Ode to the 306

This car has been a slight thorn in my side for many moons. It has sat out the front of the house in a decaying state and I was shocked to find that a scrappie was actually coming to pick it up today. This morning involved doing a 3 point turn in limited space moved only by human force and turning a very mouldy steering wheel (most of the mould has gone by the time I took this picture there is a bit to the right of the wheel....my hands were sporetastic). One of the footwells was about an inch deep in water too...checked for frogspawn just in case.

It had traveled well over a quarter of a million miles before it died.

Some great memories of this car are:

In 2003 driving in the heights of the Ardeche (something Mr.H feels caused the head gasket to go)

Spending one night of a rather ill planned last-minute honeymoon in it

Spending a very cold winter night in it- my feet nearly got iced onto the passenger windows after the temperature dropped.

The breaks completely breaking on the isle of Skye when traveling quite fast....having to drive into a ditch to stop it, getting attacked by clouds of midges and then when we were rescued the recovery guy telling us they were the worst midges he had ever experienced in his life( and we should tell everyone we heard this off a Scottish Man). He was blowing cigarette smoke at them as he tried to repair the car whilst I sprayed him head to toe in 'skin so soft' (an accident waiting to happen I reckon).

The car also experienced a stay at a rather posh hotel (Chateaux Ige) in Burgundy. In the morning on looking out of the window I was amused and slightly embarrassed to find some chap washing all of the guests cars....a ferrari, a lamborgini, a sporty little open-top number....and then a rather dirty, battered, moss covered 306 that had lost any shine many many years ago...he was onto a loser with that.

It was the car I went exploring Cambridgeshire, Leicestershire and some of Derbyshire in on my own. I visited Geoff Hamilton's gardens and had a fantastic time seeing the site of the Battle of Bosworth amongst other places.

Many years ago driving around at 2am up and down the French coast trying to find anyone to take us back to the UK asap when on a whim a holiday abroad got abandoned a few days early.

As well as thinking "Good Riddance" I will also look back at the car with some fond memories.....such is life :-)