My New Car

Having moved back to the UK, I am ok for a while with Debbie off school for the summer, but we both realised that when she is back at work, or for me to get to work (should a job come along), I will need a car of my own.

Since I don’t have any money coming in right now, and we are on a tight budget, with Debbie not having much money spare each month, we decided on a budget for a car, expecting to end up with a small basic old car to just see us through until we do have some money.

Debbie did some searching on the internet, and miraculously found a really nice car for a low price.  It’s a Rover 45 Connoisseur , 2002, 60,000 miles, a 2litre V6 engine, and it’s been really well looked after.   Expecting to have to drive a manual (stick shift) and have no frills, I have a car like I have got used to with air conditioning, electric windows, cruise control, electric mirrors etc.  It’s also a 4-door, which is great, since Debbie’s is only a 2-door, and it’s hard to get people in and out of the back.

Surprisingly enough, over here in the UK lower end cars that are more economical to run cost more, and everywhere we looked the alternative to this nice car was an older low end one with higher mileage, which didn’t make sense to us.

The only downside is that it’s classified as an “old man’s car”, not a sporty model, but that’s perfect for us.  We both prefer a car that is comfortable, spacious and a smooth ride.

Well here it is, the new addition to our family…

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HAPPY NEW YEAR

For New Years Eve we thought about going out somewhere, maybe a pub, but then we are often quite happy to head up to bed before midnight, and pubs on New Years Eve are full of loud drunken people in groups; it’s not so much fun for a couple on their own.   And so we decided to stay in, catch up on the web and watch television.  Boring maybe, but for us it was the best decision.

While I was working on putting the finishing touches together on this, our new blog, Debbie was catching up on the soaps and repeats of Only Fools And Horses.

Then somehow we ended up watching several episodes of shows about Haunted Britain, one about caves where the Hell Fire Club used to meet was quite creepy at times.  And then at Five To Midnight we switched channels to watch the New Year Celebrations in London.   Since I have spend my New Years in the USA since 1993, I have been out of touch with the celebrations somewhat, other than seeing the ball drop in Times Square in New York, which doesn’t quite have the same appeal to me.  This year, however, not only did I get to listen to Big Ben chime in the New Year, the firework display that was centred around the London Eye on the Embankment was spectacular.   I have seen some impressive firework displays before around the world, but this was so dazzling and bright it overloaded the television cameras at times and it went on for a full 15 minutes.   It’s just sad of course to think of the many thousands of pounds it cost, but it was a truly brilliant display.

Today being New Years Day we didn’t just want to do nothing.  We laid in quite late, blogged around a while, then about midday grabbed a bit to eat and went out to wash the car.  It had got quite dirty with all the rain in the last couple of months, and I was going to do it for Debbie earlier in the week, but it was absolutely frigid outside.  Today was milder though.  Still cold but bearable.  So we washed the car, then decided to go for a walk along the river.  The way we went took us for a good 3 mile trek along the river bank and up and around various woods and fields.  We passed several pubs along the way, and the smell of the food made us really hungry, but we pressed on regardless.  It was really nice, and helped us work up quite an appetite, which we satisfied with a nice warming Cottage Pie when we got back.

Right now we are just sitting catching up on all the HAPPY NEW YEAR messages on all the sites we subscribe to, and will maybe have an early night.  Maybe…