Who's Gonna Drive You Home Tonight?

Today's major accomplishment was buying a new car. The MOT and road tax on Peter have both just expired and, much as I like that car, the repairs necessary to keep it running were just not reasonable to pay for in a car of that age.

Normally, I would not wait until the day after my car became no longer legal to drive to start searching for its replacement. However, in the past eight days, I have procured a new job[*], a new cat, and now a new car. So one could say I have been just a tad busy.

In any case, things went far better than I had anticipated. A string of unlikely coincidences ended up in me finding a seemingly-reliable car that meets my needs -- red and possessing a sunroof -- while also meeting cheshcat's -- automatic transmission and a hatchback -- for a mere three hundred pounds.

To wit: I started the day looking at vehicles online. I found a place selling a Peugeot 406 for just under £600. My friend C bought this same car last year, so I rang him up to ask how he liked it. Turns out, he was working a half day and offered to come with me when I went to test drive the car. Nice! He knows quite a bit more about the innards of cars than I do, so his opinion would be welcome... as would the company!

After we got off the phone. I rang the dealer. Setback! The car would be available to see tomorrow, but not today. Hurm. While waiting for C to arrive, I scanned other cars online. For some reason, there are several Rover 400 series cars -- all green -- on the used market right now. I showed the listings to C when he arrived and explained how we could not see the Peugeot today. I suggested that we could look at a couple of the other cars, instead. His reply was completely unexpected: He said that if I liked the Rover 400, his dad had one that he was looking to sell cheaply, because he was simply not able to drive it anymore for health reasons.

We hopped in his car -- recall that mine is no longer street legal -- and drove half an hour to visit his father and the car. It does indeed seem reliable, it comes from a seller I trust, and at three hundred pounds, it was much cheaper than the £1300 that I was willing to pay for a replacement vehicle!

Somehow, I seem to have landed in a patch of very good luck. Quite randomly, the right vehicle -- at a ridiculously good price -- landed right in my lap. Somewhat reminiscent of how, three days after being rejected by the Battersea Dog and Cat Home, the right kitten ended up finding me last month. I have to say, after the cloud of dreadful luck that lingered from December through April, the change is quite welcome! A lot of very important pieces of my life were shattered in that time while the Universe seemed to want to use me as a punching bag. I won't recap the details here; those events have all been mentioned in this journal before. Now is a time for rebuilding... which I am very pleased to say is coming along quite nicely. It has taken much hard work... but those efforts are now coming to fruition.

In the evening, cheshcat and I celebrated by having wolfpeach over for gaming. We played Puerto Rico and Bohnanza. In both cases, I came in second place. For Puerto Rico, wolfpeach won with 51 points, I had 48, and cheshcat had 47. In Bohnanza, it was a very tight game: cheshcat won with 21 points, I followed with 20, and wolfpeach had 19! No breathing room at all!

Finally, after wolfpeach left for the night, cheshcat and I wound down the evening by watching the classic Red Dwarf episode "Back To Reality". She recently borrowed some Red Dwarf DVDs from the local library. I have not watched the show at all since my 23^rd birthday party -- back in 1998 -- where about ten of us spent a three day birthday weekend watching all seven seasons of Red Dwarf. Ah, good times!

Now it is off to bed. I am still not entirely over my cold, so must keep on my rest!

---

[*] Speaking of the new job, I just learned the salary today. It will start me off -- on Sep 29 -- with a rise of 10% over what I am making now. Two days later, though, is when the annual rises go through... so I will be getting a nearly immediate increase of at least another 2.5%. I have no plans to make dramatic changes to my lifestyle, so this change will be quite useful in helping to rebuild our savings. Between the job news and the car hunt, today has really been quite a remarkably good day!

Who's Gonna Drive You Home Tonight?

Today's major accomplishment was buying a new car. The MOT and road tax on Peter have both just expired and, much as I like that car, the repairs necessary to keep it running were just not reasonable to pay for in a car of that age.

Normally, I would not wait until the day after my car became no longer legal to drive to start searching for its replacement. However, in the past eight days, I have procured a new job[*], a new cat, and now a new car. So one could say I have been just a tad busy.

In any case, things went far better than I had anticipated. A string of unlikely coincidences ended up in me finding a seemingly-reliable car that meets my needs -- red and possessing a sunroof -- while also meeting cheshcat's -- automatic transmission and a hatchback -- for a mere three hundred pounds.

To wit: I started the day looking at vehicles online. I found a place selling a Peugeot 406 for just under £600. My friend C bought this same car last year, so I rang him up to ask how he liked it. Turns out, he was working a half day and offered to come with me when I went to test drive the car. Nice! He knows quite a bit more about the innards of cars than I do, so his opinion would be welcome... as would the company!

After we got off the phone. I rang the dealer. Setback! The car would be available to see tomorrow, but not today. Hurm. While waiting for C to arrive, I scanned other cars online. For some reason, there are several Rover 400 series cars -- all green -- on the used market right now. I showed the listings to C when he arrived and explained how we could not see the Peugeot today. I suggested that we could look at a couple of the other cars, instead. His reply was completely unexpected: He said that if I liked the Rover 400, his dad had one that he was looking to sell cheaply, because he was simply not able to drive it anymore for health reasons.

We hopped in his car -- recall that mine is no longer street legal -- and drove half an hour to visit his father and the car. It does indeed seem reliable, it comes from a seller I trust, and at three hundred pounds, it was much cheaper than the £1300 that I was willing to pay for a replacement vehicle!

Somehow, I seem to have landed in a patch of very good luck. Quite randomly, the right vehicle -- at a ridiculously good price -- landed right in my lap. Somewhat reminiscent of how, three days after being rejected by the Battersea Dog and Cat Home, the right kitten ended up finding me last month. I have to say, after the cloud of dreadful luck that lingered from December through April, the change is quite welcome! A lot of very important pieces of my life were shattered in that time while the Universe seemed to want to use me as a punching bag. I won't recap the details here; those events have all been mentioned in this journal before. Now is a time for rebuilding... which I am very pleased to say is coming along quite nicely. It has taken much hard work... but those efforts are now coming to fruition.

In the evening, cheshcat and I celebrated by having wolfpeach over for gaming. We played Puerto Rico and Bohnanza. In both cases, I came in second place. For Puerto Rico, wolfpeach won with 51 points, I had 48, and cheshcat had 47. In Bohnanza, it was a very tight game: cheshcat won with 21 points, I followed with 20, and wolfpeach had 19! No breathing room at all!

Finally, after wolfpeach left for the night, cheshcat and I wound down the evening by watching the classic Red Dwarf episode "Back To Reality". She recently borrowed some Red Dwarf DVDs from the local library. I have not watched the show at all since my 23^rd birthday party -- back in 1998 -- where about ten of us spent a three day birthday weekend watching all seven seasons of Red Dwarf. Ah, good times!

Now it is off to bed. I am still not entirely over my cold, so must keep on my rest!

---

[*] Speaking of the new job, I just learned the salary today. It will start me off -- on Sep 29 -- with a rise of 10% over what I am making now. Two days later, though, is when the annual rises go through... so I will be getting a nearly immediate increase of at least another 2.5%. I have no plans to make dramatic changes to my lifestyle, so this change will be quite useful in helping to rebuild our savings. Between the job news and the car hunt, today has really been quite a remarkably good day!