Day 3 without the car, and I am having definite withdrawal symptoms!
It’s not as if the car wasn’t working, it was only the air conditioning and while that is an important component in comfortable driving, it doesn’t stop the wheels turning!
It is also a worry that each day has a financial element associated with it. I mean, given that the air con can (please God no!) cost over a thousand euros to replace I am willing to wait for them to discover that it is, eventually, only a valve or minor part in the set up that has to be replaced. The ‘easy fix’ of recharging the system (whatever that means) has already been ruled out and the actual fault is (obviously) proving difficult to discover. And with each passing day I become more apprehensive about the rising cost, because in the world of the car, even failure comes with a price.
But even more worrying than the cost is the clamp that has suddenly been put on free action. You do not realize just how much you are dependent on the car until you do not have one at your beck and call.
Yes, I know that I have my bike, the bus and taxi, as well as the extreme alternative of actual walking. But my bike is ruled out by my questionable equilibrium given my two new knees, the bus is not readily accessible, and taxis are ruinously expensive to use for ‘run-about’ excursions.
So, we are now, stay-at-home carless people, moping about and resenting every house bound moment. Luckily, we are well provided with the essentials of life and do not (at the moment) need to do any emergency shopping. Which is just as well, as the nearest supermarket shops to us are car trips away rather than walks.
Our one sort-of super (!) market was part of a parade of restaurants that for some inexplicable reason have suddenly closed. So, pizza restaurant, pollo a last, bakery, ordinary restaurant (with a fair menu del dia), and corner shop – all gone, or at least all closed. To me it makes no commercial sense at all as all the elements in the business seemed to be thriving. It is set on a main road, has a hinterland of domestic dwellings houses and flats, and is near a camping site that always has food needs. We have often tried to work out the Reason Why behind the changes, opening hours, closures, and change of business that happen in Castelldefels – and have failed to find any logical justification for some of the decisions made by owners and managers. But, there again, what do we know of commercial pressures – one fears that it is a murky world behind the smiling faces and clean table napkins.
I remember once asking a friendly waiter in our local commercial centre if the Mafia played any part in the criminal life of our town, and he answered, “Which Mafia do you mean?” And then rattled off a list of nationalities who all had a criminal stake in our town. I keep telling myself that despite the awful state of our roads, we live in a very wealthy city, where house prices are sky high and our residents include the very wealthy in enormous houses behind over-the-top security to guard them. And us of course! Those families would not have just the one car, and so would not feel as bereft as we do!
However, there is one bright spot amid the static misery of carelessness. Yesterday I took delivery of my new robot cleaner!
I must admit that I have owned a number of these devices and while I am enthusiastically in favour of them in principle, in practice I find that they are lacking and woefully lacking.
When they first came out, and I bought mine from Kickstarter or some such enticement, I was more than happy to have the thing suck up dirt. I was prepared to empty the machine each time I used it, and I felt that I was in the forefront of what used to be science fiction in those glossy projections in the 50s about what the future would hold.
As is the way with gadgets like this, each innovation that I read about made me less and less satisfied with the pedestrian nature of my own machine, to the extent that I was glad to have it give up the ghost so that I had (had) to buy another one.
I will not go through the sad procession of inadequate machines that I cherished and then despised, before, after extensive research, I bought a machine (at a reasonable price) that purported to hoover and mop at the same time, with a self-emptying facility as well.
The key indicator that I should have noticed with this machine was the “reasonable price”. It did indeed do what it said on the box. It hoovered, it emptied itself and, when you filled it up with water it did (sort-of) mop. But not particularly well.
Eventually, I stopped using the ‘mop’ function because it was so ineffective and cast glances of contempt at it each time I passed.
At last, it stopped working, and I was able to cast about for a replacement.
I did do some research, and used Chat to help with evaluation, and this time I looked for what I wanted rather than looking for a “reasonable price” i.e. cheap. What I wanted was not available for what I paid for the last one and so I have now ended up with something that hoovers, mops, cleans the mops, dries them, uses AI for god knows what, and is equipped with an onboard light and a camera!
I am too afraid to look, but I suspect that there are short films on line which show the cleaning from the point of view of the machine. I know that on the mobile phone that runs the thing, I can click a button and watch its progress. I have to admit that there was something strangely fascinating to see your house at floor level, and a little shaming as well as, equipped with a light and a camera there is no hiding place for the underside of lower unit doors nor for the insalubrious division between floor and white goods.
The machine is not plumbed-in, so you do have to fill the reservoir with water and empty the other one with the dirty water, but everything else is automatic with occasional beeps to show that it is still working.
It is far too soon to give a thumbs up or down for the things yet, but its first trial run (apart from the usual glitches in the technology of getting the thing paired with the phone) it was excellent. And since it will have to be used daily (and perhaps more than daily) to justify its price, I will soon have much experience to give an authoritative evaluation of my outlay.
And that last bit of writing at least took my mind off what might or might not be happening to my car.
