‘I am driving to London for some shopping on Monday’ - I throw in, casually, just after dinner.

A weird noise seems to emanate from the armchair carefully positioned in front of the TV set. It sounds like a wounded dolphin - not that I am particularly knowledgeable about wounded dolphins - but the noise has that rarefied, deep, below-water lament, expressing true, profound sorrow.

‘Don’t worry – I quickly add – I am not going to go mad with your credit card.’
The lugubrious reply: ‘I am not worried about that! I am just thinking of all those high curbs in the NCP car park!’

Now, I am a reasonable girl and the proud owner of a ‘Safety and Performance Driving Course’ certificate, earned after 3 days of intensive training at the De Adamich School in Italy. I even managed to complete the circuit in the quickest time driving an Alfa Romeo 155 with its rear wheels jacked up by some monstrous contraption (we were learning car control in extreme circumstances). I have more go-kart, rally, and car driving-related trophies I can shake my duster at, and Mr Beloved Husband and father of Pest n.1 and 2 does not trust me to return his sportscar intact from a shopping trip.

He checks wheel trims and door panels every time I come back. He covers the bikes' dirty wheels with plastic bags to avoid staining the boot lining. He threatens me with withdrawing my health club membership if I do not arrange for the car to be washed (‘Gold’ wash, to include the tyres, of course) on my way back.

When we met, Mr Husband did not mind my driving fast. Or perhaps he was just too scared, at the early stages of one’s relationship, to make a comment on how quickly you can drive to a black-tie dinner in a pair of Gina stiletto heels.

I have fond memories of all the fast cars I have either owned or driven as company cars, and the strange forms of primitive life developing in the little pool of water on the parcel shelf, condensation collected in the winter and stewed by the sun during the summer.

The rear seats hardly got any use, because none of my friends wanted to go in the back when it was me taking them for a spin. Some spoke of the thrill of staring death in the face by sitting in the front.

Never mind. Bruised by the congestion charge, parking, petrol, worn out by the traffic, cyclists resenting your very existence, and Mr Husband’s anally-retentive attitude towards the car’s bodywork, I suddenly decide that I am going to take the train instead.