Going To Collect New Car

I managed to set up insurance for our new car, by ringing up the company on Friday morning who arranged insurance for  the Hyundai, Swinton. It was a simple matter of transferring it to the new car, although for some reason I assumed the insurance policy on that car ran out at the end of this month and was surprised that it ran until the end of October.

This morning (actually Carol's birthday, by the way.) we cleared out the Hyundai. It's shocking to find so much rubbish in the car, which we soon put in black bin bags for the collection on Wednesday. We had to put £5-worth of petrol  at the Shell station in Grafton Street, which was sufficient to get us to Dunstable and then  we went into  the NatWest bank in  Milton Keynes city centre which didn't open until 9, parked the  outside and went in to take the money out of our account to pay for the new car. We had found that, had we paid using our debit card as we had done to pay the deposit on the car on Thursday evening, we would have incurred a £15 charge which we wanted to avoid.  Having left the bank we decided that, as it was too early to go direct to Dunstable, we would go to Dobbie's garden centre in Fenny Stratford, and not too much out of our way as it's on the A5 en route to Dunstable, and had coffee and cake in their restaurant and wandered around the garden centre to fill in time as the car dealer in Dunstable wasn't going to be open until 10.30. We drove on down the A5 and just as we got into Dunstable we found the road blocked ahead of us by a vast traffic jam but fortunately we turned off into Frenchs Avenue which was where the car dealer was, thus avoiding being held up. On arrival there we found the place was very busy with a lot of cars parked in the road outside In the yard where the cars were on display a lot of people  were viewing cars. On enquiring about our car we were told that it was out being test-driven. They had taken it to be MoT'd elsewhere and it was apparent that it was stuck somewhere in the town amongst the traffic jam we had seen as we'd come into Dunstable. We had to wait in the office for around 20 minutes. Fortunately during this time we were able to hand over the cash and sort out the paper-work that was required including setting up, on-line, payment of the car licence which we can pay in monthly installments which seems to be a recent development and mans we don't have to fork out a further fairly hefty amount of cash in one lump. Having done the paperwork we were then told our car had been bought back so we could take it away, but we then found that it had been parked in such a way that it was extremely difficult to get it out so a good gentleman who was waiting in his car got it out for us. Carol then got in to drive home and we had to go out slowly and steadily as it is a good deal bigger than the Hyundai. We got out on to the main road out and stopped at the petrol station at Chalk Hill to fill up. Unfortunately I went to open the passenger-side door to manually open it when we were getting back in. The car has automatic, sliding, doors and you have to use the remote on the electronic key and not open the doors manually. As I'd opened it by hand my passenger-side door kept opening and closing because it had become 'confused.' But eventually it closed properly and we were able to drive off down the A5 back to Milton Keynes. We had to return home as we needed to get the re-usable shopping bags so we could go shopping in Sainsbury's. 

Speeding Drivers and Dank Weather

The weather continues miserable. Not raining, but grey and over-cast. There was no ice to scrape off the car this morning, which was all very well, but it is still cold. We have had a few mornings with frost, but nothing to heavy. I bought a can of de-icer spray in Sainsbury's the other week, but it seems to make more mess of the windscreen than if you use just a scraper. It makes visability really bad, as you seem to get a blurry image looking through the windscreen. Also, I'm not to sure of the environmental effects of using this spray. It also has a really pungent smell.

Yesterday I took Sam to work. The roads are a nightmare at around 8-9 a.m. I realise that people are going to work, well, those who are working a 9-5 work-pattern, but some people have really no consideration for other road users. The road along side Eaglestone, that is, from near the Milton Keynes Academy to the hospital, is a 40 miles per hour speed limit. I don't think some people realise this, although it is fairly well signed. There are large signs as you enter and there are sometimes illuminated signs that show the speed you are driving at as you approach, and if you are at the correct speed you get a 'smiling face'. Which is actually, to my way of thinking, better than speed cameras, as these just seem to provoke agression in a lot of drivers. I think you slow down when you see them and then speed up again once you are well past. So, in that sense they defeat the object. Also, it can be said that speed cameras are merely a way to make money, from the fines that they generate. As we drive a relatively small car, a Hyundai Atos, and we don't make a habit of speeding around the place, generally keeping within the speed limit, we have found that you constantly get other car drivers coming up directly behind you as you're driving along, and trying to get you to go faster, or, in a lot of cases, trying to get you to move out of the way. Usually these are the speed freaks who have to drive at full throttle everywhere and seem to disobey every rule of the road, including keeping within the legal speed limits. I have driven around Milton Keynes and had people come up behind me and try to get me to speed up or just attempt to push me off the road so they can go faster and faster. This often happens when I have dropped Carol off at the Academy and I turn out into the road and round the roundabout and back in to Eaglestone, and on several occasions I have had a car come up and virtually touch the rear bumper of the car, just to get me to go faster.

We drove to where Sam works, at around 8.45. There was traffic building up to turn into the carpark at Milton Keynes College (where we park when we go to  M.K.C.C.(Milton Keynes Christian Centre),  as you're not supposed to park in the residential streets around the church and use the bus service to the carpark over to the church, run as a shuttle service.) Then there was quite a queue going onto the roundabout for Grafton Street which we got through fairly rapidly. The along Grafton Street and into the industrial estate where Maplins is (where Sam works.) Having dropped him off, it's quite difficult getting back into the traffic system in Grafton Street at that hour of the morning, but I generally turn left and back to the roundabout and down the other side of the dual carrage way and home along Chaffron Way and home. This particular morning, as I have already mentioned, there was a real bottleneck at the exit into the college carpark, and I had to slow down because I couldn't see clearly what was ahead, due to the volume of traffic. Suddenly a car drew out of the college exit, and if it wasn't for my instant reaction, I would have collided with the car. Thankfully the Atoz has good brakes, but it didn't do a lot for my nerves. A couple of feet more and there would have definitely been an accident.