Big Bold and Beautiful

I do love Land Rover Discoverys – big and powerful, exuding style and money. We followed closely behind one after going to the dump – a favourite pastime of mine, not just because I love the fact it’s so organised and clean, but just that feeling of getting rid of stuff which will be used again, albeit in a different form…

I had several bags of garden rubbish, most of which were grass cuttings. Still didn’t seem a great deal to show for four hours of hard work and a lot of swearing.

Now a Discovery would be an ideal vehicle to transport such messy bags if it weren’t for the fact that if I owned one I wouldn’t want it to get dirty – hardly the point I know. My Peugeot 807, however, did the job admirably and it’s hard to notice any additional grime!

But the Discovery’s purpose in life is not just to look pretty and a friend’s smelly green one of indeterminate age reminded me of that.

They bought it to replace their city car as they exchanged their life in the big smoke for one in the big mist, in the middle of nowhere. Trees replaced tower blocks, wellies replaced high heels and leather-soled city shoes and suddenly they seemed to have animals in the corner of every room. What a transformation in such a short period of time. I think they felt that if they were going to leave London, they should do it thoroughly, leaving little room for return.

Their Discovery has now been replaced with something more compact, but the wellies and the zoo remain, as do they in the depths of the country, content and rather civilised. Not sure what happened to the old Discovery – perhaps it passed on to some other couple, helping them with their rural immersion therapy?

But the Discoverys of today, at least the ones that seem to dominate our city roads, must surely be more for show as they and their occupants lord it over the little people in their green, city cars?

However I still lust after one but might be tempted by the Freelander 2 with its less intimidating size and fabulous stop/start mechanism (the world’s first SUV with this system) making it Land Rover’s most fuel-efficient vehicle so far. Perhaps I wouldn’t feel so guilty driving off in one if I do ever manage to move to the country.