The Evil of the Motor Car

It's not that I can't drive.  But I've never been comfortable with driving. To drive seems lazy when God has given me two perfectly good feet. Why, just because it's pouring with rain and it's five miles to the superstore, would I give myself up to the comfort and idleness of leather seats and air-conditioning?

So today was an unusual day in the Parslow household as two cars appeared, for different reasons.

First was the hire car of my friend the Reverend Robert, just off the plane. For a man who should have been suffering from jet-lag he was incredibly ebullient. Ran around the garden telling me that his garden back in the states is bigger than Leicestershire, shared a joke with Mrs Collins next door - something about her cat, which sits around my redcurrant bushes and leeks. I didn't get it.
He sketched out his plans for the week's activities, based on our outline programme.  And he told me his sermon for tomorrow will be about an hour and a half.  Which was a relief, because when he preached in the old days he used to go on a bit.
I had offered to put Bob up at the manse, but he told me that he thought it might be a little smaller than he's used to. So he's booked a suite at Melton Mowbray's top hotel. Melton Mowbray!  I shudder when I hear the name. I just hope the inhabitants are too busy with their normal pursuit of eating pork pies and Stilton cheese to break off and mug him.
Then he gave my hand a bone-crushing shake, and he'd gone.  Off to find what he called a "Great English Breakfast." I hope he didn't try Melton Mowbray.  They'd just give him a slice of pork pie.

And just after Bob disappeared, Marjorie turned up in her new convertible. She tells me the rent we're earning from the other house is sufficient to cover the repayments, so it's not strictly speaking an unnecessary luxury.  And she took me for a spin with the soft-top down.

We took in all the local landmarks - the Stilton cheese farm, Ratcliffe power station and the Wanlip sewage works. For a while, it was a lovely reminder of the early days, when we would go on site-seeing tours of the Black Country.  But I had to bring such idle fripperies to an end while I got back in the garden.
I've put a set of pallets together to form a compost heap, and I spent a blessed and hard-working few hours loading all the organic matter from my last couple of week's efforts in.  And then I went into the garage to get the lawn mower.

Now, I don't blame Marjorie. She probably didn't think of it. Or maybe she was going to warn me. But in any event, she'd hung the hard-top of the convertible in the garage for the summer. Just inside the door.  At about five feet 10 inches in height. A significant measurement, as that meant it was just above my eye-line, but level with the top of my head.

Needless to say I smacked my head into the car roof, and fell, momentarily dazed, back onto the drive.
And equally needless to say, as I lay there semi-conscious, Maud and Elsie wandered past on their way to the shops.
"At it again," remarked Maud.
"Yes" responded Elsie, "he can count his lucky stars he's saved".