Have wheels, will travel

We dug the Grit Mobile out of storage at the end of the back garden, drove it down the local garage and it passed its MOT.

You could have knocked me over with a molecule of air.

The tender loving care I have showered upon this vehicle in the last three years (nil) has obviously paid off. As has the love I bestowed upon it last August when I abandoned it down the bottom of the garden to fend for itself. It has done mighty well and I am proud. It simply dug in for the winter and shrouded itself in a mound of soil, dead leaves, bashed up coke cans and chip wrappers.

Truly, between the certificate of SORN and the neglected rusty brakes, I was not expecting it to pass. In fact, I was totally expecting a long list of failures, and a less honest garage than Honest Ted's could have made a killing from me. They simply could have clocked the expression of sad resignation on my face when I handed over the key at 9.00am, then handed me back a long list including replacement of cam-drive cylinder core-charger motor wheel-spike cable or some other essential item, which they claimed could be accessed only by trained mechanics wielding precision-controlled pneumatic spanners.

As it was, the man at the garage merely looked a little unwell, handed me back the key to road freedom, and wiped his hands down his overalls. Then he said 'That car's a health hazard'.

The working functionality of the car is not what he meant, Dig pointed out later. Apparently he is referring to the pile of last summer's cheese sandwiches rotting in the passenger footwell, the layer of mud, leaves, sticks, clumps of dried grass, the green chocolate raisins pebbledashed to the interior, the detritus, shavings and peelings of kid craft spilling out of every plastic hollow, and the collection of yellowing moulds and mildews which cover all seats and steering wheel with a comfortably soft furriness.

But that is no matter. Look out there upon the road network of England! The Grit Mobile is declared worthy of it!