Catching Up

Well time again allows me to add yet another piece of literary ramblings to my slowly evolving Blog.

Heather has been and gone and the four of us [to include our spouses of course] had a very enjoyable evening together. Heather bought some family photos for us all to look at and even after all these years and when you have reached the age that you begin to think there is not much family history that is unknown, I was very surprised to be presented with a photo of my grandmother, taken to our best collective guess we think sometime around the early or mid twenties, of her and some others [who sadly we are unable to identify] as being a passenger on the Queen Mary. A lot of talking about various relations, cousins, mothers, aunts and grand parents and it seems now that every sentence or part of the conversation began............... "Do you remember.................or.........When you went in the door the room on the right"............

This was followed by a meal at the Hamilton Russell Inn where Heather and her husband Les were very impressed by the home made steak and kidney pudding, mash and accompanied by what is known these days in the restaurant trade as seasonal vegetables. I was able to give Heather a copy of John [Jack] Lyons’ [her grandfather] Army service papers showing details of his service from being a member of the 3rd Suffolk Battalion Militia in 1900 to enlisting as a regular in 1902 into the Army Service Corps and his eventual discharge late in 1919. It contains some very interesting reading and some very valuable information and Heather has now discovered for the first time, thirty seven years after his death at the ripe old age of eighty six, that he had tattoos, and who said genealogy was not interesting.

I collected the new car on Monday 1st September to coincide with the issue of the new registration number. We had started to look around for a new car about three months ago. After much time spent on the internet looking at various models we had by early August whittled the choice down to two main contenders and we then proceeded to arrange a test drive of each.

Our requirements in any car are primarily that of reasonable fuel consumption, not I should hasten to add because I have some overwhelming urge to save the planet, rather that I am careful where money is concerned and I have always demanded good value for my money in all things and do not see why I should own a car that would not deliver at least mid thirties to low forties miles per gallon. After a test drive in each it bought us to a stalemate, we liked both vehicles and each met many of our requirements, though each had their own good and bad points, on balance each was a car we were happy to own, it all now came down to costs.

The first dealer offered a fair price for trade in of our old car and then did very little else to persuade us to purchase a new car from him, to be fair there was after a lot of haggling a small reduction in the list price but hardly what in hindsight I might call a deal breaker. We visited the second dealership the same afternoon and were very impressed to find that almost immediately we were offered a price reduction off the list price, this added to about the same offer for trade in made this car a good deal. I was just about to agree to the deal and shake hands when I must have sounded a little hesitant and the dealer then added a further reduction off the list price. We signed and agreed the deal straight away before the dealer changed his mind, we agreed the colour and delivery date and that was that.

I have had the car now for five days and I have say I like it, there are some very quirky items that I am still coming to terms with like auto rain sensing wipers and auto lights, that come on when the ambient light gets low and turn off when it brightens up, but I think it is fun.