BECAUSE LIFE IS FOR LAUGHING

Someone Started Building a Cob House Onto The Outside of My Car

Thanks but no thanks

Cob houses are constructed using clay sub-soil, straw and water. It is an ancient method of construction and one that is found all over the World. — The Self-Build Guide

It was one of those rare mornings that I leapt into gear with one thought on my mind — time to clean the car.

When I say ‘rare,’ what you need to understand is that there are a lot of factors that must be in place that are not necessarily within my control: the weather must be dry (this is Devon, where it rains at least a millimetre of rain 135 days per year); it needs to be a day when I don’t have a packed schedule (I definitely have a packed schedule at least 135 days per year); it needs to be a day when I haven’t just washed my hair, because I ain’t getting dust and shit in it when it’s all nicely spick and span (I wash my hair around 97.333333333 days per year).

Okay, I realise that last point is more within my control than the others, but there’s nothing worse than getting dressed after a shower and hair wash, only to realise that everything else lined up to be the perfect day to clean the car, if only you had waited with the hair washing. And that kinda happens a lot.

So, to sum up, I clean the car very rarely.

But, today was the day…

First I tackled the inside. I found…

• dust
• dog hair
• mud
• empty water bottles
• empty Haribo packets
• empty crisp packets
• cookie crumbs
• melted Skittles
• more dust
• more dog hair
• more mud.

I swept off the seats and the carpets. I vacuumed the seats and the carpets. I swept off all the dust on the dashboard, and then dusted off the remaining dust from the dashboard.

I scrubbed down all the plastic surfaces, the gear stick, the steering wheel and the insides of the doors. I washed the screens on the dash and the stereo, and the inside of all the windows.

And finally, I washed down the mud-splattered inside door edges, and the points on the body of the car where they meet.

And that was when I saw it.

Someone…some nasty piece of work…had been putting layers of cob onto the outside of my car.

Now, this is Devon, where it rains 135 days per year (over a millimetre of rain). And I live on the edge of Dartmoor, where I go driving to take my son to school and/or walk the dogs and/or take my daughter to her pub job most days.

I get mud splattered on my car regularly. And I do take my car to the jet wash far more often than I clean the inside, because of said mud.

But I know mud. And this was no ordinary mud.

I have learnt lots about self-build eco houses over the years, especially in my days of living on a permaculture(ish) farm in Cornwall, and I recognised this shit the minute I saw it.

As I say, it was no ordinary mud. It was solid-as-fuck house-building material, complete with its clay-like consistency and the straw mixed in.

SOMEOME HAS BEEN BUILDING A COB HOUSE ONTO MY CAR!

Now, I assume someone has it in for me and I’m not sure who.

Perhaps it was a neighbour who heard me playing my bagpipes one day, in which case, I’m sorry about the random high-pitched screeching but they obviously need a service.

It’s the pipes, not my playing…

But really, to attempt to house me inside my car and seal it with cob, never to be able to escape again is taking things a bit far, isn’t it?

I mean, we can talk about these things. I’ll even let you hold the talking stick for longer if you really want.

But no, you’ve got to go one step further and secure me in a separate place from where my bagpipes are.

Or perhaps it’s just some jokester who has nothing better to do. To be fair, there’s not much to do in these little Dartmoor towns, so who’d blame them?

Anyway, something had to be done.

I used the remainder of the soapy water from cleaning the inside of my car to try to soften that cob. It had some effect but the vast majority was still solid and stuck fast.

So, off to the jet wash it was.

As I approached, I was disappointed to see that someone was already there. And a man, no less.

I only hoped and prayed that, despite it being a man, it wasn’t a man with either a Porsche, a Jaguar, or an Audi. Had it been, I knew I would be there waiting for a very long time while he washed and shined every tiny corner of his pride and joy.

Did you know that a man with any of those cars takes a minimum of twenty-five minutes? To wash his car, I mean!

However, this guy with his slightly fancy-looking but obviously cheaper car took only around eight minutes (to wash his car, I mean), so I didn’t have to wait too long.

And then it was my turn.

Now, you might think we women take a long time. But when we get to the jet wash, we don’t hang around. Nor do we consider our cars worth spending our time or pound coins on making them shine to perfection.

So, normally, six to nine minutes does me fine. At the jet wash, I mean.

But when we’re talking about cob on your car, there’s no end to the scrubbing and rinsing.

Twelve vigorous minutes (of washing) later, I gave up. It was enough. I’d done a good enough job.

There was still a tiny bit of cob on the body, with most, but not all, removed from the wheel arches. And for some reason, bits of mud and straw ended up in all sorts of odd places.

But the main thing was, I was no longer in danger of being sealed into my car. And here I am not only to tell the tale, but telling the tale.

So the morals of this story are…

• Don’t let yourself get cobbed in(to) your car.
• Don’t annoy the neighbours.
• Live somewhere where people have better things to do than use locally-sourced resources to play nasty tricks on others.

Or maybe…stick to driving on clean roads in a country where it rains a little less, at least during hay-cutting season.