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Hello, Writer, Today is Sunday, 23rd August, 2013 -mid-morning -I am writing in long-hand what I plan to write to you later, and voila, here, typed - it's a fine day here in New Mills, Derbyshire, England and this is where I live. I wasn't born here, i was born in Madeira, and have lived in England for forty years with my family, however, I settled in New Mills some seven years ago, made some friends and stayed. New Mills is a small town, about a half hour train journey from Manchester, a major city in the North West of England. When I first moved to New Mills, I arrived by car and owned a rather smart Saab, 900, turbo, 2L, which I sold and there-from I explored the surrounding area by foot and became acquainted, after a along hiatus of not using public transport, with the locality's public transport system. It may be obvious and definitively a truism to say that becoming acquainted with the public realm - the reality of getting used to acquiring and using bus time tables, train time tables and so on and so forth, definitely places a person in a way that only conferring with people who work the local transport network in a special kind of reality. You quickly gain respect and learn to appreciate those who are working for our greater good and to learn to appreciate their place in our lives. I make friends very quickly, i don't mind speaking with people, and on a local bus, who knows who you will meet and perhaps, maybe even have an interesting conversation with, there are of course those instances where you are sitting quietly and the loud society around you suddenly emerge and start shouting out their excruciatingly uninteresting and uneventful lives, being rude, swearing, that is most definitely a reality you could do without, and your journey could even prove to be dangerous. I don't know about you, but i'm the kind of person who must say something and not sit passively by as expletives are flying around you, and i must here admit this i often found to be a good way to try out my head teacher's skills and obtain an apology from the lout in question of a previous moments earlier who realiased suddenly that red face followed by apology for rudeness means embarrassment followed by the silence all of us passengers craved. The bus driver, if you're on a bus is a one man island and he is not shifting from that position, passengers either have to take it or lump it, i must say, quite often i would bring attention of the driver to the rude infantile passengers by saying to them i would report rudness to the driver, which sometimes worked. Taking a bus or train journey can certainly lead you into a completely different world to the one you glimpse from the privacy of your car. It can be worth the sacrifice such as the one I took to sell my car, I had such convivial thoughts as contributing to the better being of my local environment, helping to reduce tax revenues, improving our island's currency by not buying expensive fuel and so on to a whole plethora of philanthropic ideas that came to mind. That was in 2007, and apart from a brief ownership, in 2008, of a three litre Lexus I saw on the forecourt of a friend who has a dealership in motor vehicles, and then sold to my older brother after five months ownership, and newly acquired muscles, steering a three litre vehicle is no mean fete, which now my brother too appreciates, however he has grown to love it in a way i never could, and became vehicle-less for the next four years. However, on the appointed day of 23rd of December, 2012, it came to me, as I waited over an hour, yet again, for a bus I was on time for - I appreciate the weather was merciless and the sheer volume of traffic which did not help, however, I began to think in terms of sitting in a warm vehicle and attending to my business at my own pace rather than being restricted to bus time arrivals and departures. Seeing a stream of contented enough drivers drive past me as I stood at my passion-less bus stop, in their nice warm vehicles was also a swaying point. In short, I am now the somewhat happy owner of a Peugeot 206, the same age the Saab would have been if I had kept it - it's ten years old, and after some maintenance, a little costly, however, but running, happily. Owning a vehicle again in a hiatus of four years or so has made a world of difference to my life. The pace of life is a little more contained, and I know I am not a huge friend of the earth by owning a running vehicle again, but I drive carefully, and am proud of the fact that i am a responsible 'parker' - I park responsibly, can accommodate my friends more freely by falling in with their time frames a little more - my dear writer, my little vehicle has made a world of difference to me; rather than following the 'oh - I'm keeping fit by walking more' brigade, as i did, that actually, driving a car instead of walking, and you may take comfort from my words too, if you too are a vehicle owner and driver, that driving instead saves your heart and your legs from undue pressure from the strain of walking everywhere. Do not be fooled by such interim ideas as those of the 'keep fit' industry. As drivers we keep mentally active, and plan our routes with meticulous care, and after a while can engage brain into assisted steering, routing automatically, rather than remaining passive - those of us who drive carefully, all of my co-writers here, I trust. So, car owner am I, taking a rest from driving today, and writing to you. If you have had a similar experience, do here share. Bye for now, and good driving and good writing. Angela De Freitas