04 Jun 07
Heading homewards from Stansted I missed a turning on my usual route and found myself in unfamiliar countryside. I wasn't in a particular hurry so I thought I might as well carry on and see what happened. And what happened was that I rounded a bend and - wa-hey - there before me was a splendid tribute to the work of Hertfordshire County Council's highways department.
The road was long, winding, well surfaced and untroubled by hedges, so you could see if anything was coming. And nothing was.
The thing is, I was in our Skoda Roomster. Of all the cars you'd want to be in when you chance upon a really promising driving road, the unconventionally proportioned hatch is not an obvious choice.
However, it proved to be far more fun than a 1.9-litre diesel-engined cargo carrier has any right to be. It doesn't have sports suspension, it doesn't have a close-ratio six-speed gearbox and it doesn't have razor-sharp steering. But it's stiff enough, composed enough and well balanced enough to facilitate the simple pleasure of sweeping through the bends and charging along the straights.
