Mercedes Man

Last Thursday morning found us in a large shopping mall in Somerset West about 25 miles outside Cape Town. We’d stopped there for coffee before going on to have lunch with friends in the town and as I waited outside a shop for Sue, who should walk by but Dave Edwards, a member of CCK Brighton - talk about a global village. Dave actually has some property in South Africa and so was over on a visit. My mind immediately flashed back to a very kind offer that Dave had made to me shortly before we came out to Cape Town. He said, ‘I have a Mercedes in a garage in Somerset West, you would be very welcome to use it while you are in South Africa.’ Well I wasn’t going to turn down an offer of a Mercedes (not that I had ever been offered one before) but I said to David I ought just to check with Steve Van Rhyn. Steve leads the Jubilee Church and I thought that David’s offer could save Jubilee some money as they were probably going to hire a car for us, so it seemed almost certain that we’d go with David. When I had a chat with Steve at the Brighton Conference the conversation went something like this. Steve said, ‘Well we’ve been able to arrange a car for you’. “Great’, I said, “And it’s a Mercedes”. ‘Yes’, said Steve, ‘But how did you know’? Feeling this was a slightly strange question I said, ‘Tell me your story”. It turned out that a member of Jubilee had wanted to trade in his car and get a new one, he couldn’t get a decent price for the old one and so gave it to Jubilee. And it was another Mercedes. So with two Mercedes on offer Sue could see us driving both cars around the city. However, I assured her that only one was necessary, which of course she understood to be entirely reasonable, and so we settled on the Jubilee Mercedes.

Now it is a Mercedes, but it is very small. I think it may have been manufactured during a steel shortage and so they only had enough material to make the front of the car, but not the back. In fact it is so short and stumpy that it does not have any back wheels, just two sets of front wheels. However it has a large engine for the size of the vehicle and is very comfortable in front and so we whizz around Cape Town at high speed. Also because it is so small we can park it on a Rand in very small spaces, so it actually has many advantages. 

Anyway back to David in the Somerset Mall who informed me that his (rather larger Mercedes) has been stolen after thieves broke into his house and garage. So now I was torn between feelings of some relief that we didn’t choose to go with David’s car, because it might not have been there when we went to collect it, and feelings of guilt in that had we collected it we might have saved it from being stolen!

Last Friday was British Pub Quiz night at Jubilee, which was great fun although our table didn’t exactly distinguish itself with its general knowledge. We could could hardly name one of ten pop songs from the 1980s and what was particularly disturbing was that in the science section the 2 medical doctors on our table were taking some time to agree on the name of a tube that passes from one part of the body to another. Be very afraid. We eventually came in at 19th in the competition despite the best efforts of doctors, lawyers, accountants and actuaries all assembled on our table. We sped off home in our Mercedes.

We had a busy day on Sunday with a preach at the Bay Community Church in the South of Cape Town led by our good friend Jeff Kidwell with his wife Viv and then zipping back to more central Cape Town to join Jubilee for its Fun Day held in the superb grounds of a local school. It was during this particular zip that the car developed an increasingly loud whining sound. But you know what it’s like when you develop a pain in a tube in your body, how the pain disappears as soon as you enter the doctor’s waiting room. So, as soon as I got a mechanic from Jubilee to sit in the car the noise miraculously disappeared.

On Monday, in our whine free car, we drove around the spectacular Cape Point right at the bottom of the African Continent ( for the benefit of those who are passionate for accuracy, yes, I know about Cape Agulhas being even a smidge further South). The challenge of this beautiful area is the many large and rather terrifying baboons that roam there. Four years ago, when last there, as I got out of the car a baboon got into the car and sat in the driving seat next to Sue. I remember telling this story in CCK and even now I hear Dave Fellingham calling out from the Elders bench - ‘how did she tell the difference?’ Anyway, no trouble this time and we had a great afternoon.

Dave Edwards is coming to dinner next Monday. I expect he’s had to hire a car as his has been stolen and no doubt it will be a rather cheap economical model to keep costs down. I just hope he doesn’t park too near to where we are staying, after all we have got a Mercedes parked outside the front door.

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