But my next outing, to Loch Etive, did not happen as planned! On the Monday, my first day off, I reconnected my battery, as I did every year, and the sweet little Panda started immediately! But then she would not move! I tried everything I could think of, and did everything my audience, consisting of villagers and Tourists, told me to do, but the Panda's wheels were as if welded onto the body!
 I phoned Stan, the man who always did the mot for me, and fixed such small problems as arised, and he told me to take a heavy hammer, and hit the wheels, and that should loosen them. So Barry, one of the villagers went to fetch his big hammer, and we knocked the blue blazes out of the wheels, with no avail! I phoned Stan again, and he promised to come and have a look.
I was worried about my wee car, as she and I had many adventures together, and she took me to the most outlandish places without ever leaving me in the lurch! In other words, I loved the little black box-like car!
I could not go anywhere that day, so I just waited for Stan, fretting all the time, wondering what on earth I was going to do If my Panda was scrapped!
Stan came soon after, and he tried just about everything he could think of, but the wheels just would not loosen. Knowing how fond I was of my little car, even he was sad when he told me that there was nothing to be done, and that I would have to scap the car!
So I sat inside the car, telling her that there was just no other way, and when the truck arrived to load her and take her to be squashed, my tears just would not stay back, and the man, a hardy looking fellow, looked at me very strangely. But oh boy, as I stood in the kitchen door watching the truck with my wee car disappear down the road, I sobbed!
The little car was just such a part of my life, and it was as though something precious had disappeared, something the people around me just could not understand.
But the Stan phoned me and offered me a wee Fiesta, his wife's, as she was getting a new car. At the price he offered it to me, and the wonderful condition it was in, I grabbed at the offer, and the next day saw me driving of at a nice pace, to the beautiful Loch Etive.