Episode 241. Jaguar S-type. W187 BNA. (Part 3).

 With the end of the month looming I thought that I'd best get out there and take a few snaps. I haven't advertised this lovely Jaguar for sale yet as I think I may well already have a buyer. My friend who also bought the Omega from me earlier in the year has grown tired of it, and fancies a Jag, so I told him that I would hold off advertising it for the meantime. Besides, I'm in no hurry to part with this thing.

 Anyway, despite hopefully already having a buyer for it, and being in no hurry to sell it anyway I figured that I still needed to get some half decent photos of it for both my personal records, and your viewing pleasure. 

I don't know about you guys, but I read (or just look at the pretty pictures) quite a lot of magazines, and I am always quite impressed by the photographers ability to find suitable locations for their automotive subject time after time. I constantly look out for such locations, but usually I can't find anything I like, or if I do when I get there either the lighting is all wrong, the weather is all wrong, or even the season is all wrong. Today was no exception, in the end, after driving around for what seemed like ages looking for somewhere, in the end I thought sod it, let's go to the New Forest, at the very least I should be able to get some images that are un-cluttered. So with thoughts in my head of the fast fading light that probably only gave me about two hours in which to drive there and grab some suitable photos, I headed off.

As luck would have it, the roads were EMPTY, and although pretty much all of the New Forest has a 40mph speed limit, there is good driving to be had even at that speed. I know that 40mph doesn't sound that fast, but you really don't want to go much faster, as you don't want to be coming over the brow of a hill to find Deer, Donkeys, Horses, Sheep, or Cows blocking your path of onward travel, I'm pretty sure that hitting one of these beautiful creatures is not going to do the bodywork of your car much good... To be honest, it doesn't do the bodywork of the animal much good either!

Before too long I had found a couple of locations to take my photographs, and as the roads were quiet I stopped to take the photos. Of course the minute I stopped, and got out of the car traffic seemed to arrive en-masse. I must admit I was probably making quite a menace of myself as not only was I taking up one side of the road, but I wasn't taking a single photograph of my car until all the other cars were out of shot! 

I think this one is my favourite, it was one of the last shots I took, and the light was really starting to fade fast, but I think that I got it just in time.

While taking this particular shot I got into an argument with an older idiotic couple. As you can see the road is both big, and empty. So as there was nothing behind me I pulled up and started to take a few photos. Then this couple presumably in their 70's pull up behind the Jag and start blaring on the horn. So I took a look to make sure there was no traffic coming, then I tried to wave them on past. But the man pokes his head out of the window and yells at me, "What are you doing man?" So I walk up to his window and ask what the problem is? And he asks me what I think I am doing blocking the road like that, and causing a menace of myself? I looked around to see that there were no other cars on this piece of road other that his car and mine, and so I tell him that I'm not blocking the road, or causing a menace of myself, because there is no other traffic on the road, and he could quite safely go around the car if he wanted to. He then told me that I was being a public nuisance, and he was going to phone the police about me! I thought, phone the police about me, for what? Of course then my smart mouth had decided to interject, and before I knew it, I had said, fair enough, what's the name of this road then? He said what does that have to do with anything? So I asked him how he intended to tell the police that there is a man making a public nuisance of themselves out on the road, if you can't give them a location? I mean, surely that'll be the first thing they ask won't it? The second thing they will ask, is what is he doing to cause himself to be a nuisance? And when you say he's taking photographs on a quiet stretch of road in the middle of the New Forest, they'll probably be more interested in why you're wasting police time. He then looked at his wife type creature and growled at her, "Come on Margaret, drive, this man's obviously an imbecile!" Ah well, I've been called worse! Then they roared off, if it is indeed possible to roar off in what has to be said was the tidiest Kia Pride I have seen in a long time, they must have had it from new, it was absolutely immaculate. Once they had dissappeared into the distance, I took a few more photos before taking off down the road myself, I didn't want anyone else to come along and tell me what a nuisance I was being... The next lot might have known the location knowing my luck.

I found a couple of other locations that I thought might make for good photos, and so I stopped a few more times and took a couple more shots before heading for home, frankly, I was starving, and I knew  that Mrs Clint would have dinner on the table soon. The trouble with this time of year is of course that the days are not long enough, and getting any photos of this Jaguar and to be honest the last couple of cars has been a bit of a struggle, and to be honest I really didn't want to resort to taking another set of photos in the car park. 

I keep thinking to myself that we'll soon be past the shortest day now, there's less than a month to go, and from there on in the days will get longer and longer for the next six months. But it's cold, rainy, windy, and miserable now, although I keep telling myself that Spring is not actually that far away, the light and the warmth will return, right now in the cold and bleakness of a Winter evening it seems to me to be forever away. I never used to mind the Winter, infact I used to actually enjoy it, and to be fair, I reckon I still would. But I would prefer it to be properly cold, and snowy like Winter should be, I'd be OK with that. But not this bleak, mild, damp, day after day of greyness that's a poor excuse for Winter that we get now. 

Still, never mind try to focus on the positives of the drive home, the Jags got a great heater, and good headlights, and as I press on home as more and more people join me on the motorway, all on their daily commute home I look around at my fellow motorists. Most of whom look thoroughly bored at the tedium of driving along in their little tin box, and I think how genuinely glad I am that I am not one of them, and how genuinely glad that I am driving a Jaguar, this Jaguar. It is a truly wonderful, and special car, and I am so glad that it is mine, even if my ownership will only be brief. Before too long I'm pulling off the motorway, and from the exit I need only to drive for another two minutes before pulling into the carpark behind BelongaClint just as darkness falls like a black leather jacket and melts into the sidewalk like a sleeping drunk. In the streets, the wind throws yesterday's headlines around. Another night comes and goes. I park up next to the rest of my junk, lock the doors on the Jag, pat the bonnet, and wander off inside, thoughts of Mrs Clints hot home made soup in my mind, and an evening infront of the fire... Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, the Winter... It probably isn't all that bad after all.