05 Feb 07
The sheer size of the R-Class continues to make entering our diminutive driveway rather hazardous, especially since, in the advent of a close encounter between the car and the house, I fear the car would win hands down. Mercifully, my wife has discovered that if you reverse in - parking sensors yelling from all four quarters simultaneously - it's a sight easier to get out again bows first.
The only downside to this method is that, parked far enough down the narrow slot between buildings to allow those long rear doors to open, the Mercedes obscures the view of the bird table from the kitchen window, making it hard to dissuade our vast and unruly tabby cat, Boggis, from treating the dangling bird feeders like a Yo Sushi conveyor belt.
My only real gripe to date through this chill winter period concerns the length of time it takes to clear a frozen windscreen first thing in the morning. Others armed with diesel engines will be equally frustrated at how much longer the powerplant seems to take to generate the requisite hot air than an equivalent petrol unit, making it all the more irritating that Ford seems to have an unshakable monopoly on heated front windscreens. Some manufacturers do now offer ancillary heating units to tackle precisely this cold start problem, and I'd dearly like to see it on the Mercedes options list.
Oh, and there is just one other thing: How come you can carefully fold away a perfectly respectable set of Christmas tree lights with all the care you'd afford a hibernating tortoise and, unpacking them three hundred and forty days later, find they no longer work? More to the point, how come the manufacturers change the design of the bulbs each and every year so you can't even pilfer from a previously redundant set? Humbug. And, of course, Happy New Year.
