn't contemplate what chaos it would have caused if fitting them had not been possible. It got better though...
"And we have managed to relocate the amplifier too."
Music to my ears. Literally.

All that remained was to get my logo on the car, and Macsigns, in Harbour Road, Inverness, made a wonderful job with that. So, finally, I could now begin lessons in my new dual-control, liveried and wired for sound Alfa Romeo Mito Multiair.

It was a long, and very arduous journey, but, boy, it was worth it in the end.