Wild Rover

Often, to seal the deal, Calculus will take the passenger seat of Wild Rover, the Kommune’s road scarred Land Rover, which means i get to drive to school.

The passenger door must be yanked to open it. i do this and crawl in first since the driver’s door is fixed shut with ratchet straps. Niggling but forgivable defects when you consider the vehicle’s date of manufacture: 1948!

It brings certain advantages: an exemption from road tax and the Retrospective Vehicle License Act. This applies only to vehicles licensed after 1950 with the Law insisting they be fitted with computer regulated electric engines and G.P.S. (To have us bend to ecological imperatives or for the convenience of spysters?) i am unbothered by Wild Rover’s road scarred battered appearance, the recalcitrant doors or the jerky way twiglet thin wipers operate on the stone fissured windscreen, for they cleanse nonetheless any obscuring drops of rain.

Wild Rover runs on a combo of sunflower oil and Reymond’s mechanical know-how. The oil, furtively acquired from a local farmer, makes the exhaust fumes smell of rotten eggs, but there is no fuel alternative. In winter Wild Rover takes to the winding mountain roads, clocking up the kilometres. Calculus contends that Wild Rover, seldom driven in the summer, is an ephemeral polluter.

Driving to school is but a monthly occurrence but it is on a weekly basis that Wild Rover transports logs to the châteaux. Logs being our main source of heat, coming from an ancient wood of tangled oaks. An administration oversight means the woods’ deeds come with commoners’ rights.

The vehicle has enlarged bumpers (scuffed and scratched) to resist the impact of wild boars blinded by headlamps. Once Wild Rover struck a deer when Calculus had been at the wheel. The animal’s agonising death really getting to him. Nonetheless, he brought the road kill to Koockie who was on cooking duties that day. High on no less than six cumulative K-hits, Koockie prepared the evening meal with, according to Calculus, ‘unseemly relish.’ This upset Koockie.

– My sauce goes very well with grilled venison.

i too was affected by the deer’s unnatural demise. Never mind the wolves. The truly dangerous animals are those in a speeding vehicle. On the roads there is no peacetime.