Parents never really stop looking after their kids. At least mine don't. If my mother isn’t loading me up with wholesome food or my Dad isn’t trying to lend me money then they’re offering to have my car detailed. No really.

Okay so technically this was a birthday present offer and my birthday is still a few months away but I’m pathetically excited.

The thing is that, as many of you probably know, I don’t particularly care for cars. While Al and Jade talk about this car or that car or wax or polish their own I take a nap or lapse into a day-dream about Hugh Dancy. If I’m ever witness to a crime and have to describe a getaway car I will not be a star witness so much as an embarrassing boob who can only say that it was “sort of blue and shiny”.

In the three plus years that I’ve had my beautiful 1988 Ford Laser (in a Granny-appropriate beige) I have never had it serviced or allowed a mechanic within spitting distance. Even when I was in a five car pile-up about a year ago, resulting in the back of my car getting smooshed in, I just patted the old girl on her behind bought some screws to reattach the numberplate. My door handle fell off about three months ago but instead of replacing it I have continued to unwind the window and open the door from the outside every single time I need to get out of the driver’s seat.

Yes I am lazy but part of it comes from complete indifference. In theory I love my car but this is entirely because I have anthropomorphised it to hell and not because I care for cars, per se. So my excitement at finally giving the beast some tender loving care is a bit of a surprise to me. It’s not something I could justify spending money on myself but the prospect of having oil replaced, spark plugs tightened(?) and mufflers um whatevered is a nice one.

Up until this point I’ve sort of assumed my car would die on the job, like an old workhorse dropping dead in its traces. Now, however, it’s become a matter of getting her through the next three months to give her a chance at a life-saving operation.

Hence my new policy: no driving unless strictly necessary. I am already walking to and from work and I’m sure I can eliminate unnecessary grocery trips by shopping at the uber dodgy Asian “supermarket” down the road which stocks twenty different types of noodles but no bread and prefers to peddle a suspiciously vague “soy drink” rather than anything resembling milk. Similarly I will have to cut all my long-distance friends out of my life and restrict my extra curricular activities to laying on the couch and/or walking across the road to Tarts. On the plus side I can be permanently drunk because I will never have to drive myself anywhere. On the downside Andy might kill me when he realises he has become my own personal taxi service.

The countdown has begun.