Selling the car

Over the last few days we’ve had a bit of concern about being able to sell our car. We’ve put ads in the windows of the car and sat it outside the local supermarket. This was quite effective, as when I turned up to collect it (after having left it there for just under two hours) a couple was looking at it, and I was able to give them one of the signs to take with them. When Celia went back to do some shopping later she also found someone interested. However, nothing came of either of those.

I also advertised it online in the Eastern Daily Press (EDP), the big Norfolk-wide daily newspaper.

Out of this I got two calls, and as well as this my brother-in-law had an inquiry from one of the people he works with. So we were feeling as though we might get it sorted.

And we did. The second person to call, a woman from Norwich, wanted to check it out today, so we went to her home on our way back from Cromer, where we’d been staying overnight with one of Celia’s brothers and his wife. We found the house via our faithful friend, Malvina, and within half an hour the car was sold, and a deposit made on it. It’s going to be picked up on Thursday morning from Attleborough.

Hallelujah! This will also give us a bit of spare cash, as we were getting very low on funds.

We DON'T have senior moments

Before we left yesterday we had one of those senior moment crises. My sister-in-law was going to sort out the car registration, which is due while we were away, and she asked if we could leave the certificate of insurance to take.
Insurance? Surely we had insured the car, hadn’t we? We remembered doing a lot of investigating and sorting out before we came and thought we’d done more when we got here and had then gone ahead, but where was the information? Where was the insurance policy? Absolutely no idea.
I checked through my emails, and checked through the laptop files, and checked the online bank statements. Nothing.
And yet we were certain we wouldn’t have forgotten to insure the car after all the fuss we’d been through.
I rang the insurance company and found myself talking to a girl in NZ - at least I think she was in NZ; she had a NZ accent and said there were two New Zealand girls in the office and one English girl….
She found the policy details without any difficulty - so she must have been in NZ; if she’d been in England, such speed of finding the info would have been impossible! - and said she’d send a copy out.
And then, of course, I realised where all the stuff probably was. I knew we’d taken it on the tenting holiday with us, but I’d thought it would have been in the computer bag with all the other papers. Nope. It was in the suitcase we’d carried the bedding in, sitting there waiting for me. Wondering where I‘d been.

GPS: Go Pray Somewhere? You'll need to.

After almost two weeks of being with people, we’re starting to need space. We’re now babysitting the house belonging to our nephew and his wife and family, and the only other human company is their delightful labrador, Cissie. She’s about a year old, black, and very friendly. We’ve got to know her over the last couple of days, so she’s accepted us as being okay. The house is a lovely place out in the country, not far from a small town called Barford. There’s an enormous field out the back, all fenced in, so Cassie can’t escape but can have plenty of space to roam. The grounds round the house are also fairly extensive (I think the property’s a half acre or so all up) and full of English country flowers.
We’ve been using a GPS system that belongs to my brother-in-law, in the car. It nearly brought Celia and I to blows this morning (after church) when we tried to find our way back to my brother-in-law’s. What a job! It would have been okay, and was going well, until we struck a procession in the middle of Attleborough, and had to turn around and go a different way. From then on it was all downhill – not literally. The GPS voice, whom we called Margarita (though my brother-in-law has a much less polite name for her) led us on a merry dance around the countryside, back and forth, hither and yon, up a dead end (she’s slightly out of date on her facts) and finally caused us to ring the in-laws for help in absolute desperation as we were both going crazy and shouting at each other (in spite of a very positive sermon!). It probably would have got us home, but once we felt she wasn’t quite behaving according to Hoyle, we began to distrust her and each other and not listen to any of the three of us. Never mind, the in-laws came and rescued us – we were only about a mile away from home at that stage.
We used it again to find our way to the present house. It did get us here, but seemed to take us all the way around the mountains again (again, not quite literally). I’m sure Margarita knows what she’s up to, but she’s left us totally exhausted.

The church in the photo is St Mary, Attleborough - it's not the one we went to this morning, however.

Insuring the car

Trying to insure the car my brother-in-law has bought on our behalf has been a bit of an issue. Some insurers want almost as much for the insurance as we've paid for the car. Some want to charge us a lot more for a six months' premium than for a year.

Celia tried getting a quote online with one crowd, and got stuck at a certain point each time. Seems that she may have 'answered one of the questions in an unfavorable way.' In the end she emailed them and got a response late last night. Rather than trying the whole thing again, we rang the English number, got through to the guy who written the email (how's that for amazing?), and he was very helpful. What a difference it makes when you get someone who's helpful. (Like yesterday morning I rang the Dept of Justice because they'd sent the police report on my convictions – there aren't any convictions, by the way – in the name of Crown. I find that pretty amazing too, that they should have my name wrong but my details right. But at least when I rang I got straight through to someone who was also helpful, and promised to get onto it straight away.)

This morning we had an email with all the insurance details we needed – price is still on the high side, comparatively, but better than some of the others, so we'll probably go with it. But whatever we do, the cost of insuring a comparatively cheap car is ridiculous.

The photograph is supposed to be of a Peugeot 306 XR hatchback - which is what we're trying to insure.