While I do drive a rather large car, it’s too big and cumbersome to be looked upon as fashionable and chic. More like a white elephant that we will have to endure until it falls apart at the seams.

I could quite happily see myself in Peugeot’s rather magnificent 4007 which would make me feel rather at home with all the yummy mummys in their large, expensive vehicles. We have quite a few where we live which is a very pleasant, normal area. But come the weekend it becomes transformed into yummy parent land. The weekly farmers market seems to bring them out in droves.

Goodness knows where they actually live as you never see them wandering the streets during the week, or walking their little darlings to school. They’re all off in their enormous gas guzzling cars polluting the air and blocking the roads on their way to the private schools.

I feel our local school is a rather well kept secret. It might be a huge ugly Victorian building and normally receives a dreadful Ofsted report, but the kids love it as much as the parents that send them there. I was in our local Starbucks not long ago and overheard a conversation between the staff. Apparently they like to do things for our local school as they perceive it to be poor and deprived. Nearly choked on my latte. On the other hand let them think that – all the more resources for us, and I can do a good poor and deprived!

Anyway, after grabbing my coffee I jumped into the car to do some household shopping, only to be faced by a yummy daddy – obviously had the day off work or ‘in between’ jobs – blocking the exit to our road with his huge, black 4×4, door open, drinking his coffee and chatting on the phone.

He completely ignored me and carried on chatting. I had an irrisistable urge to peep my horn very loudly in the hope that he would jump and spill his coffee all down his nicely pressed Jermyn Street shirt. However, my mother brought me up to say ‘excuse me’ politely, which is what I did. It went unheard and I sat there patiently until he was ready to move on. I’ll never change, and by the looks of things nor will he.

Now maybe if I had been in a 4007 with its bold, delicious looks bejeweled with chrome he might have taken notice. But there again maybe it just doesn’t produce enough CO2 to compete….

To me it smacks of being out of control and has the potential to be highly dangerous. I still have in the back of my mind my father telling me the tale of someone’s cruise control getting stuck with disastrous consequences. Where he’d heard such nonsense I’ve no idea, but it still spooked me to the point where I’ve gone for 30 years of driving never having operated this button.

Very recently, I stepped out of my comfort zone and pressed it. I actually felt I had very little choice in the matter. I’d been given strict instructions and a practical demonstration – while the car was stationary, so not that practical – by tech man Paul. I was preparing for my journey north with three kids and two cats in tow – alone again as John, true to form, was playing the absent father.

The kids have stopped asking and I failed to recognise his voice this morning when he phoned.

Poor boy, he works so hard, but we seem to be the only ones reaping the benefits. I’ll phone him tomorrow – that will make him happy, and let him know what a fun time we’re having without him in sunny Derbyshire.

The car we had to test was a delicious looking red Honda CR-V. Leather throughout, camera to help when reversing and the aforesaid cruise control with an added twist. Paul reliably informed me that once the speed and the distance between my car and the one in front was set, then I should sit back and enjoy the ride!

Skeptical being my middle name and the fact that I’ve always dismissed cruise as a lazy man’s choice, I thought I give it a go for a couple of miles and them resort to driving the car myself.

I always like to be in control, possibly because I never am, but here the car was in control and it completely freaked me out. However, I did manage it for the majority of my three hour journey, despite the heavy traffic and the constant distraction of the cats crying. The kids for once were quiet.

I was surprised at the cats as I did feel the ride was smoother than normal because of the cruise control. The car gently slowed down and accelerated as cars came and went in my path. Just think, if everyone used this, the traffic would just flow.

It’s a very odd having both feet planted firmly on the floor feeling rather redundant. It’s easy to disengage the whole thing with a press of the brake or the accelerator, but this was rarely needed as I began to trust the car and its amazing technology.

While I still don’t feel 100 % comfortable with the whole notion of ‘over to you car’ I can see the attraction and for once I arrived at my destination without a sore right leg – just sore ears from the by now hoarse cats!

BMW X1 sDrive 20d SE (6 speed) £24,205

I’m still undecided about the looks of this car. Are they just bold, or is it a disaster? A bit of this and a bit of that all stuck together. If so, then I know how it feels – and that’s on a good day…

However, despite my quandary about its appearance, it still made me feel like a BMW should make you feel. Special. Luxuriating in the quality, style (yes it does have style) and sheer poshness (just shows how un-posh I am) while I was driving it, it certainly makes you feel good about yourself.

And on top of all this, it does have a practical side. It’s comfortable, has a great driving position and a boot that can swallow up huge amounts of goodies! So with that lovely mix of practicality and image, I felt I was using it to the best of its abilities.

As I sped up the M1 for lunch in Woburn with my lover, a huge shopping load discreetly hidden in the boot, with smaller, more expensive purchases carefully hidden in the space beneath the flat loading floor the car and I looked a million dollars. “In your dreams”, I hear you say. So true. However, I didn’t look too bad for a woman of my age and a lunch date was with my husband. Car and driver fitted in well at the country pub, even if it did take my husband a few seconds to realise it was me waving madly at him as I pulled up outside the restauran

But looking through the restaurant’s windows I did have to admit again that it was an odd looking vehicle Although its looks had grown on me with every mile I drove that might have been the lovely driving experience influencing my thoughts. It has a very long bonnet and the roof seems somewhat squashed. I feel as if the whole thing needs to be pumped up a bit and shortened – but then we’d have an X3, or an X5. It’s a problem.

So where does it fit in with BMW’s line up and why is it needed? BMW say it’s their first compact SUV, being more affordable than other BMW models. It’s not an off-roader, although it claims to be able to cope with rougher terrain that your average car. There again, there is nothing average about hits car, with its looks, great fuel economy (over 50 mpg) and low CO2 emission (139 g/km) and the first X model with the fabulous stop/start function which gives a 3% improvement in fuel economy and is such fun to use, frightening friends and family alike.

It will turn heads, but whether due to admiring glances or sheer curiosity it’s hard to know. I was sad to see it go at the end of the week. And one of the advantages to having rather heavy steering (something I only fully discovered when forced to drive back and forward in front of the camera, endlessly doing u-bends and reversing) was that it definitely tightened up my biceps. Not something I would necessarily look for in a car, but hey, got to fight those bat wings somehow!