Car troubles

Our car has been going slowly downhill since Christmas but has given up its will to live totally in the last couple of weeks. We have spent some money on it this year but there comes a time when one has to say that enough has already been spent. We were able to borrow my daughter's car for a few days and went around frantically looking at cars.  We had just about decided on one when a friend reminded us about the clean air zone being introduced around here next January. And the car we liked was not considered "clean" enough even though it qualified for £20 road tax.

So we started looking all over again. I don't think that this here clean air zone has been thought through sufficiently and I already know of two small businesses that will have to close because of it. Taxis and big lorries will have to pay £100 unless they qualify. I also think that a lot of the small businesses in the city centre will be hit hard. But that is another story.

So we have looked at petrol cars. Can't really justify spending enough to get a late 2015 or newer diesel. We considered a hybrid but those are scary money and haven't been around long enough to know whether a second hand one is any good. We did discover that the life of the battery is expected to be 8-10 years but that a new battery costs around £7000. So back to petrol again.

So we have bought a petrol car this week which is a hatchback rather than another estate but has a reasonable size boot. The tax and insurance are the same as for our lovely big diesel estate. It was sooo comfortable to ride in and it will be sorely missed BUT I can parallel park the new car! Buying a car and spending that amount of money has been a stressful experience. Very stressful! And now we have something that goes so we can visit my mother-in-law again. Except that the only week that we can go, we can't find anybody to look after the animals. Hey ho...