The confessional:

Wish there was a like button for this...

We just chuck them into landfill here.

Talking of parking, I was reminded of something that seems best placed here.
Picture the scene, it’s the first term of first year at uni. I had just bought a particularly shonky Triumph Spitfire.
It was visually ok, but it had all manner of underlying issues including a missing roof. However, it did have a tonneau cover so that was going to be fine with the approaching Scottish winter wasn’t it.
Anyway, I’d had my eye on Carol, she was in my year and was a vision of raven haired beauty in her Afghan coat and platform boots.
There was a car park outside the the main building we attended with a bus stop right next to it.
On pretty much the first frosty morning of term, (they come earlier at that latitude) I felt like my stars had aligned.
As I swung the Triumph into the car park there was a space available right next to the bus stop with the pavement separating the two.
As I aimed for the space, determined to handbrake the car into it by taking advantage of the low friction surface provided by nature that morning, to my delight, who should be at that very moment be exiting the bus with a couple of her mates but Carol.
My cup could not have been fuller, or so I thought.
The car, slithered perfectly sideways into the space, a blip of throttle of course before switching off to ensure required attention was gained.
Now full of pride and unwavering certainty that Carol, (or worst case scenario, one of her mates) would now be unable to hold herself back from falling into my arms, I decided to up my game further by leaping out of the open car without opening the door.
Yes, I know how stupid all of this was now, but it seemed to make perfect sense at the time.
This when things started to go a bit wrong.
I’d driven the car with the side windows up, it was bloody freezing in fairness. In my rush to nonchalantly leap out of it I completely forgot that the window was an obstacle. I caught the toe of my left cowboy boot on the top of the window on my way past.
This broke the window, which shattered on the ground, the angle of my trajectory changed and I face planted onto the pavement and into the broken glass, cutting my hands and ripping my jeans.
The girls briefly established that I wasn’t going to actually die before departing in convulsions of mirth leaving me sitting on the icy pavement with my back against the Spitfire, knowing that everyone on my course would already have been apprised of the morning’s events…
And in answer to the inevitable supplementary questions this may create, no, Carol was never to be, for me anyway…
😬