[Apologies in advance for this being the longest post I've written in ages and it's about a car. Won't happen again, sorry.]
And verily I did travel from darkest Norfolk to the bright lights of London and did return with the finest of transports.
So yes, Tuesday I had a nervous morning of large cash transfers between banks in Norwich before hot-footing it down to the station and setting off to London to go and get our new Ford S-Max. The journey there was mostly uneventful, trains were on time, no real rush as I made my connections all on time thanks to military like planning with some help from Transport Direct and a saunter to the South London based Ford dealer who I can’t name due to the special discounted price I got (which was via Drive the Deal). Once there paperwork was filled, lots of things were signed, I was given a quick overview of the car and then the keys were mine and, one small fuel stop later, I was on my way home. The 150 mile journey didn’t seem to take much time. Mostly because I was playing with the high tech gubbins within as I drove but also because it’s comfortable and drives effortlessly. It’s a change, both in size and feel, from our Skoda Fabia which was a bottom of the line “Classic” model to the top of the range Titanium S-Max which will take some getting used to but it’s a very small price to pay for saving over £7000 on the list price of a new car.
It has all manor of fancy gadgetry like a USB port for a USB stick/hard drive/iPod, Bluetooth, DAB radio, mirrors that fold in when you lock the car, voice control, climate control and, most importantly, lots of seats. The girls are rather excited by it and want me to drive them to every playgroup they go to. “New car!” Mirabelle shouts whenever it’s mentioned.
And now the customary pictures. Annoyingly it rained all day Wednesday so the shots I got today were all taken with a damp car that had been covered with leaves in a cramped car park.
Also, note the last characters of the number plate:
