I Have NCT Fear

I have NCT Fear.  Good and hearty.  Read on.

Mister Husband and I used to share a car back in the BC TM  (Before Childer) days.  When I say “share” it was really his car.  For work you see.

I used to drive it on weekends, Miss Daisy style, down country roads where I was never in danger of meeting anything more threatening than a rabbit or a cow.

This car we shared was a green Citroen Xantia.  And it was deadly.  Absolutely deadly.  A textbook baby of a car.  It never gave us an ounce of trouble; in the ten years we had it, it behaved impeccably.

Then Old Age hit.   Do you remember those two back to back winters where everything in Ireland came to a standstill because of the snow?

Yeah, so did the car.

The first thing to go was the heating. I can still hear a small child screaming with the cold so I filled hot water bottles for him to sit on.  I couldn’t feel the steering wheel my hands were so numb. 

My knowledge of cars extends to the colour of them and how many doors they have so when the radiator went, this was a big deal by all accounts.  I was collecting Oldest Boy from crèche one freezing cold winter day and almost gave birth in fright when I saw smoke coming up through the floor on the passenger side.

Turned out it was water from the burst radiator.  I managed to drive a few miles before the radio died.  The car did a splutter, then it jerked and stopped.  I had no choice other than steer it into the hedge where it stayed until my rescuers came and towed it away.

This was a big, freakin’, shitty, we-can-do-without-this situation.  Two kids and another on the way and our car went to the car park in the sky.

We emptied what was left in the boys’ credit union accounts, I found another few bob hidden in various handbags around the house and we sourced our new car. 

A pre-loved seven seater Ford Galaxy.  Green, coincidentally.

It is now 14 years old and rattles so much I want to get out and push it over pedestrian crossings, ramps and the like such is my fear that something will fall off and break the car behind us.

It goes into a “slow mode” type crawl when we reach the main road and I have to hug the hard shoulder as everything under 10 years old zooms past us.

The NCT is next week. 

I am shitting it.  I am fully prepared for a large sticker with the words “DEATH TRAP - DRIVE AT YOUR PERIL” to be slapped on the windscreen.  That is if they let me drive it out of the centre after it fails.

There is no question it will fail.  It has never passed an NCT.  Never. 

And this time I already know there are repairs/parts to the value of about two grand needed so we haven’t a hope in hell of passing. 

Basically we need a new car. 

Did I say I’m shitting it?  Well, I am.