Bad start to what should be something that works out great.

It all started a few weeks ago when my brother-in-law & I had to gang up on our mother-in-law (Jean) to convince her to sell her car for an automatic. Two clutches in fewer years was the over ruling factor.

So the search was on. Looking for a suitable car for Jean, naturally we look in the usual places at the usual sort of cars, main dealer focus or main dealer astra or peugoet 307 (too big).

We didn't want Jean to spend somuch that she gets a fnance deal (which meant staying away from main dealers) & we needed to convince her to down size from the scratched up mondeo. So there was a lot to consider. On top of that Jean, who loves her cars had to love it and find the seat comfortable.

The idea came to me, can still get a used car from a dealer with the safety of a warenty from an independant salesman. Obviously over the years they have develpoed a bad name but with more laws to protect us now it makes it harder for them to do us a bad deal, so as long as we don't get sucked into a hard sell I was convinced this was the way to go.

A quick search on autotrader gave some examples of the right type of car for Jean. Then I saw it, Mercedes-Bens A-Class. Who would have thought it? Not me! But as I loked at it it made so much sense. A smaller car, auto, well built, quality, posh brand, ages slower and the thing that got me was its height. The seat position of the A-class it a little heigher than normal saloons, for Jean it would make it a lot easier to get in & out of.

So we set off. Looking at various cars & I took her to sit in an A-class which she liked. The 1st one we looked at was a manual which was out of the question but we found one a bit further away which was an auto & within her price range. I couldn't convince her togo home and think about it. She wanted to put a deposit down there & then. So we brought the car and arranged to pick it up next week.

This is where the fun started!

I didn't want Jean to drive home through unfamilliar towns in a new car unacompanied, so we got dropped off ith the intention that I drive it home and then Jean can take control from there. So once we brought the car we got into it to have a play and we got on the phone to insure it. Probably due to downsizing to save money, like so many companies are doing at the moment, we ended up taking about an hour to get it sorted. Not normally tomuch of a problem but when you got the aircon on in your car without the engine running it is. Needless to say that no sooner had we sorted the insurance out and the owner of the garage bode us good night to go home. Just as we watch him pull away I attempt to do the same with no joy and the discovery of a flat battery! What bad luck.

We hadn't even started the engine of Jean's new car and we were already calling the RAC out! Our lift had long gone by this point. I couldn't think of a better way to spend my friday night than sat in a broken down car with my mother-in-law!

Fortunately getting the car going was sorted in no time by the RAC and we were of on our way, finally.

I am pleased to report that since then we havehad no further incidents other than the usual teathing problems that come with familiarising ourselves with a new car. And even more importantly, I have been out with Jean a few times now to help build her confidence in the new car and I believe her driving has improved as a result.

So like I said, hopefully this will workout great.

Running 10k

A while back Rachel registered with some frineds to run a 5k event for charity. Since her friends have struggled to keep up. Rachel then registered to run 10k events. So far she has completed two and now I am scheduled to run with her in september.

The running, I believe, is fantastic exercise. We were introduced to the cross trainer when we went to the gym. But i found that it was not tiring me out so I moved to the treadmill. I then encouraged Rachel to give it a go and she was with me. Since then she has been very pro running.

One of the bigest problems though is our schedules. We only seemed to find time to run in the couple of weeks before an event. In the weeks in between running was not a priority over other work.

We quit the gym a while back cos we were not using it very much and were wasting our money. It costs nothing to run on the street. But even running on the street requires a great effort.

We recently invested n a treadmill. The idea behind it was that we could run anytime, whatever the weather, without the other. And it would be easier to run daily.

I did my 1st last night. Running is running and it was a great workout for me. My main observation was that time and distance seem different on a treadmill than when you are out. I ran a constant 8.5km/h with a sprint at the end and ran 5k in 35 mins. I was honestly dissapointed because i believed when we did our circuit in the neighbourhood we did it quicker than that!

For example, Rachels last 10 time was 1:15 which means an average pace of 8km/h. Her recent run on the treadmill was 30mins at 8km/h which she said was tough.

So if it is tougher on the treadmill, the hope we have is that when we do our next event we will find it easier than we are used to.

We shall see.

Happy Anniversary

As an aniversary gift from my mother-in-law we recieved a tent with some camping gear. Expensive holidays are something we can not affort right now. When we went to wales last we did discuss the idea of camping.

Now that we have develpoed the taste for the outdoors I can imagine using the tent and other equipent a joy. Rachel is obviously looking fwd to it as it was her that managed to convince her mum to treat us to these goodies.

So here is a pic of our tent in the garden. We were advised to put it up to familiarise ourselves with it, which is just as well as we made many errors and would have looked very daft behaving the way we did on any campsite. And also to condition the material. Hosing it was recommended, but we didn't even need to do that. Withing an hour of our excelent work, the heavens opened. We were expecting the rian.

As you can see it is plenty big and will serve us well, hopefully, for many years. Now all we need is for this weather to hold out through the summer and a convenient weekend.

Automated Checkouts!

Something we are seeing more and more of in ourshops is automated checkout machines (or tills). I can accept a big supermarket using them, thats fine. But I was surprised to see them at a home furnishings store Ikea and more surprised of late to see them in B&Q.

My question is, is there really that much of a saving in the purchase, running & maintenance of one of these machines when compared to a manual till and an employee on near min wage?

When jobs are hard to come by why are hundreds being lost up and down the country to these machines?