Personal Stamp

I'm driving along in my little blue car, and I'm thinking, 'Wow! This is my own little blue car; my own mobile personal space!'

And I'm thinking, 'I ought to make it more individual to moi,' because at the moment it is still in pristine showroom condition. It still has that 'new car' smell. There's not a biscuit or crisp crumb to be seen. Not that I'm likely to eat biscuits or crisps in my car but it always seems to be that the type of crumbs that end up littering a car once belonged to either a biscuit or a crisp.

So what can I do to personalise my little mobile space? I've paid a cursory visit to a well-known car accessory shop, and perused the floor mats, the seat covers, the smelly things you hang from your rear view mirror which pretend they are 'Golden Vanilla' but really smell of 'eau-de-Plasticine'. And the only thing I was a teeny bit tempted by was a furry Bagpuss steering wheel cover. Luckily, I managed to talk myself out of that one.

The last time I had a new car was when Chris and Heather were little people. And Chris personalised it by throwing up all over the passenger seat from his booster seat in the back. Ah, he had projectile vomiting down to a fine art in those days. Abs of steel, that boy.

But this is the only car of my own I've had, aside from the Mini 850, my first ever car, which I personalised with a variety of stickers of which my mother wholly disapproved for being neither funny nor clever.

So, smellies first. I have to admit that 'new car' smell makes me feel slightly nauseous, so I am planning to make a couple of lavender bags to dangle therein and hope they don't make me feel so relaxed I fall asleep at the wheel.

I quite like the idea of seat covers, but I don't want ones which are 100% nylon and/ or leather look, which seems to account for a majority of the commercial covers available today. So I thought I'd get a nice blue woollen throw for the back seat, and see if I can run up some flowery cotton jobbies for the front. I could get hold of a cheapo cover to use as a template and take it from there.

Ditto a steering wheel cover. And if any character is going to adorn it, it will be Miss Piggy.

I have a Scrat-from-Ice-Age-with-suckers-for-feet toy which I can pop on a rear passenger window. I have a dinky little pot I can install in one of the cup holders to hold change for parking. The car doesn't have a glovebox, but it has a space where the glove box would be if I'd gone for the more-than-just-basic version, so I'm going to get a wallet of some sort to hold stuff like the instruction manual and the details of the rescue service and a scraper for ice-removal in the Winter.

As for stickers, well, I've got an Eglu sticker and a Bumblebee Conservation Trust sticker, but they are in the other car, so I might have to sneak them away when Andy isn't looking. I'm not going to put in any witty stickers because, twenty eight years down the line I have turned into my mother and she was right, they aren't funny and they aren't clever, and they are strictly the preserve of the boy racers and girly ladettes.

And I shall keep a set of shopping bags in the boot, and no doubt find space for other important stuff like a book, a magazine, a pen, a notepad, a packet of sweets and a spare pair of tights, a packet of tissues and an umbrella.

Oh, and a tube of superglue in case I have to perform emergency road-side surgery on a chicken's comb.

Impulse Buy

I'm not one generally given to impulse purchases. But when I do impulse buy, I impulse buy BIG!!

So, for the last couple of months I've been making a major effort to utilise MMM's finances in the best possible way. Shifting savings into a higher interest account, earmarking some of my tutoring salary to pay off a little wodge of the mortgage, working out where savings can be had in day-to-day household bills etc. And my bank is going to be next on my hit list because, despite having been a loyal and no-trouble customer for well over six years, they have been taken over by another bank who have zilch customer service and appear to be paring away all remaining reasons for me to stay with them, especially the miniscule amount of interest they are prepared to pay on my current account. There are better offers out there. I know, because I've been doing my homework.

Anyway, this morning we were up and about, egg and toast for breakfast, then Andy went out to clean out the hens and set about a whole house hoover 'n' tidy up 'n' get-the-washing-in-the-machine campaign. And I was thinking, as I pushed the hoover around sucking up dust and cat fur and cat toys and biros, that my earning potential would improve if I had my own transport. We've been without a second car for 3 years now and whilst the extra walking has been good in some respects (exercise, enjoying the sunshine and fresh air etc) it has also been a pain, generally when I've been struggling home up a hill with bags of groceries and it's hissing down with rain and I'm getting severe puddle splash from passing traffic.

So Andy comes in around 10 a.m to find me staring out of the front window, hoover in hand.

'What are you thinking about?' he said.
'Cars,' I said. 'A red Citroen C1, to be exact.' Because I have seen these little cars around and about and I have been rather taken with them.
'Shall we go to the Citroen dealer up the road and have a look?' said Andy.
'Yes,' said I.

And two hours later I found myself the proud owner of a brand new shiny red Citroen C1!!

Well!! The last time this kind of impulse buy happened there was a car involved, too. It was 11 years ago and I went out to buy a wheelbarrow and came back with a Fiat Bravo. Some might say, 'What's the difference?', but I think they might be getting confused with that old joke involving Skodas.

I'm waiting for a phone call on Tuesday from the nice, totally unpushy sales chappie who dealt with us to tell me when I can collect the car but we're aiming for the end of this month.

And it was all very exciting and has cheered up a dull, wet, cold, miserable January day enormously.