Blues and Twos

Well, there's only really one thing to talk about from the past fortnight. Cars.

A month or so ago I decided that I needed to change my car sooner rather than later, based on the fact that it was starting to cost more than I'd like to get the little fella through his MOT.

It took me approximately 0.000546526223 seconds to decide that what I wanted was another Polo, and then after a large number of shirked minutes spent perusing the VW used car website, I decided on what I wanted to get, and in particular decided which colours I was shortlisting.

The sexiest colour of the lot (although I'm not entirely sure 'sexiest' is quite the right word) was a rather swish metallic blue, which I realised a couple of days later was probably the same blue as Eliza Dushku's Beetle in Bring It On (funny how in all these films students can afford brand new cars, isn't it?), thus leaving everyone wondering if my subconscious had a hand in choosing it. The dark metallic grey was also shortlisted, but such cars turned out to be very hard to come by.

Last weekend I took my battered old Polo to a couple of dealerships and tried to get a decent price out of them for it. The first offered �350, which frankly was an insult. Never ever buying a car there. The second offered �700, which was an improvement, but they had no cars of interest.

Last Monday I had a look online for other local candidates to buy, and found one of the blue Polos for �6K. I drove up there on Monday night, asked for �900 for my old Polo (which was accepted), and after a test drive left a deposit on the newer one.

So, this is Calvin.

He's 3 years old and has a good bit of poke under his bonnet. The only problem is that I appear to have been given the wrong radio code, so I've been locked out of the radio ever since I picked it up. I will hopefully be getting this straightened out tonight, and will probably be getting the radio replaced quite soon anyway with something that will do CD-RWs and MP3s (and CDs obviously, like duh).

I picked Calvin up on Saturday morning. We had guests staying this weekend. Sister-in-Sin and Bloke were visiting. They arrived Friday night, we all stayed up late, then I attempted to get up bright and early to go and fetch a car.

The main reason for their visit was that Alison was treating SiS to a birthday trip out. A special showing of the Peter Greenaway film, The Draughtman's Contract was being given outdoors at Compton Verney, a local 'stately home' (or whatever the term is these days) where parts of it were filmed. There was also a Peter Greenaway exhibition at the house, which is what we went to see during the day.

Actually, I tell a lie. We went to look round the whole gallery, including the Peter Greenaway exhibition, during the day. In the middle of the guided tour of the gallery the heavens opened, and it was still peeing down when we left to pop home for tea. It didn't look like the open air showing was going to be such a grand occasion.

I think it was still raining when we left the house to head back, too. But anyway, it had stopped by the time we arrived and we set up with a nice view of the screen, not too close, not to far back.

About a third of the way into the film it did start raining, quite heavily. Some people put umbrellas up, which went down predictably well with the people sat directly behind them. In fact, the couple two seats in front of us got severely reprimanded by the couple directly in front of us when they put up their golf umbrella. We'd all come with waterproofs, ready for the chance of bad weather, and Alison and I only used the brolly to cover our legs. Innovation at its best ;-)

Yesterday we went to the freeport at Bicester. Well, I'm not sure if it's a freeport or a factory outlet place or if they are one and the same, but we went there anyway.

Bicester happens to be about 40 miles away, down the M40, so the journey gave me the chance to put the car through its paces, particularly on the way back when there was only Alison and I in the car (SiS and Bloke having been dropped off at Bicester station to get the train back to London).

And now I'm back at work, which, while a little calmer this week for me personally, has gone absolutely mad for a select few.

I'm now toying with the idea of re-colouring this layout in Calvin's honour. Hee.