Well, it has happened at last. The Prelude is being retired after 8 years of trekking all round Europe and we have bought a 2.5-year-old automatic diesel Accord from the local Honda dealer. I'm not at all sure about this, being a diesel hater, but it seems to go ok and this is France, so if I don't get on with it, it will sell on.
Anyway, today - feeling sad - I emptied the contents of the Prelude's boot and glove boxes before deciding whether to sell it, give it to my son or put it in the garden as the French do because I am so fond of the old thing.
This is what was in it:
Two shopping bags, one hessian from Bahrain airport, one plastic from the Belle Illoise lemon soap shop, Menton; a boot-liner/carrying bag; Lidl windcheater; toolkit; genuine Honda Accident Assistance pack complete with camera and film; secateurs; bottle of still mineral water; Zeiss 8x30 binoculars I bought years ago so I could see both ends of the pitch at once from the public bar at ‘cowshot corner’, the County Ground, Taunton; electrician’s screwdriver/circuit tester; Honda document folder with all handbooks, full service history, etc; large umbrella; small umbrella; warning triangle; replacement bulb and fuse kit; 2x bungee straps; spare prescription spectacles for me; 3-way 12v adaptor; my Fedora; J’s tweed trilby; Readers’ Digest France Book of the Road/large scale maps; Blue Guide to France; Book with history of names of towns and villages in Haute-Vienne; Lidl fizzy water; stringback gloves; parking zone time card for all France; my prescription sunglasses; tape measure; 2 sweeties nicked from hotels; toothpicks; sticky velcro pads; felt pen; bite/sting ointment; J’s prescription driving glasses; 2x ordinary sunglasses; cotton buds; paracetemol tablets; sticking plasters; biro; 3m tape measure; wallet; ipod charger; Samsung phone charger; seatbelt tensioner clip (kept from Volvo 940 ten years ago); 2x pens; folding shopping bag; Maps: Michelin France, Limousin, Haute-Vienne, local Oradour-sur-Glane, Limoges streets, Charente chateaux, Auvergne/Languedoc, Midi/Aquitaine; official breath tester; tissues; French/English dictionary; hand cream; lip salve; stereo instructions; 2x pens; sellotape; Hotel guides: Ibis, Kyriad, Citotel, Etap, Inter, Accor Europe, Contact, Logis de France and Marmotte.
And nobody could ever describe our car as untidy-there was no litter whatsoever.
I wonder if anyone can beat that lot?
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I recently had to empty the contents of my glove box into a carrier bag and put it in the boot - the hinges broke under the strain.
All essential stuff of course!
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A few years ago I stayed for a few days in accommodation at Liverpool university. The room was comfortable but not very well cleaned. I had reason to take out the bottom drawer under the desk and this is what I found:
14 carrier bags from around the world
Advert from a travel company
Tupperware lid
Stethoscope registration card
2 opened packets of sanitary towels
2nd year course guidelines booklet
Large quantity of hand-written lecture notes
2 Bras – black, 40 double D
Plastic necklace and crucifix
Letter from “Mummy” dated 12 January reminding the student to write her Christmas thank-you letters
Magazine from Nigeria called The Catholic Ambassador
And an un-cashed refund cheque from Lunn-Poly for £44.50
Nothing with a date on it was less than 4½ years old
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Plastic necklace and crucifix - a rosary then.
Alarming that you have such clear memory of what you found under the desk...
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<< Alarming that you have such clear memory of what you found under the desk..>>
If I was relying on my memory I would probably have mentioned only the bras and the cheque. I was part of a coach party and made a list so I could read it out on the way home. Some people thought I was joking. The University staff didn't show as much suprise as I expected when I handed the (large) bag in. As it was July I was initially concerned for the student that had left her notes behind, but when I realised the age of the stuff it just became a laugh.
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>> 2 Bras – black, 40 double D
I'd like to have met her
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I'm surprised you didn't find what's usually hidden under that bottom drawer.
I used to attend residential courses for predominantly men and that's the first place we looked!
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Oh, I forgot - the Michelin Red Guide was hiding under the Road Book.
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I have to take my hat off to an ex-colleague. He lived on Merseyside and commuted down, spending the week working in London.
One Tuesday he arrived in the office swearing as he'd lost his wallet. He was going to have to cancel everything and all the replacements would be sent to his home address, he wasn't planning on going back that weekend and was thus a bit stuffed. I did ask if he'd checked his car, as I knew it was a bit of a repository for crud and he said he'd searched it thoroughly.
Roll on 3 months.
We were going wargaming for the weekend and I tipped up at his rented flat in London. We went out to his car, I opened the passenger door and there, sat on the sill, was a leather wallet. I picked it up (having temporarily forgotten the earlier incident) and handed it to him, saying "Is this yours?".
He looked at it for a couple of moments in puzzlement and then:
"Aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!! Where the **** did you find that?"
"Just sat in plain sight, down the side of the seat, on the sill here.". At that point the penny dropped; "So, this 'thorough search' of your car didn't extend to actually opening all the doors then?"
Cue free beer all weekend, on the condition that I never breathed a word to his wife........
Last edited by: VxFan on Tue 19 Mar 13 at 10:17
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Just a little update...
I cleared the car this morning and added to the above list: 6 Lidl plastic carrier bags (you have to provide your own when you shop in France), 1 linen folding shopping bag, 2x reflective jackets (under the front seats), 1 folder full of CDs in the pocket behind the passenger seat (we hardly ever have the wireless on).
It makes you think though. When I used the two big shopping bags to lug the lot indoors before tucking the car away I realised I was carrying around the weight of a child all the time. Although it was all there for good reasons and the car has done a reasonable 33-35 mpg all it's life it must have cost a bit to carry over the years.
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I admit I was sad enough to add up your first list and do a back of the envelope calculation, and came up with a figure of it costing you about £80 extra in total, but I didn't post it because you wouldn't care, the numbers are probably wrong and it's such a small figure.
Now of course I've posted it, and feel like the computer in Star Trek that is told by Kirk that Spock is lying when he says he never lies. Bang.
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I may not care but I am interested! Oh, and I forgot the CD still in the player btw. However, it's only Matt Munro's Greatest Hits.
I've now got the 'new' car - I'm really not sure I should put all the stuff in it but we are hitting the road north again next week...
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>> before deciding whether to sell it, give it to my son or put
>> it in the garden as the French do
>>
Why do they do that? Is it because there is some cost to scrap the vehicle that the French won't pay?
I recall that during the 90's I worked in the Netherlands for a while and you would sometimes see rural properties there that often had several old cars parked up and it was explained to me by Dutch colleagues that there was an environmental charge (I think that was how it was explained) to scrap ......and some folk refused to pay.
(The Dutch do have a reputation that is similar to Yorkshire folk where money is concerned!)
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>>The Dutch do have a reputation ...
Funny you should say that, we were at a trade show just outside of Milan a couple of weeks ago. It's a regular twice yearly trip. Might sound vaguely glamourous but be assured it absolutely isn't. The exhibition is staged at a rough equivalent of an NEC type facility on a faceless concrete industrial development outside the city.
One of our regular business customers at the show are the buyers from a dutch company who rather than pay to fly and stay in a hotel, instead drive a camper van belonging to one of them down from Holland, park it up in the lorry park at the exhibition for the 4 days and sleep and eat in it.
They are quite proud of their self sufficiency and reckon they can pack enough food and drink not to have to spend any money at all while completing their business trip.
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>> >>The Dutch do have a reputation ...
>>nstead drive a
>> camper van belonging to one of them down from Holland, park it up in the
>> lorry park at the exhibition for the 4 days and sleep and eat in it.
>>
>> They are quite proud of their self sufficiency and reckon they can pack enough food
>> and drink not to have to spend any money at all while completing their business
>> trip.
>>
The camping thing is in their DNA - they're not content unless under canvass or squashed into a Motorhome
The company I worked for had different local arrangements which reflected the local custom at each location I believe - as in we brits got a receipt for everything (hotel,meals, drinks, fuel etc) and it was all reimbursed.
The Dutch got a fixed hourly sum (IIRC 4 guilders per hour in those days) for every hour they were away from base and what they didn't spend they kept - the hotel was paid for - but the 4 gliders covered everything else and the scenario you describe was typical.
We'd all pitch up for a meeting in Germany and they would order the cheapest item on the menu and expect me to pay for ALL the drinks or else would insist on ignoring the 4* hotel restaurant and searching out a pizza joint and get a 3DM pizza and again the brit pays the bar bill!!
Good lads though!
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Ussed to be common on the Outer Hebrides to see several old cars around houses. No scrapping facility on the chain and expensive to move them to mainland.
A job lot were incorporated into a wave calming breakwater on Barra c1990.
These days I think there's a breaker in Stornoway.
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Can't imagine he's all that busy !
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>> Can't imagine he's all that busy !
>
On reflection maybe the Comhairle did something but certainly its nothing like as prevalent now.
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I don't know what it is with the French. There's no environmental charge that I know of and the scrappy will pay and even collect. You are supposed to have insurance on anything lying around, too. My neighbour has a 1980s Renault 5 Super, a Mk 1. Golf and an Opel Nova lying around. The odd thing is, they are all runners and they've all been there longer than the 11 years we have been here. Me, I'm just fond of the old thing after all it's loyal service. It's like sending your horse to the knacker..
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Retiring a working motor - bathtub tom
