Saturday 15 May 2010

Cars and fire alarms

I'll start with the fire alarm.....1.30am on Friday morning we were rudely awakened by what can only be described as a demented dog with a whining voice over. Being in the depths of slumber, both of us had no idea what was happening then it dawned that it was the fire alarm. Then it dawned that we were on the 8th floor - bugger! I had been very vigilant and sussed out the escape route when we arrived but the lights were on and there were a troop of bed wear clad bods dutifully heading for the exit stairs so in good old British fashion we followed. It was all very controlled and jovial and leisurely.

Needless to say it was a false alarm and we were back in our room within 20 minutes. I did get dressed before leaving my room otherwise I may have been arrested for indecent exposure! I thought it might be cold so put a little jacket of Chris' on - nah, it is still hot degrees even at 1.30am.

Now onto cars. Have I mentioned Andy, our new landlord? Well, he is the sweetest person and just wants to help us with whatever he can. We have been very lucky to meet such a nice man. He is one of those people who has a finger in lots of pies and therefore has lots of contacts. He deals in second hand cars amongst many other things and has access to trade only car auctions. He invited Chris to go along with him and see if there were any cars that would suit his needs and there was. He bid on a VW Jetta, leather interior with two exhausts. I don't know engine size or any other detail that guys would want to know. I only know this info because they are there to see. It is a nice car and I guess it has a bit of poke about it.

Banking - now this has proved to be a bugbear. We have been waiting for our money to go in for over a week now and are surviving on credit cards. So this means we had no money to pay for said car - Andy to our rescue again. He arranged for the car to stay at the auction until our cash came through. Then when we had the money he went with us and sorted out the deal.

Yesterday was all about cars. It took us a half day to sort out the VX then we had to go and sort mine out which took up the other half. Now mine is a brand new Mazda CX7 SUV, white, automatic (this is what they mainly drive out here), it has satellite radio so I can get Radio1 and 4 - but I want Radio 2! Mustn't grumble too much.

I managed to stall it driving home, I'm not used to an automatic and was doing a hill start and panicked a wee bit. Must practice hill starts - I thought that it wouldn't roll back but it does so getting your foot from the brake onto the accelerator without any clutch control got me. I think I was worried that I would roll into the person behind me so gave it some welly and it stalled.

More practice needed.............

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