All in a day's work.

Well, who'd have thought it...it seems I bought a new car today! I say new and I mean new to us, I say bought and I mean paid a deposit. I now have 4 weeks to find the balance.
It is more money than I knew I could find but I do know I can find it, it will mean tightening our belts and living on the food we have in the pantry. It will mean that I will be saying 'no' for a few weeks to things that I usually don't have to think about.
I like doing this, it is great for me to have a challenge, I know I can do this and when it is done and we have our new car outside our house and it is paid, in full, I know I will feel enormous satisfaction.
It's a Chrysler Voyager, in a very pleasing Aubergine colour.



I have listed the old car on Ebay, do you want to see what I wrote?

I wrote this...

I am listing this car with tears in my eyes and a heavy heart, what a lovely shiny car, starts first time, even when it snows.

I have loved this car and treated it well, I clean it and tell it often how thrilled I am with it as it ferries my children and me from A to B. Because I love it and am a kind owner I booked it in for a full service, before I booked it in, I even googled what to expect from a full service and I recommend should YOU google this, you not omit the word 'Car' when asking what to expect from a full CAR service, not adding that word may well result in you throwing your hands up in horror and exclaiming OH!!! Oh NO!!! I didn't mean THAT kind of service QUICK! QUICK get RID OF THAT PAGE!"

See? See how kind I am?

Anyway, I booked this lovely, clean, slightly scratched from narrow hedgerow roads and children with scooters and no cares in the world, in for it's full CAR service, telling the mechanic to treat it well and make sure he gives it whatever it needs to make it feel loved and happy to carry on ferrying me and my ungrateful children from pillar to post.

2 hours after leaving this lovely, well loved car with well instructed mechanics, I received a phone call to tell me that this car is very broken. How so? I enquired. It is shiny and clean and has an engine that looks hardly used, how is it very broken?

He began to list the things that render this car broken and I believed him.

The engine is great, the car body is great, unfortunately pretty much everything that holds the great engine in the great car body is broken.

I remember him listing the engine mounts, gear box mounts, steering mounts ( or was that column, my brain was beginning to freeze in horror by this time) the CV joint is split or cracked or whatever that thing does and has leaked grease where grease does not belong. The Wheel bearings are something, who knows, whatever they are it wasn't good, broken would probably describe it well enough.

He also told me that one of the tyres is terrible and dangerous and the brakes, well they are awful too and I am pretty sure it wasn't just the shoes ( shoes? Do brakes have shoes? ) well they are shot and he said the back brakes are leaking so I ought to be careful when driving this shiny car home.

The drivers window doesn't work either, it needs a new regulator and I already knew that but didn't care, I was looking out for a 2nd hand one, now I am GLAD I didn't fix it because look at how this car repays me for being so kind to it, serves it right if it has a broken window regulator.

So, here we have a shiny car, with scratches and a lovely clean working engine that has to go. I have to admit that I feel quite cross as I watch my neighbour in his scruffy old car that makes noises MY car would never dream of making, drive off in his still working car while my nicer looking than HIS old car sits laughing at me outside the house as I walk everywhere I need to go, in the rain.

I know that there are many mechanically minded people out there who will see my car and be EXCITED because HOORAY they can FIX IT or use it to fix cars just like it, so I am posting it in the hope that just one such clever person will see it and take it away and give me money for it towards a new car that will both look nice and work.

I am putting a reserve in it only to make myself feel better, I cannot just give the good bits of the car away and neither can I, ( literally,I actually can't,) take it apart and sell all the great bits that work so beautifully for what they are worth. Be kind to me as you bid and I will be happy to let you take my lovely car away and will try very hard not to throw myself on the road and cry as you take it away.

That got me some interest and a phone call from someone asking me if he could come and see the car, then he didn't show up, which annoys me so much, why can't people call and say they can't make it after all, so then, I wrote this....

just had a thought, that happens sometimes, I try to make the most of thoughts while they are still in my head, before they fizzle out and disappear along with my childrens' names and my postcode etc.

May I just say that if you bid and win this splendid broken car, I expect you to pay for it and take it away promptly, within 3 days. I once had someone click 'buy it now' on a car I was selling and then he never turned up, stopped anyone else bidding, cost me £30 listing fee and vanished, if I could remember his name I would probably name and shame him but I forget, which isn't surprising because if anyone asks me where I live I am oft found muttering and saying things like " Oh, hmmm, up that really steep hill"

Don't worry though because my husband has the memory of an elephant so when the time comes I will be sure to ask him what our address is and he will make sure you come to the right place.

You are more than welcome to come and view the car but if you say you are coming and then you are late, or don't turn up I tend to become very grumpy. If I can be on time for things and have the good manners to do what I say I will do, and I have SIX children then I am perfectly within my rights to expect the same from you. ( hang on a moment while I check my emails to make sure that man who said he would be here an hour and 12 minutes ago hasn't emailed me to say he can't make it....nope, no such apologetic email although there are 12 stupid forward emails from my ex husband, though why he thinks I am at all interested in those would be a whole other topic of conversation....) Oh LOOK! Am grumpy! How rude!

So, only bid if you really want this car and if you ask to come and see it, please do, or let me know that you can't make it, it's only polite after all and as Miss Crump always said " manners maketh man" I have found, as I get older, that good old Miss Crump, domestic science teacher of 1975 was rarely mistaken.

The bidding has already hit the reserve ( which was pitifully low) and there are 32 people watching it, the auction ends on monday afternoon, I forget how exciting it is to sell something on ebay. I enjoy that thrill but I am a humble soul and so easily pleased!

I have had another man come and check out the old car and he loved it, didn't seem phased by the repairs that need doing and wanted to buy it there and then, 2 bids had already been made on ebay though so he has to bid with the rest of them and take his chances. Oh I hope I get a good amount for it that will go towards the new car.
I am so excited that we have found a 7 seater car again. I know it will cost more to run, I will have to curb the trips I make but I love that we can fit a car seat for Joshua and when we go out Mel and Josh can come too, Mel gets so lonely when Jordan is at work so it will be great that they can come out when we go anywhere.

I have been aware of how lucky we are, I know that these things come along and it is always such a blow but for us it is an irritant and a temporary hiccup, we live in such a way that we can usually manage to sort ourselves out in a few weeks.
I love that H is as determined as I am that we don't borrow large amounts of money, that we love by the thought that is we can't afford to buy something, we can't afford to have it. There is nothing worse to me that having something and still find yourself paying for it long after the novelty has worn off.
I like that we have a great store cupboard so that when something like this happens, we can live on that food and avoid having to shop.
I love that I am a squirreler, I syphon money into various different places and earmark it for various things, I put all my change every day into a huge bottle and when we emptied that yesterday there was £258 on it! I have been putting money on a gift card for Asda and when I checked yesterday there was £100 on that.
I have rewards on various store cards and when I went to pick up some bottled water and toilet paper today I only had to pay 80p!
I already have all the stuff for the Easter baskets so no worries about that.
I always feel sick when I am about to make a major purchase and today I had to laugh when I went to see the car with my sister and called H, he told me to just go ahead and buy the car if I liked it. I can't buy a chest of drawers without H making sure it is 'right' he has such definite thoughts on things but a car? Meh, get what you like! He is so eccentric and unpredictable at times!
I panic when I sign on that dotted line and am immediately filled with every kind of worry and 'what if' I am getting better at telling myself that worrying before there is anything to actually worry about is a waste of energy, sometimes it works, sometimes, not.
Before I went to see the car I read every review I could find on it ( all pretty great!) I worked out how much more it would cost to run, I did bank checks and rechecked what money we have and what is coming and so I know that we can do it but as soon as I handed over that big, non refundable deposit my stomach lurched.
Oh but it's a pretty looking car! ( it doesn't smell as good as the broken one though, bother!)
I am so excited about the space, the leg room the fact that each boy gets his own seat and they won't be touching when they are in the car, no more elbowing and bickering if they are in the car longer than 15 minutes ( although the bickering might continue, my memory tells me that it is further away, diluted and considerably less annoying!)
I loved my recently dead car, I never failed to feel happy when I went out in it, I hope I will feel as thrilled with the new one.
I'm not sure I have the best luck with cars, seems I write about cars dying and having to be replaced more often than I would like but I suppose that comes with buying older cars, you can't have it all ways can you?
So, here was go again, old car leaving, new car on the horizon. Lucky me.