Diamonds may last forever, but skoda's don't...

Dear Purple Skoda,

I really thought that this was a letter I would never have to write. I honestly believed that you would be part of our lives for ever, growing ever more crotchety - but still just about going - for many years to come, and yet hear we are, a mere 7 years after first meeting, saying our goodbyes.

I remember when we first met. I was 3 weeks off my due date with Boy #1, and Husband had finally bowed to Realism and accepted that our days of being young cosmopolitan Londoners who used public transport to get everywhere, only hiring a car when we needed to leave the capital, were over. Since I had always been the one to deal with transport issues up until then (having mostly been the one gifted with company cars), I decided that this time he could do the legwork, and let him get on with sourcing a suitable vehicle whilst I concentrated on finishing up at the office before going on maternity leave, and waddling around like a very hot duck at the end of the 2003 summer heatwave.

So when, the day after I shut down my laptop for the last time in 6 months and left work weighed down by good wishes and goodluck cards, I did so in the certain knowledge that when we went to the second hand car dealer the next day (getting there by tube, obviously), he would not have let me down.

Well, he didn't. Exactly. But he did wait until we were almost there, me sweating and sailing along like a ship in full sail, before announcing that he had already spied a suitable car on the website. "I'm not sure you're going to like it" he said nervously. Safe in my pregnancy bubble, I remained as serene as it was possible to be for a nearly nine month pregnant woman walking along in 30degC temperatures, and in need of the loo and vast quantities of cold water at the same time. A Ford Focus? A Clio, perhaps? How bad could it get? My husband, after all, is something of a petrol head. Of course he would pick us a good car!

What I had forgotten, however, was that as well as being a petrol head, my husband was also Dutch; a nation famed on mainland Europe for being 'careful' with money.

"It's a skoda" he mumbled.

I stopped, and looked at him. "You're kidding, right?"

"And it's purple".

"You're not kidding."

Not, perhaps, the most auspicious start to a relationship. But , dear skoda, you have done us proud over the last 7 years. You might not be the coolest car on the block, or even an acceptable colour, but your big boot enabled us to transport 2 children and their various accessories, over more trips to Holland and the West Country than I care to think about. Sure, there were rare incidents where you decided to throw a hissy fit; that time in a torrential rainstorm at midnight in Belgium, for example. When Husband decided to wash down your engine. Or when you decided we should splash out on a new exhaust. Or two.

But overall, you've been a good friend, ignoring the leaf-litter of papers, sweet wrappers and coke cans that rattled around on the floor, and proving good-humoured about always being the dirtiest car on the block (Husband still swears that our neighbours thought you belonged to the cleaners and that they probably all thought we weren't paying them enough...).

It was only when we pushed you too far, ignoring your pleas for more coolant, that you finally gave out on Husband on the M25 in rush hour one evening and threw in the towel for good. (And no, I won't remind you of how I repeatedly asked him if we should pay attention to the little light on the dashboard and of how he laughed at me and told me not to be so silly, there would never be anything wrong with you...).

So now it's goodbye, dear skoda. I have no doubt that your replacement - when we finally return to live in Blighty, whenever that may be - will probably be just as uncool and just as good value for money as you ever were. But I must admit that I do rather hope that in one respect, it will be different.

Please, not purple.

Best wishes,

PM x

On the hamster's wheel

It's the day before we go on our summer holiday. All is chaos at my parent's in law where we're currently staying before we leave for France. After spending 3 weeks with my parents and Husband's mother I'm becoming something of a basket case. I love them both dearly (although my parents more, obviously - it's the law, apparently), but I haven't spent this much time with them since I left home 25 years ago.

Husband suggested this morning that I take 'a couple of hours' out at a coffee shop to surf the internet and have some time to myself. Great idea. Except, by the time we emptied out our car ready for it to be scrapped (once we find the ownership papers, and god only knows where they are), went through the stuff in my mother-in-law's loft trying to find various pieces of clothing for the boys (also a fruitless exercise), and tried to rationalise some of our luggage before flying out with 'Not so Easy Jet' tomorrow morning, 'a couple of hours' had gone down to 1 hour 15. Throw in running a couple of errands (funnily enough for shaving foam that I won't be using and a card for my brother-in-law), and I was left with 40 minutes. Then I had to find a coffee shop with wifi (lose another 10 minutes) and queue up to get the code in the only joint in town with a working connection, and I have 2 minutes left to write a post.

And now I'm late.

What a relaxing 'couple of hours' that was...

So that's it, Internet. No more blog post right now. Hopefully the next time I log on I will be ensconced by the pool with a glass of chilled rose in my hand.

Update: My saint of a mother-in-law has taken the boys out to the park to give them the chance to let off steam and me time to pack.

I am, of course, blogging instead, so I can give you the skinny about my accident on the way home where, stomping along crossly in my new fit flops, I caught the incredibly thick sole on the edge of the pavement and executed a perfect triple salko ending up with me, my handbag, the shopping, and crucially, my laptop bag, hitting the ground with an ominous thud. Damage report: two grazed knees (amazingly through my jeans, no rips thank god), two bruised palms, a damaged sense of dignity and a slightly more rattly computer.

I may rename my new shoes 'titflops' - because I suspect I looked like one...

Happy Friday!

This week's edited lows... (and there have been highlights too, of course, but we all know they make for much less entertaining reading);

1. A bucket full of rain poured directly on my head every time I stepped out of the front door. Luckily, I recently invested in a cherry-red coat with a hood which arrived on Monday so this was less of a problem than it might have been. Although...

2. ...when it arrived it became clear that the coat was not actually cherry-red but belisha beacon orange. I look like a traffic cone (only without the fetching reflective stripe). Hmm. Not quite the style statement I had intended...

3. Losing our cleaner who has had the temerity to go and get herself a full time job. I mean, of course I'm happy for her, really I am, but - not to go on about it - it's VERY inconvenient...

4. Our previously reliable but now a bloody pain in the arse car has conked out, sadly without the Ferrari sound effects this time, and instead with an extremely off-putting bubbling grating burbling sound coming from the exhaust. Just for fun, there is also an additional off-putting sloshing sound in the door. I diagnosed a faulty exhaust and a perished window seal, and took it straight to the garage where Ray 'I take look tomorrow morning PM you try to drive gently nothing is hanging down from the bottom you did check yes you did check right because that could be dangerous and yes I know you say you check already I am listening PM I know you tell me already you check and I must go now bye see you tomorrow bye' the motor-mouth and punctuationally-challenged mechanic is working on it. He tells me it will be sorted by midday today, but if that's the last we hear from our sulky exhaust, I will eat my sopping wet new hood.

5. After testing our central heating for an hour or so last night our boiler decided to take some time off this morning (perhaps striking in sympathy with those postal workers?) meaning that I had to make yet another 7am phone call to the oh-so-helpful people at British Gas to arrange an emergency appointment. After much pleading they agreed to come this afternoon, and of course when I got back from the school run (which had to be done on foot due to previously mentioned messed-up car), the blasted thing had stopped working to rule and has sorted itself out...

6. Also? I am experiencing the side effects of over-indulging in the French Onion Soup I decided to make to try and reduce the great Veggie-Box Onion Glut of '09 in the fridge. It's the Boys I feel sorriest for on this one, actually.

Not that they ate any of the soup, you understand. They've just had to live with a mother who has...