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No puke for little Richy. Stone-clearers are made of hardier stuff than babies and little girls. Phoebe stayed home from nursery and watched telly. She was in pretty high spirits, apart from not being allowed to open her advent calendar. Sick days are weirdly some of my most distinct and happy memories. Snuggled up on the sofa, watching Crown Court and Pipkins, eating Heinz chicken soup and being loved. It was even better when you were just pretending to be sick. I was proud of my brilliant child. Even prouder that she slept til 8.30 and even Ernie managed (on and off) til 7.15.
I love to start the morning with a stone clearing podcast. This one is a bit jollier than the last. But I enjoy the bit where paranoia made me mistake a log for a dog spying on me. How much of this is pretence and how much of it is real? Well that’s part of the joy. Even I don’t know. You don’t have to be mad to do a stone clearing podcast.
Listen here.
I am thinking of buying an electric car, which I can fuel with all the free electricity I now have stored up in my house (but you can give me more by signing up to Bulb
using this link - Now you can keep me warm and get me places within about a 50 mile radius and back again in return for free podcast - plus get free energy yourself)
I haven’t driven an electric car before, but was pretty impressed with it. I am not very much into cars, beyond them being great devices to get me where I need to be, and aside from it having a different sound I couldn’t tell the difference. You have to plug it in, but I have a garage, so that shouldn’t be too tricky. I thought you needed a special box, but although that is faster, you can still do it via a plug.
I wouldn’t be able to use this car for touring as it doesn’t have the range and I don’t think I have the patience to stop at service stations every hundred miles, but it’d be nice to replace one of our diesel cars with something a bit kinder to the environment. And using renewable energy to fuel our shorter journeys seems like a good use of that power.
I am looking at the eGolf at the moment as that’s the car I am used to driving and having to decide whether to buy a second hand one or new one - the saving is not that much because new ones come with a hefty incentive discount, but I might have to wait if I want a brand new one…. it’s the kind of grown-up decision that leaves me bamboozled. Is 4000 miles on the clock worth £3000 saving? I expect I will get plenty of opinions about all of this.
And then there was the heart-breaking assessment of what my old car is worth, selling it off like it’s a clapped out family member who I want to replace with someone better (not to self, see if that’s actually possible. I wonder how much I can get for dad). It was not only embarrassingly dirty (I am not embarrassed though) but there are quite a few scrapes and bumps of which, I think, I am solely responsible (except for maybe a weird puncture mark on the boot which I assume was caused by my parked car being hit by a jouster not paying proper attention to his lance. It’s nearly six years old now, so apparently it would have to go to auction, but I was pleased to be offered more or less what I thought this one was worth (the scrapes took off £800 apparently - which was probably still cheaper than having got them all repaired).
I wonder where my first car is now. No, don’t say that. Please. It went to live on a farm. I am sure it’s still fine.
