The Life and Love of The Beast

The Life and the Love of the Beast

Walking into a car showroom for the first time...is like being in a Toffee shop and wanting everything off the expensive top shelf!

There before you, in glittering array is every status symbol, in every colour, in every format you could wish for...and that’s what it usually stays like...wishes :)

Getting my world back on track after an acrimonious divorce was hard. Amongst many things divorcees will be aware of...is lack of money. Well I worked hard, sorted out my children and then it was time for me. I went to a showroom and looked at cars.

The car show rooms was huge, Fords own but with other cars available too. I was definatley in the sweet shop!

I sooooooo wanted the black 4 x 4 that sat looking like a hungry monster. But that’s what it would be fuel wise so that was a no go.

I really, really; liked the fast little sports car but that was impractical and then. I saw her 'The Beast'. Not too big, lovely colour (Pepper Red I will have you know. Not just ordinary red, a Ford Focus. The salesman knew me, understood my needs and explained the practical side of the vehicle. Ford was a huge manufacturer, so repairs would be easy to get done. Economical, good responses, ‘here’ have a spin in it’…oh I did and fell in love. Just, with a tweak here or there, just, within my price range and she was mine!

I felt so proud of that car, she was everything I could ask for, easy to drive, roomy inside and she looked posh...I hadn't managed 'posh' for years so it was a really big moment for me.

I drove around feeling 'posh' then took her to my daughters to show her off and then piled her and my son into the car with the children and off we went to my Mothers...who was also...delighted. At last she would be taken out for Sunday lunch in a car that wasn't held together by elastic bands and rust.

It was 2002, February and the delight of that car filled every day as I went to work, visited people, especially Mum and generally drove my beautiful car into the ground.

Sadly, that year I lost my brother and during that period of time I had also lost my home and my sense of direction and car and me...well we went and had an adventure. We drove up the M6 and as the gauge read half full we hooked a left off junction 41 and began a two-year adventure in the Cumbrian mountains and valleys that influenced me for the next decade.

For two years I more or less lived in the car. I slept on the back seat and parked in out of the way places and me and car had some really great conversations. She was an incredibly good listener. I would moan and she would quietly hum along, sending little blasts of hot air from her heating system, blowing soothing little draughts of sympathy. I cried, wailed and moaned in that car more than once.

When my brother’s headstone hadn't been erected I spent every night parked in the layby alongside his grave, watching and bemoaning his demise. When life was too difficult I would be found driving off into the hills in Cumbria, visiting Castle Rigg, hiding in fact and she (car) loved the adventure.

She never had a name she was ‘Car’ or ‘Beast’ because when her engine roared it was a magnificent sound to me. Purring along the motorways was quiet and efficient but starting off and having to move fast she was ace. Impressive in fact and more than one person wanted to know ‘what had I done to the engine’…nothing at all, she was just a very good car.

Then I moved around a lot and so did some of my family and car became the removal van, the facilitator of escapes, moves and mini adventures and again...she came to the rescue for friends and family alike.

A man pulled out from the left and decided to park, right in the middle of the road to turn right, but he hadn’t left enough room for oncoming traffic to stop…I hit him with a dreadful crunching sound. I had ‘seen’ his actions and applied the brakes immediately, his manoeuvre hadn’t looked ‘right’ so in some ways I had already begun avoidance action. I turned my car slightly to avoid head on collision, worried my sister would end up with the engine in her lap. So we hit with my right wing ‘corner’. The shock wave slammed through and my ankle crushed but everyone else was okay bar a bit of rough whiplash that would heal. But my car had been seriously damaged and had to go into the Ford workshop. Her return was much appreciated, especially as she now looked brand spanking new again and completely overhauled.

A phone call at daft o clock and me and car sped to the rescue of a friend with a *boyfriend* who wouldn't go home. The mobile would ring and someone, somewhere would need me and away we would go.

My adventures continued unabated:-

Then I came to Harlech, once again I had been homeless but this time not only did I sleep in my car, I used her to move myself a hundred miles away and got myself into the local College or Coleg as it is said, in Harlech...and found my spiritual home.

Car became the enabler for me to visit Mum as often as possible, holidays for my grandkids, picking up *stuff* and making life generally easier when you live half way up a mountain and I took her for granted.

She rescued me when I needed dental treatment in an emergency, driving me to sunny Liverpool every week for 3 months, took me to hospital for all sorts of tests and generally kept me in good health.

Then parking became a problem and she went to live on my friend Kerri’s driveway and she became *The Beast*. The boys loved having her around, me and Kerri managed great shopping trips. The boys washed, polished and cared for every tiny inch of her still shiny paintwork.

She was a symbol, of new beginnings, a new status and new opportunities. And after twelve years’ service it was time to say goodbye. I never thought about it ‘as such’, not until I made a small post about her, and then as I began to write here in this blog.

In those twelve years my little car, my beautiful Ford Focus had become almost a living being. I knew all of her little foibles, could make her my home at any given moment and she had enabled many different adventures for me along those twelve years.
As my only vehicle she created time and space for me.
I grieved in her, I sheltered in her and I travelled from Carlisle, Edinburgh and down as far as Gosport, Portsmouth and Bournemouth, often in one day.
She was the car that got me to my grandchild’s bedside in an emergency, to my children and my friends.
She enabled me to stay in contact with family, drove me to work and in moments of deep despair…………. she took me to my mountains.
In her I wrote my first full book which is now published on Kindle.
In her I learned how to be quiet within myself, to be free of old ways and embrace a new me.
In her I learned to breathe.

Through owning her I gained a respect for Ford and their innovative designs, I grew to appreciate how easy it is for someone to lose concentration and on more than one occasion her quick response to my own actions avoided some other driver’s stupidity from causing me ill. She was, and remains in my thoughts, perfect.

I can only keep those memories polished now, and one day, I will find her like again. The Beast is now in some spare parts sanctuary, or in a collective heap in a yard, but she is no longer on the road and to this day.........I miss her.