We went to Birmingham yesterday. We love it there… Ok, no one loves it there, we went because there was a little mini ‘conference’ of a worky nature and that’s where they held it. At the National Motorcycle Museum, which is the coolest place ever, if you like motorcycles, and pretty lovely even if you don’t. It is, precisely, 111 miles from home. I checked. So I ‘filled up’ the car on Saturday night, giving us an amazing, totally sufficient with surplus, should be ‘relaxing’, 343 mile range. Holy shit! (My special ‘app’ told me, so I could check it without having to go out in the rain. Yes, I have an app!!) I may go to Manchester on the way just to use up some those excessive miles! And this is precisely why you buy an electric car. So you can sit smugly in the fast lane with the cruise control set at ‘69’, just for some added annoyance, and peer down your ever-growing nose at the polluters, the destroyers, the murderers of baby polar bears and those churning out all the shit that Greta Thunberg would hate. Then reality hit. Hard!

Well, its only ‘hard’ in an EV kind’a way, its not ‘hard’ like floods in Scotland, not ‘hard’ like losing the rugby, but its hard in a mild anxiety kind’a way. Because by the time I’d driven half a mile to Henley’s Corner, my mileage was down to 334. I quickly calculated, even though it’s not really a strong point, but I reckoned at that rate of usage, we’d need to charge up again at Mill Hill. Possibly Edgware. Oh no.

I needn’t have worried, by the time we passed Watford the initial ‘discrepancies’ seemed to have ironed out, the car picked up a few ions from the atmosphere or something, and we were back on some kind of schedule which would at least get us to Birmingham, if not further, the current exchange rate being 1 real mile = 3 electric ones.

We made it. Using up exactly half our miles. Which then begs the interesting question: is the next half going to be bigger/longer/better than the last one? WILL I MAKE IT HOME??? Yet, I was confident. I have no idea why because I know from bitter experience that if we ‘have to charge’ on the way home, that can be a disaster; a mission impossible, a tow from the AA, yet confident I was. And even though there was an accident at Rugby, and even though we crawled on the M1 for hundreds of miles (real miles AND electric ones), we still managed to arrive home with 48 miles left on the range-o-meter.

And for the first time in my life, I drove within the speed limits. Honest I did. Because if you go faster it uses more ‘lectric, so I set the cruise on 70 and sat there willing my right foot to stay where it was and not do what it desperately wanted to do.

The rugby was a tragedy. We were vastly superior to those South Afrikkers for 60 minutes. Then we weren’t. And then they were better and stole the game from under our very noses. I don’t know that I’ll ever get over it. But if Spurs win tonight and go back to top of the league (where we BELONG!!!) it’ll help.

Has there ever been a ‘better’ footballer in England than Bobby Charlton? Its a debate. You wouldn’t have the debate for Harry McGuire, Jamie Vardy, John Radford, so that in itself speaks volumes. But has there ever been a nicer player? A more gentlemanly player? For that, there’s no debate. RIP Sir Bobby.

Happy Monday

A xxxx