#5

Today I saw you drive off in your little Suzie .. totally alone .. for the very first time. Off to do the rounds of your friends, and crow! Today you went for your licence, and got it. Not without drama though because our crv decided to blow a stop light lamp and the examiner would not take it for your trial. I thought well that was that but we were really lucky in that another boy had just had his test before us and the car he had driven was still available, so off you went in this nice little red corolla and yeah it cost me $50.00. I went upstairs to wait for you, I took a book and opened it, but the words did not make sense. I had to re-read three times before I settled down and then, there you were coming through the door. Well? Yes, up went the thumb and a huge grin split your face! Oh man! You got your licence first go!

CONGRATULATIONS !!!

I hope you remain safe and sound. I guess if you are anything like me that you will have many close calls. I know I certainly did and even if I told you some of them, I can't stop you making your own mistakes, let's hope they are minor ones. I got my licence as soon as I could after I turned 18, but I had to wait until after Christmas because the police station was closed. You already know that I was lucky enough to go for my licence in the rambler, auto as it was, it made things so easy. Dad (Pa) was in the back seat, the copper was in the front, all I had to do was drive around the town for a while, my handbrake start was up a mound for the railway track, yeah put the foot on the brake, apply handbrake, ease it off and accelerate, too easy in an auto. The copper said to me, well you know how to drive a manual don't you - you probably drive around the farm. I said that was right and so I got my manual licence. Mind you, I had to answer every question in the book, he made that part difficult.  

My very first car was a mini, 1966 model. I paid for it myself under a hire purchase agreement, it cost $850.00 - quite a large sum for someone earning probably about $60.00 a week, and it took me 12 months to pay for it. That car was like a second home from home, I went everywhere man! I had a siamese cat then - "Twink" and it was her home away from home too, she came everywhere with me, even up to Queensland. I had a nice boyfriend then, his name was Malcolm and he helped me keep it on the road when little things went wrong mechanically and I learned a lot from him. We travelled from Melbourne up to Queensland in this tiny car with all our luggage and the cat, together with the shitbox behind the front seats and thought nothing of it. I still have photos from when we drove around a nature park and there is the cat sniffing through the window at an emu!!!

I remember we stayed at Redland Bay in a caravan park for a week or so. We experienced severe rain over a few days as we were on the edge of a cyclone, name unremembered. It absolutely teemed down for 3 days and the park was flooded; I was thinking maybe my mini might be washed away, the ground was so saturated. When things calmed down a little, my mini was the only one out of all the cars in the park that started first go, and I was proud of that.

As we progressed on this trip there was a knocking sound somewhere up front which eventually became louder and louder and we stopped in this town somewhere, actually I think it was Townsville, and by then one of the front wheels was at a weird angle, yes the little car had a problem with a cv joint and it cost all of the money we had left on us to repair, so we had to come home quickly haha. That little car I had for a few years, it did lots of strange things - almost as if it had a real mind of its own. I must have had someone upstairs looking after me. The whole steering wheel rack came off in my hands one day as I was going around a corner, but fortunately I was going very slowly around a street corner, not flying flat out as I would usually be. I've told you about those little cars cornering as if they were on tracks, haven't I. There I was waving the whole steering column in my hands, the bolt down the bottom had come undone. I just came slowly to a halt next to the gutter as if I was parking normally.

Another time the gear shift stick came out in my hands, again I was fortunate because I had just stopped to refill with petrol. Oh and let me say, the fuel tank held 4 gallons which is roughly 16 litres today. It cost me $2.00 to fill that tank then, sometimes I would buy 50c worth and the tank would be one-quarter full. I helped Malcolm rebuild the engine at one stage, the head had cracked and water had filled the engine. We fixed the whole thing, reboring and replacing the cylinders, valve grinding and all of that, it was fascinating. Yeah and oily grease under fingernails, such a good look for a secretary.

That mini was the first of many minis for me, and they all turned out to be fairly expensive disaster areas, but god they were fun! I will put more in about my minis another time. Today marks the ending of a chapter and a new page in your book of life, there is so much happening for you at present and it is so exciting, I must not leave it for so long between visits here to document our lives and bring up some more history along with the present. I hope you enjoyed your day, from shaky butterfly nerves to relief and happiness, well done!!!

love from mum XXX