My mouldy car
MY CAR reeks of Dettol. It's a highly distinctive and somewhat invasive smell which hits you the second you open the door, leaping from vehicle interior to nostril in a split second, then forcing its way to the back of your sinuses and making a nest.
It's weird, Dettol. It's a smell you can feel in your skull. You don't get that with coffee or fresh bread.
I should have got used to the stench of my car by now, what with driving the thing about all the time, but I haven't, because I don't. This, I should clarify, is my other car.
You heard right. I've got a car, and I've got an other car. I'm not great at maths, but by my count that's at least two cars. Which basically means I'm awesome, because only awesome people have two cars.
I became awesome last November, when I bought a second hand Vauxhall Astra and parked it next to my second hand Skoda Fabia. It's the Skoda that smells of Dettol.
It's also the Skoda that has a dent in the back, a dodgy handbrake, a rattling heater, a large chunk of plastic from the passenger door permanently lodged in the passenger footwell, faulty central locking, wonky suspension, a windscreen that ices up on the inside over winter and a small dumbbell wedged so firmly under the driver's seat that it can no longer be adjusted for height. That's why I got another car.
Obviously, I should have then attempted to sell the Skoda. The problem is that I'm an idiot, and a lazy one at that, so I did absolutely nothing. Quite a few months later, I still have two cars. One of which reeks of Dettol.
More on that: around a month into having two cars, I noticed that my Skoda was looking a little moist. Condensation had appeared on the inside of the windows. How odd, I thought, resolving to ignore it completely.
This was an error. Unbeknownst to me, something magical was happening inside my little Fabia. An ecosystem was being created. Starting from - I suspect - a tiny piece of triangular cheese sandwich from a garage which had found its way underneath the passenger seat, the full glory of Mother Nature was beginning to play out at a microscopic level. Bacteria and fungi, buoyed by the delicious sandwich (it wasn't delicious, garage sandwiches are never delicious) were overthrowing my car.
But I had no idea. Day after day I walked from my Astra to my house, or my house to my Astra, and gave the steamy windows nothing more than a bored glance. And then, one day, my girlfriend looked inside. And retched.
I looked too. I had never seen anything like it. The interior was completely covered in mould. Dots of the stuff were spattered across the doors and seats. Bright green-blue circles covered the steering wheel like lichen. The handbrake - the dodgy handbrake - was just as bad. There was mould on the dashboard, mould on the carpet in the footwells and a thick blanket of mould coating the full length of the driver's seatbelt. It would have been beautiful if it wasn't so disgusting.
I was sorely tempted just to leave it and see what grew, but common sense won out. And so, with elbow grease, facemasks and Dettol, we cleaned it, retching as we went.
Not before I asked one of this paper's photographers to capture it in all its mouldy glory. You can see the gallery above.
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Weather for Harrogate
Wednesday 08 February 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: -7 C to 0 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: South
Tomorrow
Light sleet showers
Temperature: 0 C to 2 C
Wind Speed: 7 mph
Wind direction: South
