A few days ago, I mentioned a plan to purchase a van, my idea of the perfect vehicle for taking myself, ChoccyMuffin and the bikes to galaxies far, far, away for a spot of turfing. However, the plan for a van is no more. Same as Methil, in the song*, you know. No, the van didn’t work out as it was not a sensible idea nor was the Landrover Defender 110 V8 either. Though I’m not sure why not.
Anyway, the van/Landrover has now morphed into an estate car, plenty room for two folding Brompton bikes or enough room for a full-size normal bike, just, though the fat bike might be something of an issue to resolve. So, what I collect on Monday is a 2026 Ford Focus ST-Line estate with just over 3300 miles on the clock. I won’t say how much it cost but it was around £10,000 cheaper than if I bought it new when it was first registered on 4th February 2026, just two months ago. Crazy, really.
I did consider an electric vehicle but too many negatives put me off. The main one was range, yes, that dreaded affliction we petrol-heads have in our feeble minds. I looked at a typical small EV like the Ford Puma or Volkswagen ID.3, both with an estimated range of 260 miles. However, should the temperature outside be around brass monkey level and you’ve got the heater on full blast to prevent any need for a welder, that range drops to around 180 miles, even less if you like using ICE, have the wipers on to see through the windscreen and the lights on to actually see where the road is at night and that’s not to mention heated windows/seat/steering wheel, sat nav, charging your mobile phone and so on and so forth. All require precious electrons from your battery.
Now, we had a trip to St Andrews recently for a wedding and more importantly, a spot of turfing. Let’s take that trip using an electric vehicle. It’s the middle of winter, and that means its bloody freezing, so range is already down to 180 miles. From home to St Andrews is about 60 miles, so that’s a 120-mile round trip, leaving only 60 miles spare capacity left in the battery. Which is not a lot.
Okay, so I can charge it up in St Andrews you say. Right, there are around 40 public charging stations in the city and St Andrews is hosting an international golf tournament, so none are available and those that are available are out-of-service or the wrong type for the car. See what I’m getting at? I’ll stick with fossil fuel for the time being, thank you very much.
There are a number of reasons why I wanted to purchase this car, the main one being to assist with my turfing adventures and also to replace the aging 15-year-old Fiesta I inherited from my mother which seems to require more work than it’s worth. But there also another reason, and that is to help myself and ChoccyMuffin achieve the UK Explorer medal which requires at least one zone to be taken in all 12 of the UK regions. And not forgtting the Pentaregion Star (5 regions required) and the Decaregion Star (10 regions required) medals as well.
We had a trip planned down to Worthing in West Sussex to visit a friend of Cathryn’s, and decided to plan the outwards and return journeys to take in as many of the 12 UK regions as we could. The Ford Focus estate will not only be far more comfortable than our wee Fiesta but also has oodles of space for the Brompton’s and all our other turfing gear.
Of the 12 regions required we each already have 3 regions, Scotland, North East England and North West England. Travelling down the east coast and stopping off in Durham, Lincoln, Cambridge, London and Worthing will give us Yorkshire and The Humber, East Midlands, East of England, Greater London and South East England.
On the return up the west side of the UK, we plan to stay in Gloucester, Chester, Liverpool and Carlisle, with these giving us South West England, Wales and the West Midlands. The alert observer will have noticed we are still short of one region, that being Northern Ireland, which we will do on a separate trip. By the way, the name for our UK Explorer trip is the Premier Inn Grand tour. No prizes for guessing where we will be staying? Hope to post a full report on our return. Back soon.
*Letter From America, The Proclaimers.
Copyright ©2026 Gary Buckham. All rights reserved.
