Farewell Dear Friend 💔😭

Today, the inevitable has finally happened. Even 10 years after it probably should have happened, and having captured all the photos + videos I could think of to memorialize its memory, it's still been a very hard few days... 😭

 

 

This is one of my favourite photos of my beloved 1988 Toyota Corolla ("White Car"), that we've had for 30 years this year (i.e. 1996 - 2026).  This photo was taken on the morning that I headed back to campus to submit my thesis back in 2017.

 

It was: 

* 1st car I helped to pick out (though not the 1st one I've ever known;  The alternative to this White Toyota Corolla was a Silver Hyundai Hatchback)

* The 1st car I ever drove (on Christmas Day in an empty carpark at the Uni, as a Christmas treat)
* Learned to drive in
* Passed my license tests in
* The 1st car I took on my first full solo outing after getting my restricted (i.e. a trip to Sockburn Post Office to pick up some Big Buck Bunny DVD's, before heading to school)
* Has been with me from Primary School until after graduating with my PhD...

As much as I never wanted to part with it, realistically, it's probably time it really has to go:
* The garage is leaking + literally falling apart now, and needs urgent repairs

* Realistically, I do not have the skills (or contortionist agility) to be going about trying to maintain an old car like this - between all the regular mechanical fixes + also preventative maintenance stuff you need to do to keep old vehicles in a good condition...

* I haven't been able to drive it the last few years after the battery died, we missed a WOF (surprisingly, also the 16th of September, as I just learned this morning), and then the fuel ran dry... Getting it back from that state will be hard!

* Then, a few years ago, some rodent activity doubly put paid to any hope there - as now even the interior would need a good deep clean and strip out perhaps...   (i.e. A rat managed to get into the trunk, built a nest, and gorged itself through several bags of rice, noodles, and oatmeal! We had to leave poison in the trunk to kill it, but then we ended up seeing the thing dragging the bait through the rear seats, leaving bait crumbs + shit trails)

* A few days ago, we have now also cancelled the registration on it...

BUT STILL...

* I couldn't bring myself to say goodbye almost a decade ago, even after taking it on multiple cross city photoshoots in different seasons in key memorable locations

* Even now, I started bawling taking a last bunch of photos of it yesterday...

* I'm sad that it will forever have run just shy of a few big round numbers - 29.8 since the last time I put in petrol (so just shy of 30), and 199,922 on the odometer (i.e. just shy of 200,000)

* The part that gets me the most is that: Once it's gone, once this specific one is gone, I can never get it back.  (Getting a similar one, if any still exist, can never be the same). So, if it's gone, even if I later end up with a much better way to be able to keep it (I.e. a shed on an empty paddock near the city would do), it's something I cannot undo... 😭😭😭 

 

~~~

I'll probably put together a proper memorial post for it later, but for now, I'll close this one with one final precious memory...

 

One of my favourite photos of it - Taken back on a Saturday afternoon in February 2018, when I took it on a photo tour of a bunch of memorable locations.  This used location used to be an empty paddock beside the cemetery where grandma is buried.  (It's now a retirement village). I had once dreamed of buying that land and keeping my car in a shed on that land (if I ever got rich enough one day).  Sadly, that's no longer possible...

 

Farewell dear friend.  Thank you for all the memories!  You are dearly missed!  💔😭