Wet and Windy Weather

Thursday. 7.35 a.m. I could hear the rain and the wind during the night. As I write this, it's a good deal calmer, but when I took Alfie out, it was raining. 

Friday. 6.00 a.m. Where did yesterday go? Is that really all I wrote? Just one and a half lines? Well, let's see what today brings.

It's freezing and miserable, and I can hear the wind howling around the building.

12.15 p.m. You may recall, that is, if you read my blog posts regularly, that I bought a shelf unit from Amazon and then constructed it, the intention being that it would go in the pantry cupboard (for want of a better name for it.) and then it would be used to store a lot of cooking materials which wouldn't fit in the newly-fitted kitchen cupboards. The things that were removed from the old kitchen cupboards before the workmen did the work on the kitchen at the beginning of July (I can't now believe it's that long ago that the work was done.) have been stored in a variety of boxes and bags on the floor of my bedroom. I cleared out the collection of boxes that were used to deliver things from Amazon and have been cluttering up the pantry cupboard and could have been taken to the tidy-tip in Bleak Hall. But I thought of an alternative way to dispose of them: to break up the boxes and put the pieces in recycling bags which can be taken away by the dustman on their weekly visits to Dexter House. I began this around 7 o'clock this morning, as it seemed a good idea to get them out of the way. Now done and taken to the bin storage area. The shelf unit is now in place in the pantry cupboard and a lot of extraneous stuff taken out and will be sorted through and stuff selected for either keeping or disposal in some way or the other. So, as you can imagine, I'm very pleased to have done the work and the results seem very good. Now I can begin the job of sorting out the remainder of the stuff in my bedroom and then put it on the new shelf unit.

2.30 p.m. I have steam-mopped the kitchen floor. I haven't done it in ages, and it now looks spotless. The Vax steam mop is really efficient and far better than using an unhygienic mop and bucket. It dries so much quicker and you don't have to deal with a smelly mop and then empty the dirty water out.

Saturday. 7.00 p.m. I've been sorting out some of the stuff which has been parked in my bedroom. Quite a lot has made its way onto the new shelving unit, although some of this stuff has been binned as it has gone past its 'best before or 'sell by dates. 

There's not much else to report, except I have started watching the first film in the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy, 'The Fellowship of The Ring' which I have been meaning to watch as I'm something of a Tolkien fan. I must have read the books at least four times, probably reading the entire trilogy at least once every decade since the 1970s, and recall reading it when I was an A.S.M. at Liverpool Playhouse in 1971. I had a paperback edition and have owned the trilogy in various editions over the years, but don't have any of them now. The Peter Jackson films really do the books complete justice and are more than satisfying, more or less achieve the impossible and the whole look and feel of all three films portray the characters more or less how I imagined them to be. Ian McKellen as Gandalf was born to play the part, and the CGI work on Gollum is brilliant.

Sunday. 3.05 p.m. A very mixed sort of day on the weather front today. It has been raining this afternoon but then the sun came out, and I managed to get to my target of 10,000 steps, recorded on my Fitbit. That's around 5 miles, which is a good amount of steps. 

Getting On With The Job!

Monday, 1.45 p.m. I had an email reminding me that my car insurance was due to expire in four weeks' time. I doesn't seem like a year since I set up my car insurance, but nevertheless, I had a look at the quotes on offer and went with A.A. insurance (Automobile Association and not Alcoholics Anonymous. Well, you knew that, but it was worth the joke if that's what you call it.) All are set up via their website, the deposit is paid, and Direct Debit is set up.

3.55 p.m. There are still quite a few boxes left over from when I moved to Dexter House. Much of it is stacked up in my bedroom and I have never got round to disposing of it. I should point out that they are not merely boxes with nothing in them. I have sorted through several of them and found things which I had lost or forgotten about, such as a cheque book (who actually uses a cheque book these days? ) and the remote for my Goodmans soundbar, which I replaced when it couldn't be found.)But this morning I     decided it was about time it was removed. You have to book your space at the Bleak Hall Tidy Tip (there is another on the other side of Milton Keynes, but the Bleak Hall one is the closest. Before the pandemic, you could just turn up, park your vehicle and then throw your rubbish into the relevant skip. I can see the advantage of this, so that you know you will get a slot and, hopefully, avoid queuing. So this morning I have begun the process of sorting what I'm going to take. I have gone on the Milton Keynes Council website and booked a slot for 10.30 tomorrow morning.

Wednesday. 10.40 a.m. I thought the slot I had booked at the tidy-tip was 10.30 a.m. It was just as well I checked the email as it was actually 9.30 a.m. I had the stuff piled into the car and drove to the tidy tip (actually referred to as a Household Waste Recycling Centre or H.W.R.C.) in Bleak Hall. I was there a good ten minutes ahead of the time I was booked in, but I didn't have to wait, and the car was unloaded within five minutes and I was driving out, really pleased that the job I had been resisting doing was now complete. There are a few bits and pieces which remain, but they can wait for another time and some bits shouldn't need to be taken to the tidy tip.

Thursday. 6.25 a.m. A really fine, bright and sunny morning. What more can I say? My digital thermometer currently reads 82ºF at the moment. Really crazy. If it's that temperature this early, how much hotter is it likely to get.

I have now managed to transcribe all my writing and the word count is well over 30,000. I will leave writing for a while and come back to it in a couple of weeks.

12.40 p.m. I've been to the Oaktree Centre to help set up the playgroup. It has been exceptionally warm, which made things worse. In the middle of setting up and dismantling things I was involved in a Bible study.

I drove home and then, when I walked in through the front door I was told that I had been visited by someone about having my kitchen upgraded. Crazy to merely turn up without being warned. I have email, text etc. or they could have rung me up or sent me a letter. Surely they could have let me know in advance. I will get a telephone call to arrange another visit. I do hope so, as the kitchen is really looking shabby, particularly the floor, as there are a few tiles loose which are a trip hazard.

Temperature in the flat currently 84ºF. Really too hot.

2.55 a.m. Crazy, this. I've had a letter from the company, Mears who are contracted to upgrade the kitchens and bathrooms in all the flats in Dexter House. It's about that very topic, upgrading my bathroom. I had to ring the number in the letter, but I have to ring back tomorrow morning, as the lady who organizes this work finishes at 3 p.m. on a Thursday. That's life for you!

Hey Ho, The Wind and the rain!

Saturday. 7.55 p.m.  We had Men's Breakfast at the Oaktree Centre this morning. We haven't had one of these gatherings since the one at The  Fountain in Loughton. 

There was a break in the rain. The sun came out, surprisingly. As I write this, it seems still outside.

Sunday. 6.30 a.m. It sounds suspicious as if it's gusting outside as I write this.

9.15 a.m. I've just been out with Alfie. It is as windy as ever, but probably not as powerful as it was in the midst of Storm Eunice on Friday, but still advisable to be wary of falling branches and roof tiles falling off buildings. I saw a large branch had fallen off one of the trees along the path around Oldbrook Green yesterday mid-afternoon, the Shackleton Place side.

1.30 p.m. Now we have Storm Franklin on his/her way. The highest wind speed ever recorded has been measured on the Isle of Wight, at 122 miles per hour. I wonder if all those wind turbines we see all over the area are busily converting these winds into electricity.

I didn't go to church this morning, because of the wind. I have seen pictures of the damage caused by the high winds on Friday, and they had really put me off going out. Cars being smashed by falling bricks, lorries blown over on a motorway, damage done to the O2 dome and the top of a spire in Wells, Somerset didn't exactly help matters. But I managed to catch today's service from the OTC via Facebook.

Monday. 5.44 a.m. The wind is still raging outside.

Since the pandemic struck in late March 2020, I have built up quite a pile of boxes and packaging, some of it left from when I moved into Dexter House, but a great deal from buying items online, mostly from Amazon. I am now in the process of breaking up the boxes ready to take to the tidy-tip but will wait until the wind has dropped. All of these packets and boxes are in the pantry (for want of a better word to describe the small storage room next to my kitchen.) It's not so much the actual boxes that are the problem, which I am breaking down so that some will fit inside other larger boxes so that it will fit into the back of my car, but also the material which is used within the boxes, plastic material, card as well as polystyrene. Much of this has been broken up and put into recycling bags which are taken out to the bin yard at the rear of Dexter House, but the rest will go in my car. As you have to prebook your visit to the tidy tip at Bleak Hall, which is done online via the Milton Keynes website, I want to make sure all this work is done before I book my place so that all this rubbish can be taken away.

10.45 a.m. It's as windy as ever. But, regardless of the weather, more bulbs are popping up out of the ground. The daffodils are beginning to show some signs of appearing along the bit of grass opposite The Cricketers in Strudwick Drive and there are catkins on the bushes the furthest side from The Cricketers on Oldbrook Green. As the saying goes, 'the first green shoots are appearing.

7.45 p.m. I am fairly certain that the wind has subsided. Well, I really hope so. Let's just say it would be nice for things to calm down.

Cleaning The Flat

I've been in the flat since October and I'm gradually getting the place as I want it. It does take quite a while to adjust things so they are more how I like them, such as arranging the furniture to where the most used items in the kitchen are stored. There is a shortage of space, so I will need a new unit in the kitchen. I have to remove the stupid fridge/freezer which let me down when it defrosted a couple of months ago and as a result I had to throw away all the food in it. I will need assistance to take it in the car to the recycling centre in Bleak Hall. I intend buying some sort of unit to replace it which can take the microwave and have space to store kitchen equipment. I have seen the ideal unit on Amazon and will have to order it, but this can't be done until the fridge/freezer is taken out to make room.

When Carol and I lived at Golden Drive, we used a Vileda mop which had a build-in water supply which allowed you to mop and it had a built in spray system, meaning you didn't need to have a bucket of water when you were using it. So, I decided I would get a new one so I could keep the floors clean and sparkling in the flat. I went to look in Sainsbury's the other morning, as I imagine we purchased the original one from there. I was surprised by the price, so didn't buy it immediately from there until I'd done a search on the internet. To my surprise I didn't believe that the price could vary so much from one retail outlet to the other. Full price the thing costs in the region of £30, the lowest price being £14 at Dunelm. I decided to visit Dunelm, which is fairly close to Oldbrook, in the business estate at Winter Hill  Retail Park, in Milton Keynes. I found the Vileda display, which had most of their range of cleaning products, including mops, but not the particular type I wanted. Yesterday (Thursday) I decided to go on the Dunelm website and found you could purchase items and then 'click and collect,' so I did this to buy the  spray mop I wanted, using my Debit card. I was expecting it to be ready for collection in a couple of days, but barely an hour later I had a text message to say it was ready for collection, so I drove to Dunelm to collect it. All this is a rather crazy situation, that you can't pick it up within the store, but can buy it via the website. This would mean, surely, that they had the item I wanted in their warehouse at the store, and not on the store's floor. No doubt this is how retail is going to go. But I noticed they didn't have any staff on the floor of the store, who might have been able to assist me in checking whether the item I wanted was in stock.

(Saturday) I discovered that it was quite cold and frosty when I took Alfie out this morning. Ice on the windows of the car and I will definitely have to find my gloves and hat as the weather forecast is warning me that things are due to get even colder.

On a different matter. I was watching an item about social media on BBC Breakfast yesterday morning (it was about research being done by a university to find out how children use such sites as Facebook and the effects such things as bullying has on their mental health.) As a result I did a Google search (other search engines are available.) and found a list of some and one, called Nextdoor, which sounded as if it might be worth investigating. So I found it on-line and have signed up and find it works very differently to Facebook (which has far too much trivia and pointless stuff on it, including annoying advertising.) Having signed up and particularly the site for Oldbrook, I find a post about the lady I've mentioned in these blog posts who keeps stopping people and cars along Oldbrook Boulevard and asking for money. It would appear that other residents are concerned about her safety and why nothing is being done to deal with this issue.

A good deal later. I have been keeping a track of responses to the post on Nextdoor, regarding this woman who is constantly seen asking for money on Oldbrook Boulevard.  Someone has reported the woman to Milton Keynes Council Safeguarding Department, so perhaps something will be done this time. At least if they report this matter and it's logged, at least there is something in writing (well, one would hope so.) and they can deal with it. One can only hope that is what will happen.

General Election and Fridge/Freezer Delivery

So, we had a General Election yesterday. I took Alfie out as usual after 7 o'clock yesterday and no sooner had I bought him back to the flat, I went back out and walked immediately to the Community Centre in Oldbrook, just opposite the Green and next door to The Cricketer's pub, which was being used as a Polling Station. I was amazed by how many people were coming and going. I don't think, considering the early hour (the polling station would have just opened at 7a.m.) I have seen so many people at a polling station for a General Election.

As mentioned in my last blog post, I had to deal with the fridge/freezer defrosting and failing miserably and, as a result, ruining an entire load of food, which had to be thrown away. I was scratching my head to find a solution and came up with one fairly quickly, by ordering a brand new, full-size fridge/freezer from the on-line retailer, Very.  As a result I could pay it off in instalments, and because it's a larger fridge/freezer (actually twice or even more in size to the pathetic thing I was given, and which has let me down big time by breaking down.) Fortunately I had managed to clear the account and was glad that I hadn't closed it down completely. The replacement fridge/freezer was expected to be delivered on Thursday (yesterday), but when I ordered the thing I was not sure at what time of day it was likely to be delivered.

On Wednesday I got a text message to let me know that the fridge/freezer was scheduled to be delivered between 12.15 and 2.15 on Thursday. Then yesterday, Thursday, I got another text message telling me it was going to arrive at around 12.30. Then, by following a link through an email I was sent by the delivery company, I could actually follow there the lorry was on a map. It arrived at around 12.45.

Having got the new fridge/freezer into the flat, carried by two men from the delivery company, it had to stand for several hours before plugging in. This, in order to allow the refrigerant in the system to settle, because it had been on the lorry and then carried into the flat, on it's side. It was quite a difficult job to unpack it, as it was packaged in cardboard, polystyrene and plastic, leaving a large amount of this packing, which will now have to be disposed of, probably taken to the tidy-tip in Bleak Hall. Having allowed the machine to stand for 4 hours, I plugged it into the power point and  I turned on the mains. I had to store milk and other items in the community kitchen, otherwise it would have gone off if left in the kitchen belonging to the flat.

All day the weather had been appalling. When I first went out with Alfie for his early morning walk on Thursday morning, it was cold and wet. Rain falling and a strong wind. No sooner had Alfie realised that it was raining, wet and miserable, he turned tail at the front door and more or less went back in the flat. But he seriously needed to go out, so we walked along Strudwick Drive towards Oldbrook Green, but before we'd even reached the crossing over Oldbrook Boulevard, he turned round and refused to go any further, and, honestly, who could blame him?

Today, (Friday) it is cold and windy, but it's quite bright and sunny.

Failing Fridge/Freezer

A bit of a disaster this morning. I found the fridge/freezer, which was given to me by the Council when I moved in, had defrosted, which meant all the contents had to be thrown away. A good week's worth of food and my money is running out rapidly before I get my next pension payment next week. I have now ordered a new, larger model on Very and I will pay it off by instalments. Fortunately I cleared the account before I moved to Dexter House. The thing should be delivered by the end of the week and once I am paid I will stock up on food to go in it. The old fridge/freezer was far too small, meaning it was extremely difficult to put larger items, such as frozen vegetables, in it. Also, it's so low that I have to kneel on the floor to be able to see what's inside it. The new model should therefore make life considerably easier. I will need to remove the stupid little fridge/freezer as I can't keep a redundant kitchen appliance in the flat. It will need to be taken to the tidy-tip in Bleak Hall, and they're welcome to it as far as I'm concerned. It's not even 3 months old and conked out. I'm not impressed. Just a load of total junk. The best place for it is in the skip.

Alfie is being his usual self. I went to Lidl to do some shopping and got a sandwich to eat when I got back. Alfie, as ever, sat staring at me from his position on the sofa, almost willing me to give him a bit of the sandwich. I resisted for as long as possible, but Alfie got as close to me as he could, by which time I give in and break off  a corner of the sandwich. He eats this morsel, and I continue to munch, but relent and give him  tiny bit more. He doesn't take it, pokes it with his nose. He often does this when you offer him a bit of food. I put that bit on the sofa, next to him, and he pokes it further with his nose and then pushes it on the floor. He does it with a second piece. How amusing, I think. He doesn't like cushions on the sofa, ether, and he pushes them off, again, with his nose.

I had to ring Ashfield Medical Centre to make a doctor's appointment. I started ringing at around 8.15 and eventually got through. The system would seem to be turned off until the staff can be bothered to have it on and actually answer (probably I'm wrong, but that's how it appears to me.) I had to wait for two people in the queue in front of me (the system tells you how many people are ahead of you in the queue.) How long does it take to explain to the receptionist what you need to see the doctor for? If it's me, it can't be more than 30 seconds at most.) I was told I couldn't have an appointment until a few day's ahead. Eventually they told me a doctor would ring me on Thursday (Which is General Election Day) Then, for some inexplicable reason my imagination took over and I said 'Well, as long as I'm at home because I'm expecting Boris Johnson to ring me as I'm advising him on Brexit and the way his election campaign is going.' I don't know what hit me at that specific moment, but it just came out. And the woman on the other end of the telephone said, 'Oh, really!' as if what I had just said was true- well, of course it wasn't and unlikely to be and I had to say it wasn't true, just in case, to make it clear.
Sometimes these things come into my head and I have to 'go with the flow.' I certainly did on this occasion!

One or Two Things To Do

I've managed to reinsure the car. The current insurance policy was due to expire today (Tuesday). We're with Swinton, and they've recently closed down their offices, so I couldn't go to the one in Bletchley and had to ring their callcentre to sort things out. I'm reluctant to leave things to the last minute, as I don't fancy not being properly covered. It was dealt with quite efficiently and the new policy begins on 14th August. Now to get the car MoT'd. I'm wasn't sure where to take the car to have this done, but I had an idea to take it to a garage along from the tidy-tip in Chesney Wold, Bleak Hall, which I noticed when I took a load of rubbish there a week or two ago. I've looked at this company's website and they sound reasonable and it's not too far to take the car. Bleak Hall Motors it's called, imaginatively.

I was shaving in the bathroom this morning and I could hear the sound of pneumatic drills somewhere nearby. I leant out of the window and looked to my left and saw workmen in dayglo jackets and a 'Road Closed' sign near the entrance to the estate from Saxon Street. I wasn't entirely sure what they were doing, but guessed that they must be repairing the pot-holes and the rather nasty rift in the road surface as you drive in. As they had left this un-repaired after the work that the Council workmen had done to fill in the holes along the road immediately outside our house, this was the last bit of road that needed attending to. When I later took Alfie for his morning walk, a good deal later than usual because Carol didn't wake until around 9 o'clock this morning, I did glance as we walked across the road and couches clearly see that work was progressing slowly.

Later I had to go to Sainsbury's and decided to drive out by turning right along the inner Eaglestone ring road because of the roadworks going in the other direction. I rarely leave the estate via the Saxon Street exit, just opposite Milton Keynes Academy, because if the traffic is heavy, it can take an age to get out if you're turning right onto Saxon Street, so I usually drive round to the exit near the shops. It's quite a drive round by turning right, but I didn't want to get tangled up with the road repairs at the Saxon Street exit.

It was extremely hot in the lounge when I returned from my shopping trip to Sainsbury's. Almost airless. We have had the windows wide open most of the morning together with an electric fan on, but even then it was too hot.

I was still keen to sort out the MoT. We asked the nurse who came to deal with Carol's antibiotics later who she used to MoT her car. She said Halford's, which never occurred to me. I did ring them later but I didn't get a lot of help, because the person who answered said he didn't know whether the 'tester' was going to be there and couldn't give a definite answer when I asked. Not a lot of use, because I didn't want to drive all the way to their garage and find there wasn't anyone available to do the MoT. I gave up on them and then rang Bleak Hall Motors and managed to book the car in for Wednesday afternoon at 1.45.

1200th Blog post

I can't believe I've reached the 1200th blog post. I wasn't sure I could even keep this blog going for half a dozen posts, let alone more than one thousand. So, here we are, and what on earth am I going to talk about in this post?

It's 8.30 on a Monday morning, and already the sun is shining and it's hot. Really difficult to sleep, so our bedroom windows have been open as well as an electric fan on. But I'm not sure it really cools the room, just stirring up the air a bit. On Ward 22 Carol has been given a couple of fans, a large floor-standing modern and a smaller one which sits on the bedside cabinet. Along the corridor on Ward 22 they have installed air conditioning machines, with a sort of coiled pipe stuck out of the windows. They are more effective than fans as they cool the air rather than just pushing it around. But at least the fans provide some sort of relief from the heat.  The weather forecast is for even warmer weather, reaching as much as 33c in some parts of the country. Which translates to 91F. I was brought up on Fahrenheit, so anything in Celsius is rather foreign to me. Sorry to say, metric weighs and measures leave me a bit stumped, unfortunately. I can never see why we have to have both systems in operation. Surely, as members of the E.U., we should have gone fully over to metric. Why are we still stuck in a sort of vacuum? Which politicians allowed this mess? I think I prefer imperial measures, after all, who has a vague idea what a pint or a gallon is? You can visualise these measurements. Do we have to buy fuel, either diesel or petrol, in metric measures? Gallons or litres? It's rather confusing.

Alfie was following me around the house. Wherever I went, even to the toilet, he was like a shadow. He was waiting for his early-morning walk around Eaglestone Park. We've seen a man walking his dog, a whippet. He was out with his dog the other morning.Unfortunately Alfie has to rush up to every dog he comes across and runs around in circles, wagging his tail frantically. He is just trying to be friendly, but I think some dogs, the more nervous and scared, are not too keen for this sort of excitement. I don't think the man was over-keen as he said his son was in hospital and the dog had been attacked by another dog. Carol told me that, before she knew me, she'd taken Poppy, our westie/shitsu cross, had been attacked by a large dog which rushed up to Poppy when she had been taken for a walk, and this dog had got hold of Poppy and began to shake her. It must have been frightening and it's a wonder that Poppy didn't get hurt. I think it really scared both of them. On another occasion, when we'd taken both dogs out for a walk, we'd only just left the house, when a small dog rushed up to us, I think a Jack Russell Terrier, and tried to bight Alfie. I managed to grab Alfie and picked him up, and we were able to get the dog away from our dogs. Goodness knows where it came from, possibly from one of the houses across the road from us in one of the closes.

I'm currently continuing to clean the house as best I can. I came back from seeing Carol in hospital and immediately took a load of cardboard boxes to the tidy-tip in Bleak Hall. These were the packaging for stuff which should have gone months ago, the packaging for the IKEA unit in the lounge, the box the television came in and goodness knows what else. I was determined it would all go in the car and make just one trip. Not as difficult as it could have been, but it made room in the small bedroom which has become something of a dumping ground for various items.

Easter Hols

Carol is currently on holiday from Milton Keynes Academy. That doesn't mean she is sitting around drinking cups of coffee and doing nothing much. She has no end of marking to do. I drove over last Friday afternoon in the car to pick her up and she came out with a load of stuff on a trolley which we loaded into the car. Several large printer paper boxes with test papers to be marked. She has been doing this marking every day since and has now, on Wednesday evening, got a few sets still to mark. Those people who think a teacher's life is easy should think again. Yes, they do get quite a lot of holidays, meaning, time away from teaching, but Carol spends a lot of time planning lessons as well as marking and then there's a lot of paperwork to be done, assessments and so on. And having to go to meetings and having observations. Just don't mention the name Michael Gove as he's not the most popular man around any school at the moment (he is Secretary of State for Education.) Not a great deal of time left for other things such as going out, meaning, time away from work.

We had the car booked in for it's MoT, at a garage in Mount Farm, Milton Keynes. We were given the name by Laverne Robb, who is a friend of ours at Milton Keynes Christian Centre. It was he who came to our aid the other Saturday when the car wouldn't start in Tesco's carpark in Kingston. We were ripped off good and proper when we took the car to a rather suspect garage in Bleak Hall and so we were determined not to be treated the same this year. The car had to be at the garage at 8.30. Having dropped it off we phoned using my mobile for a taxi and waited most of the morning to hear the result of the MoT. The car failed, unfortunately. Nothing too much wrong. It needs new tyres and one or two fairly minor things to get it through it's test and they rang to tell me and that they could do the required work on it and it would be ready. So we will await the phone call tomorrow late afternoon and then get another taxi to go and collect it.

Car Passes MoT

The car had been booked in to be serviced and MoT's last Thursday, but at the last minute it was moved to today, Monday. I took the car early, to MK Diagnostics in Bleak Hall, arriving there at around 8 a.m. I had to walk all the way home through Coffee Hall and back to Eaglestone. At around 10 the garage rang to tell me it would need two rear wheel bearings. So, the total bill for service and Mot together with parts and labour came to £238.50. The usual garage we go to was going to charge £146 for just the MoT and service, so I'm more than pleased that we rang round for a quote. So the car is done for another year, and hopefully the peculiar juddering which we've had to endure for the last month or two has been cured, no doubt due to having an oil-change. The car is a Hynundai Atos, and it might be small but it's really cheap to run, insure and tax. A couple of years ago we went on holiday to Flamborough Head in Yorkshire and we managed to get all the way there on £35-worth of petrol! I have to say that living in Milton Keynes makes driving more expensive, probably due to the number of roundabouts and 'sleeping policemen' or speed bumps, and also the really poor quality of some of the road surfaces around here. Going over pot-holes and speed-bumps seems to put extra strain on the suspension of most vehicles as well as wearing the tyres quicker.