Becoming a 'Man with a Van'

Taking the plunge and buying a van was not an easy decision. We knew we need a van for the business, but the most cost effective way of running one while keeping all parties happy was a puzzler. In the end the writing was on the wall for the Punto and I traded it in to become the proud owner of a Fiat Scudo 2.0l JTD. Ryan says the JTD was invented by Alfa Romeo, and I for one believe him, so technically I drive an Alfa Romeo. Still get some funny looks though when cruising to work in shirt, tie, glasses and a big red van. I don't care, I've got a van. Already I've noticed the massive respect I get from other highway users, compared to the Punto anyway. And you can cut people up and they just put it down to 'van drivers' generically rather than thinking that me as a person is a bad driver. Not that I am, but was pretty surprised that the insurance is less when I put Ryan 'no points, no crashes' Noble as a named driver. Result.


What wasn't a result was the lack of radio/cd player when faced with the 4 hour trip to Hay. I even contemplated borrowing Millsy's Best of Meatloaf tape for the journey, but it didn't take much contemplation. Listening to the voices in my head would be much better. Actually, after the first ten miles I ran out of Dizzee Rascal lyrics to rap to and did start to listen to my mind wandering. Pretty inane stuff really and not much worth writing about. I did discover why tramps often suddenly shout stuff randomly. It is born out of complete and utter boredom, as cruising at 50mph behind Ryan and the pizza oven led me to shout out occasional random statements. "Oh, we going to eeebizza!" was a favourite.  Worryingly.


The other thing about going at 50mph was the time you have to watch stuff going on around you. A kestrel was spotted, swerving between haulage lorries as it eyed up it's lunch. At 50mph we got to see it hover and dive, nailing it's prey right between the barriers of the central reservation. Which got me thinking about why it would choose to hunt on a motorway? Perhaps it used to be nice countryside until we tarmacked it. Then I thought about it chewing on the carbon monoxide poisoned lungs of the mouse it had bagged and that a nice country mouse would be so much tastier. 


Luckily we reached Ryan's ancestral home before I went completely insane. 


Note to self: Get down Argos and get yourself a car stereo.