We have a new car. An electric one. A Citroen e-C4. It’s in line with our company policy: being climate neutral, and helping biodiversity. Yet, I have to admit, we’re sad to let Berlinga go.
Berlinga is our Citroen Berlingo. Sara had the feeling the car was female, so she gave her a female name. We don’t care about cars to be honest. Brand, type, it’s all the same for us. A car has to bring you from A to B, that’s it.
Green car
Well, not totally. A car has to be green, preferably. But when we bought Berlinga, there was not that much choice in green cars. Maybe here in the Netherlands, but we bought her on Tenerife. That’s probably also the reason we’re sad to let Berlinga go, because it’s a car with a story.
See, we lived on Tenerife for over a year. It’s a nice island, for a holiday. Not to live. At least, not for us. We missed culture, we missed yoga and we missed being close to Italy. Tenerife belongs to Spain, but is located for the coast of Morocco. To get to Milan, outside the high season, we always had to fly over Madrid. Not very environmentally friendly.
Backpackers with a video camera
When we left Tenerife to live on the mainland of Spain, we were still backpackers. Yet, backpackers with a lot of film equipment, yoga mats and some props, as we have an online yoga platform; La Scimmia Yoga. So how to move all of that to the Spanish countryside?
Well, we needed a car in Spain anyway, as we were going to live in the middle of nowhere. So we decided to buy one on Tenerife, pack everything in it and move. And a car that fits everything is …. a Citroen Berlingo. A perfect country car.
Yoga books
I’ve told you the story of how we moved from Tenerife to mainland Spain, by ferry. Four years later we left everything behind again, except for our yoga books and camera gear. Only this time we had acquired a bit more. So we sent 8 boxes with books by transport company to the Netherlands. The rest, including the cat, fitted easily in Berlinga. And faithful as always, she brought us home.
That’s why we’re sad to let Berlinga go. She has been such a faithful car. Yet, we want to move on. We love Berlinga, but we also love Mother Earth. The Aborigines once taught me: The earth is not ours, we just take care of it for the next generation.
We might not have children, but we do feel responsible to pass on a beautiful, healthy earth to the next generation. That’s why we exchanged Berlinga – a diesel – for an electric car, and that’s why we’re getting solar panels. But they will come later. Today is new car day.
