Bloody Volvo Drivers!

Now for as long as I can remember (which, when I think about it, is a VERY long time) I have been of the camp that does not like Volvo Drivers. I remember saying 'Bloody Volvo Drivers' when I saw one on the road - every time - despite having a very good friend who drove one. Who drove worse than anyone else I knew at the time. Like no one else on the road mattered. Like he was totally untouchable. Like he didn't care.... And he was a lovely man... until he got into his Volvo.

More recently, travelling on Spanish roads, my attention has been drawn not by Volvo drivers but by Portugese lorry drivers. They are the worst on the road. They will ALWAYS pull out in front of you whether there is anyone in front of them or not. They swerve irrationally as you approach them and they go either very, very fast or ridiculously slowly.

Some few weeks ago, we.. sorry, I ...had an accident in our English car. Someone ran into us on a roundabout and smashed the back window and the door. We've had the window fixed and Cesar pushed the door bulge out a bit and now, it doesn't look too bad. Not much different from the other cars around here, actually. But we had some sad news from the insurance company. Because it's not overly new, because it's here in Spain and won't be going back to England and because the estimate to fix it was 1500 euros, they have decided it is a write-off as far as insurance claims are concerned.  So after much humming and haaing, we decided we would collect the insurance money and look out for a secondhand Spanish car.

(You know where I am going with this, don't you...)

Cesar took a train at 7am this morning to travel 500kms to fetch his chosen vehicle from Navarra. It's a silver Volvo; (it gets worse) it's an estate; (and worse) it's an automatic. I feel my heart sinking as I write these words. And it gets even worse. He arrived home, very pleased with the car, which had cruised beautifully all the way home and been economical on fuel and was comfy and has leather seats and a sun roof, blah, blah. And we piled into it (what an unfortunate phrase) for a trip around the block.

And someone ran into us and scratched the door and broke our mirror.

Do you think they did it on purpose because they were a Volvo hater? And I am feeling a bit guilty for my bigoted past.