In article . com,
Andre Jute wrote:

John Byrns wrote:
In article .com,
Andre Jute wrote:

I gave up the car altogether about 1990 and took up bicycling instead.
Now I'm 91.5kg, not too far over the days when I was a rugby player,
and officially certified to have "the heart of an ox". The heartrate
monitor is to keep my heart beating in the aerobic regions; when the
HRM beeps those who cycle with me know to slow down.

Did the wife also give up the car, or does she still use it?

My wife is one of those people who resist driving. I bought her a nice
new Volvo estate when our son was born but, since I work at home, I
was always available to drive her. When we came to Ireland over a
quarter-century ago, we could bring only one car taxfree. I would have
had to pay an enormous amount of import duty for my Citroen SM (a
grand tourer with a Maserati engine and hydraulic suspension, both
impossible to service here back then) and so chose to bring the new,
virtually unused Volvo; I breathed on the Volvo engine and suspension
to make it suitable for enthusiastic driving. But we live in a village
because I wanted my son to have the same sort of country upbringing I
had. We walk to the shops and the shopkeepers deliver and carry the
parcels into the kitchen; our son walked to a school less than five
minutes away. People tend to come to me when they want me, or to pick
me up and drive me to social occasions, because otherwise I don't go,
so in about fifteen years the Volvo was used about 30k miles, mainly
for going to the UK or the Continent or driving visitors around
Ireland; every time I wanted to use it, I had to fit a new battery
because it was used so infrequently. It was like new when I sold it.
It's probably amazing to you but I don't miss the car; I just don't
lead a car-based life.

Not amazing at all, in my ideal world cars would not be necessary for
day to day transportation, cars would essentially be toys reserved for
sport and pleasure, sort of like the horses that preceded them into
transportation history. Unfortunately we still have a very lot of work
to do before we will have a workable mass transit system here in the US.


Regards,

John Byrns

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