Displaced in Mullingar:'My little Ford Ka wasn't to last long in Co Westmeath,' writes Michael Harding. It didn't cut much of a dash when sandwiched between the jeeps.

I was sitting on a bench in Mullingar Railway Station with a ticket for Dublin, and thinking about the ozone layer. I must have looked depressed, because a man in an anorak and a deeply sensual lower lip smiled straight at me.

It beats driving up the motorway, said he. He was talking about the Dublin train. This is the week everybody goes to Dublin for the Christmas shopping. You can leave before nine, scrum in the aisles all day long, and be back on the platform at Mullingar not long after six.

I have the jeep, he said, but I never use it.

I said the jeeps are heavy on the juice. Not good for the environment.

He said it makes no difference what size the vehicle is. It's how often you use it that matters. The secret of Mullingar he said is that it's close to everywhere else. Mullingar is the Prague of the New Ireland, he said.

He glanced at me with the corner of his eye. If you consider all the roads that intersect in and around this town, he said, you could say that it was the hub for all travel in and around Ireland, in the way Prague is the hub for lots of European cities. So if you live in the hub, you cut your travel distance to anywhere else, by half.

That, said he, is a significant saving on gasoline!

Is it Prague or Zurich is the hub in Europe? I asked.

Well, he said, it's one or the other. Athlone, he conjectured would be our Zurich.

You know your Europe well, I commented.

I have boys from Dubrovnik working for me, said he. They'd learn ye!

You're not long in Mullingar, added anorak man, now taking out a Silvermint to suck with his sensual mouth, arranging himself on the bench, and making me fear that he might stick to me for the entire trip to Connolly.

No, I admitted, I'm new in town.

He sucked the mint and stared out into the middle distance like a detective.

So what do you think of it so far? he whispered.

So far so good, said I, except that people drive very zippy up and down the streets and around the roundabouts. I think sometimes maybe all the drivers are 25-year-old males.

What are you driving, he asked.

Well, said I, when I came first I was driving a Ford Ka.

Ah for frig sake!, said he.

The thought of such a tiny vehicle left him speechless. Jaysus! A Ford Ka! The wife has one of them yokes!

And he walked off down the platform to the front of the train before I could finish me sentence.

The fact is, my little Ford Ka didn't last long in Westmeath. To be fair, it was great on juice. Up to 70 on the motorway. Great leg room in the front and head room for the tall driver.

But after a week in Mullingar, I was eyeing it with treachery.

Because a Ford Ka doesn't cut much of a dash when it is sandwiched between the jeeps of Westmeath. And in the storm of last weekend I'd be afraid a Ford Ka would get lost in a puddle, or be squashed by a twig.

On the morning I finally abandoned the Ka, Mullingar was enduring a fierce lash of winter - windy gusts playing havoc with brollies on the street, coffee shops full of steaming damp customers.

A lady in a Toyota passed me on Harbour Street, and landed a dirty big gallon of gutter water on my trousers.

I didn't even go home to change. I marched straight out to a garage on the Castlepollard road, a swanky garage, with a waiting area and armchairs and a coffee machine, and I told the salesman that I too wanted a jeep.

I might tell people that I bought the jeep to pull a horsebox. Or I might pretend that I need it to bring theatre shows to Prague.

But the truth is, I cracked because it rained, and I wanted something nice.

Sometimes, at night, I stare out my window at the streetlights of Mullingar. The lamps of moving vehicles hunting for pizzas and curries and traditional chips along Dominic Street.

No sign of Santa Claus yet, except for my beautiful Pajero in the car-park. And it's too early to hear reindeer on the rooftops.

But somewhere above those storm-filled clouds, the ozone layer over Mullingar is still hurting.