The Turn of the Year . . .

Christmas came and went quite painlessly. There were only the two of us.Earlier we had anticipated visits from either of both of our sons and their partners. The Lincolnshire son is immunity compromised so the virus situation precluded any move from that direction. The Sacramento son had planned to come to us and to London quite specifically but cried off quite late on as the whole travel situation got more and more liable to disruption due to Govt. restrictions, and the likelihood of staff shortages brought about by Covid tests or actual infections increased. We had a thing called a turkey thigh which doesn’t sound much, but which in fact was was ample for two. In fact we both cried off Christmas pudding as we were full up, and we eventually ate one between us at New Year.

Over the last month we have considered getting rid of our little old Toyota Aygo.We bought it as a runabout for Mrs. S. but she never drove it very much as having got it she found that putting things into and getting things out of the back seat were difficult because of the necessity of manipulating the front seat – that is, tilting the seat back, and moving it fore and aft. We spotted this Suzuki Splash outside Wilson Motors in Kirkcudbright and have been loaned it apparently sine die, with the Toyota at the garage as a sort of security or deposit. The Toyota stunned us slightly by needing a new exhaust manifold because the old one was leaking and was a fire risk, and the Suzuki needs its alternator/battery set up to be examined as the battery warning light flashes when the car is in motion. It is frequent but intermittent so it could be a loose connection or a bad joint somewhere, but it could also indicate trouble in the electronics – the Toyota did the same, and a new part took months to arrive, no doubt due to Brexit in some way.

Nevertheless, the Suzuki is the better car and has only done about 28,000 miles (although it has had 4 owners !) so we intend to proceed with the swap, but as yet have no idea of the financial implications.

About Ian

Retired Clergyman, and former RAF person. Lives in Kirkcudbright, SW Scotland. One wife. Two children, three grandchildren and two great grandchildren scattered across UK, Europe and the USA. Long time member of the European Movement, and latterly of the Scottish National Party. ""Here's to us; who is as good as us? Damn few, and they're all dead"
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