I am not a soccer mom

(Olivia's still sitting waiting for her new heart/brain still.. it's been quiet here..)

I am not a soccer mom.

You see them driving their Discoveries and Range Rovers and Defenders every day, picking up the kids from school, taking them to their after-hours activities, going shopping, meeting the girls for coffee while the boys are out earning a living and paying off the cars/houses/holidays. Land Rovers shiny and comfortable, with carpets (!) and aircon (!!) and seatbelts all round.

They're the women who know nothing about the community and culture behind our trucks - these are merely big vehicles that can carry the kids and their clobber, that mosey on through traffic and do what they do. The most mud they see is the pothole where the roadworks are going on.

And they don't wave back.

They don't even see other Landies on the road! A car is a car is a car.

But I am not a soccer mom. I may be seen more often lately in a Discovery 2 (while Olivia's on holiday), but I'm not one of that crowd.

The truck I'm driving works for a living, earns its keep, and is cursed at / coaxed along as one of the family (as a proper Land Rover should be). I've knocked my head on its diffs, burnt my arms on its exhaust pipe, and wound duct tape around a hose to limp home. I've fed it diesel and antifreeze (probably in equal amounts), prayed it to life in the morning and treated it now and then to an annual car-wash.

I am not a soccer mom. I wave at Land Rovers. Indiscriminately. Series, Discos, Rangies, Defenders - they all get the wave.

But perhaps I look like a soccer mom, because everything from a Discovery up mostly doesn't wave back.