fear is the key.....

It's odd being a parent. One minute you are staying up all night with a braying baby and the next you are going broke trying to pay for driving lessons.

Of course I remember my first car, I think everyone does. Mine was a Morris Minor 1000, a lovely little 4 door car that lasted me over 3 years and took me on countless voyages of discovery and adventures. Simple, cheap on parts and it succesfully defied my every attempt to tune it.

It was, brakes aside, pretty bomb proof too. The handling was very well matched to the power available even if the brakes were, even by the standards of the period, not brilliant.

Of course things teleport onwards and for my kids I have the equivalent ideal first car.

A 1.0L petrol Citroen AX. Cheap to buy, easy to drive, holds the road like a limpet but, hmm, the brakes are not anything to write poems about - just like a moggy thou!!

But the engine revs like a mad thing will do 80 MPH and more importantly 50 MPG.

Seats 2 adults in the front and 3 small children in the back.

Of course that is not to reach the main point, once you have bought the thing then you have to get used to sitting in the passenger seat.

"Of course she is OK to go out in it" said Branwens driving instructor.

So I did.


You know, there is something in this genetics thing after all.

Her twin, Taliesin is like his father: cool, calm, collected, fast but smooth, I can sit in a car with him - no probs.

Branwen, ahh well, she is her mothers daughter, arrived at the first bend carrying way too much speed, realised she had her boots on so she could not quite get the brakes, realised it was too late to slow down so applied exactly the right ammount of throttle to hold the car steady through the bend right on it's limits. We saild through with the AX adopting simply silly amounts of roll. Truly, a lovely piece of driving.

Me, I found God, all these years he has been hiding in the footwell of that AX, I bumped into him when I took cover. Can't say I blame him, seemed a good place to be to me.