Sally-Part 85. DON'T TRY DRIVING ROUND PARIS'S PERIPHERIQUE IN A FIAT 500 !

DON'T GO ANYWHERE IN A FIAT 500 !

Have you ever been to Paris in a FIAT 500 ?

If not, don't !

Driving around The Peripherique which is an eight lane super-highway ring-road, was an act of death-defying stupidity !

It was crammed with juggernauts hell-bent on terrifying us as their huge wheels, which stood higher than our roof, boxed us in and shut out all daylight !

If, like us, you drive around this road in the most pathetic excuse for a car ever built you too will deserve to die !

A tin of corned beef glued onto Lego wheels would have felt safer and more solid !

I even gazed up with jealous awe at the majestic sight of 2CV's as they hurtled past !

The scene in the FIAT was thus : A three month pregnant lady , already showing small signs of impatience with the potential to grow larger ( the impatience and the belly ! ) with the passage of time, and with dreadful morning sickness, laid out across the back seats and the reversed upside down front seat and surrounded by a tent and camping accoutrements to last a week before she was back teaching, shrieking in terror at her new husband as the vehicle, caught in violent vortices of slipstreamed air currents lurched uncontrollably from side to side to within inches of thirty tonners !

The other occupant was a silent bearded twit, gripping the steering wheel tighter than a woman's throat and thinking  panic-stricken thoughts as he stared straight ahead, so terrified by his driving experience that being crushed beneath some behemoth seemed to offer peace !

And if you think that driving ON The Peripherique is difficult, try looking out for the correct exit sign, written inconsiderately in a foreign language, whilst jammed between wagons and then manage to manoeuvre OFF it !

Whose idea was driving to the South Of France anyway ?

My father's actually !

Of course I took the wrong exit and we ended up in the middle of nowhere, attempting to sleep in the car on our second night of marriage !

Tempers started to fray a bit when we bit into a ridiculously overpriced quiche which had liquified in the baker's sun-drenched shop window !

Expensive beyond our means, yet still the cheapest thing in the shop, I knew that Shirley's remaining money wasn't going to stretch far !

I kept going the following day and managed to reach Lyon with oil cascading from somewhere, the clutch operating bolt continuously loosening, the passenger door window stuck open and a starter motor that had failed!

This meant that if we did stop, it had to be on a slope so that Shirley could push-start me, or not turn the engine off which resulted in choking fumes filling the car through the most pathetic excuse for a ventilation system ever installed in a vehicle !

Exhausted and a little rattled we decided not to camp but to rent a small cabin for the night.

As we entered we saw a miasma of fleas hovering over the bare mattress and walked out !

SHIRLEY AND OUR LUXURIOUS HONEYMOON SUITE !

I got back in the car whilst Shirley, muttering something quite uncomplimentary, push-started me !

AND ME WITH THE WORST CAR IN THE WORLD ! GREAT BODYWORK ! AND I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT THE CAR !

Once again we spent an uncomfortable night not snuggled up to one another and not doing what other newlyweds everywhere else were doing !

"MARRY ME AND I'LL TAKE YOU TO MY YACHT IN ST. TROPEZ !"  I'VE ALWAYS HAD A WAY WITH WORDS  AND WOMEN HAVE FALLEN FOR THEM EVERY TIME !

We eventually arrived in Nice where Shirley collapsed with something to do with being pregnant and we moved in with my parents where my mother immediately started to drive her mad by not shutting up for one second !