There is. No. Fog.

I get more annoyed about certain little things than I probably should do. It's a fault. It's only for a second, but really irritates me when:

• People who have let not only one car headlight but also the sidelight bulb burn out and so look like a motorbike until the very last second.
• People chew with their mouths open. The sound makes me gag.
• People who smoke with their kids in the car. Seriously?
• People drive pristinely clean 4WDs that have clearly never been off-road.
• Horse riders who don't say thank you to patient vehicles when riding on the road. They make drivers less considerate for the rest of us.
• People drive with their foglights on all the time. Have they forgotten where the button is or do they mistakenly think it looks cool? And why don't police pull people over for it more often?

Driving can be a very irritating experience for me.

It's not broken; it has quirks

I love driving. Not all the time, admittedly. I love driving mostly when there are no other cars on the road. Mostly it happens on Saturday mornings, when I make my way to work at the yard before 8am, when no sane person is driving through the back lanes anyway. Occasionally I trundle down the M25 at 70mph late at night, when you can see the vast empty expanse of 6 lanes in front and behind of you and fantasise about what it'd be like to be able to drive however you wanted, however fast you wanted, knowing there'd be no other cars or speed cameras to catch you. Like one of those scenes out of Survivors. That'd be awesome.

Except for the whole plague thing. That'd suck.

But more than driving, I love my car. My car is sweet, and awesome. My mum gave it to me, after battering it about for the last 10 years and yes, there are a few things that aren't as perfect as when it rolled out of the factory 13 years ago. But most importantly it is my car. My first car.

I don't need a perfect car. I take it up the yard where it gets splashed through mud and potholes and big puddles. It gets surrounded by horses and has rugs with big metal buckles flung around near it. It has me get in it at the end of the day covered in hair and hay, and usually a bit damp and very muddy and leaving bits of all that everywhere. It has various kids in similar states clamber in the back, over the seat that doesn't go forward properly, leaving muddy smears everywhere and distributing more hay as I take them into the village for lunch. The boot gets used as a horse-related paraphernalia storage cupboard. I've had 2 flat tyres in the last year just from driving to and from there all the time.

If my car was perfect it wouldn't stay that way long. And it'd be a lot more stressful for me.

Instead, the left seat will only tip, not slide forward. (see above)
The air conditioning hasn't worked for years and nobody's bothered to refill it.
The central locking key's battery has run out so now you have to go round locking doors individually. The exhaust and catalytic converter went just before I was given it and almost cost more than the car is worth to replace.
The wheel bearings had gone at the last MOT, which turned out to be the cause of the awful noise it had started to make only when travelling between 68-73mph.
The indicator stalk used to fall down into indicating left on its own after you made a right turn for about 6 months, although that fixed itself.
The heater fan cuts out if you turn it up to the highest level and there's some 'issue' with the electrics which my mum explained to me as 'the heating stopped working for a while so my uncle rewired it - there's some kind of switch he put in under the dashboard somewhere but it started working again without it anyway'.
Sometimes the internal lighting doesn't come on when you turn on the headlights.

My car is awesome. I just have to explain a lot of stuff when people borrow it.