Categories
Travel

Having a car

Marylebone Road Rush Hour
Photo by Garry Knight

I never thought I’d have a car in London. The public transport network is good enough that you can get pretty much anywhere you need to, and the expenses that come with having a car (maintenance, insurance, parking) don’t appeal to me. I didn’t even want a car when Rafael was born: he came home from hospital in his buggy, on the bus.

But there were some annoyances: we missed a GP appointment once because we were so late getting ready to leave the house, trips to IKEA took forever with getting there by public transport and then either having to pay for a taxi to get us back home or carrying all our shop on the bus, and visits to the hospital always meant paying and waiting for taxis. No fun.

It all changed last Christmas: a friend lent us his car while he was travelling over the holidays. I realised how much you can do at the weekend when you’re not taking buses everywhere. We didn’t have to choose just one thing to do: we could go out for lunch, do the grocery shop and pick up a Christmas tree. All on the same day! What a novel concept that was to me.

Then out friend didn’t want his car back (thank you!), so now we do own a car. And we’re quite pleased about it.

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