BLAME the driving rain, blame my daydream of summer, blame the race for Tory leadership on the radio... the dirty deed was done.
My friend would not bother her head about such a thing. Once, a man in a car park drove straight out in front of her and she took issue in a friendly way.
"You’ve a cheek," he cried. "That car of yours has more hits than the Bee Gees."
"Have a nice day," she told him.
But I have a thing about my car – it’s an extension of me. When a sea gull targets it, that bird targets me. This happens quite a lot about these parts. Some say that it is lucky. I’d cast aside my recent vegan principles for a day just to get a gun and shoot that gull down.
"Sea gulls have nothing on Brent geese," my son tells me. He works in an office near the docks and the geese tramp about in hobnail boots on the roof of the building... an army of storm troopers on a raid.
But I do so love my car. Scratching it is like the first time you drop your baby and the world falls round your ears. I hate when drivers treat their cars like mechanical machines, they rough handle the gears or jam on brakes. "One finger is enough to change any gear," I tell our boy.
Driving the city these days is dangerous. Indicators are clearly old fashioned.
"Is it me or are there more eejits on the road?" I ask our fellas. Perhaps it’s an age thing.
Last week, a taxi driver swerved across two lanes and out in front of me causing my car to stop itself. It has this emergency brake system and it shouts at you when other cars get too close. Remember the robot from Lost in Space who cried "Danger! Danger! Warning! Warning!"? It’s a bit like that.
I'll hand it to the taxi driver. He rolled down his window and cried: "It was an accident. I apologise."
The young woman who threw open two car doors into oncoming traffic was not so quick to say sorry. "It’s a busy street!" she cried. Later, fuming from the comfort of my sofa, I wanted to ask: "Where, in the Highway Code, is there a rule that makes it acceptable to throw open your driver’s door into oncoming traffic without looking?"
But the moment is past. It is lost.
And the pain of the scratches on the back wheel of my new little car is fading too. I have rubbed them and washed them and polished them. I shall bring the car to my wonderful mechanic and all will be well. But it hurts.
And it reminds of the other dents and bashes – the other times in long ago cars.
It reminds me of tense moments in the driving seat.
It is 40 years since my father and I drove out into the countryside with me, a learner, at the wheel. We met a farmer herding his cows down a country road. Their big bellies swayed from side to side as they dandered along. "Hup, hup, hup," said the farmer.
I froze in the car, both hands on the wheel. "Drive on, drive on," said daddy.
But I was not for budging. That was our last driving lesson together.
Later, a driving instructor and I had a shouting battle when he asked me to take the first right off a roundabout. "There is no right off a roundabout!" I told him.
And later still, I made a mistake that left me stranded in a broken car on the corner of a street in Ballymena at 9pm on a summer's evening. So many kind people stopped to sympathise. When the recovery truck arrived, the driver took one look at me and said: "It’s just a lump of metal and nobody’s hurt." I nearly cried on his shoulder.
Now, my new lump of metal has its first ding. I can’t pass it without having a look in the hope that the scratches might have disappeared by magic.
They haven’t.
Life gives you scars, I suppose.
