Hold Onto Your Seat!

When I got Prick-illa she had a problem with a snapped cable under her drivers seat which prevent it sliding forward to allow rear passenger entry.

Whilst Simon was here on his last visit he said he thought he may have one, as he is a senior technician with a large German car manufacturer (mentioning no names LOL).  We were quoted about £120.00 plus fitting from the dealership (totalling about £250.00ish) we were thrilled that he was happy to check his garage for us.

Bless him! He arrived in Cornwall for his latest visit, with cable dutifully packed in his case for us.

Paul took some fitting advise from him, and once the tide race was over, and we got home and he began pulling my precious little motor apart to repair her.

The seat was removed from the foot well, and placed on its side on his work bench, and he set to work removing the old cable and replacing it with the new one.

Bingo.  One beautifully sliding seat, doing the job it was supposed to do.

The best part is, it just cost me 18 scones, a very large tub of clotted cream and a jar of jam! Yummy goodness enjoyed by all!

Thanks so much Simon!

Jo Anne

Pongtastic!

Yesterday Paul did a bit of a daft thing!
We had a load of rubbish and recycling to go to the dump, along with some garden waste.
Pauls car will hold just about anything asked of it, as it is an estate, so everything went into the back, including the garden waste bags.
The garden waste bags had been closed and festering for about 6 weeks, in the Cornish sunshine, and were pongy, acrid and soupy. Nice!
Off Paul drove to the local council tip.  I never thought any more of it.
An hour or so later a very green looking Paul fell through the front door, feeling exceptionally sick!
The garden rubbish bags had split and spilt the liquid contents into the entire rear end of the car, soaking into the upholstery and carpets, adding an altogether un-nice fragrance to the interior of the car!
Today, he is spending the day taking apart every piece of interior upholstery and carpet, trim and fitting, and placing it in the garden to be wet vacc’d or scrubbed.

Thankfully the sun is shining and the day is exceptionally hot, so it should not take long for it all to dry, but Oh Boy! I hope this gets rid of the smell!

Fingers crossed!

Jo Anne

Bye Bye Renault, Hello Ford

It's time to say goodbye to our wonderful little Scenic. It has been a great car over the years, and clocked 57mpg on the drive up to Torquay for the handover.

The consoling factor is that we are swapping it for another great car, and this one will be able to tow pretty much anything should the need arise.

When we got it home, it was washed and polished to within an inch of it's life by it's proud new Dad.

and then taken on a drive by each of us.

I have to say, it drives beautifully.

Welcome home Big Bertha!

Car Hunters In Action...

We have been on email alert with the online well known car finding service, and after receiving some alerts for the sort of cars that we were looking for, we narrowed it down to 3.

One car in Wellington, just outside Taunton. One in Plympton, near Plymouth and one in Torquay on the English Riviera.

As Paul is now on nights for the next 4 weeks, we would have to do these all in one go, and decided not to leave it too long. Today was our chosen day.

Having asked Sally-Ann and Mike if they would mind checking on Fred during the day today, so that we didn't need worry about him, they said "why don't we bring him to ours for the day?" This way he and Hamish could spend the day together. "Fantastic!" We said.

We knew Fred would love spending time with his favourite people and canine friend. If you look at Sally-Anne's Blog, you will see what a great time they had too...

I borrowed this picture from Sally-Ann - Thanks for letting me use it. Fred is to the left and Hamish to the right.

Now that we knew that our boy was being looked after so well, we headed off up country.

Our first stop was Plympton. The car we looked at only had 26k on the clock and was in great condition. If it had not been the first car we had looked at, we might have bought it there and then!

We pulled up just down the road to make a phone call to our next port of call in Torquay. The car there had 30k on the clock, but was a higher spec. At this point we decided that Torquay would be our next stop, and we would write off Wellington, as that car had 50k on the mileage and therefore was no longer a viable option, with two such low mileage vehicles as competition.

Off we went. On arrival the chap was already dealing with a sale, so we went for a coffee while we waited.

We arrived back, just as he bought the car we wanted to see, around from his compound. (The forecourt was full to capacity).

This was the one! Looks were great, body work was like new, and the engine was quiet as a mouse. More to the point, it does 50 plus to the gallon, and tows a huge amount. It was even below budget and we managed to get more for Paul's current car in part exchange than we had been offered by anyone else.

Success! We collect it on Friday so pictures will follow no doubt!