Enter: The Car

So, we've now reached another milestone in our marriage... we own a car. This post has been long in coming, seeing as how our car isn't that new in any sense of word, but still is worth while. We've known that we would need a car to drive our Europe trip (get it? Clever eh?) and have been passively looking for a while. We figured that we would just break down and actively look to buy one after Christmas when suddenly a friend asked if we were still looking and gave me a number.

Read more about el coche!!!

Turns out a friend of his was going back to Canada (in particular Saskatchewan; who's from Saskatchewan?), and they were going to scrap their car. I talked to the guy and was told it runs fine, just needs some work to pass its MOT (a road readiness test), and we could have it. So, shortly before Christmas, we bought a car for 20 quid.

Look at that massive 1.1 Liter engine! I left my glove on the block for reference

After Christmas, we finally picked it up from the shop and have been happily using it since. It does have some quirks, and it is 14 years old, but it runs just fine! It actually must have been a pretty decent car back in the day, as its state of the art tape deck and theft deterrent (in order for the engine to start you need to enter numbers into a keypad that is mounted in the car!) demonstrate. That being said, it also comes with a sunroof, which I'm sure is great for those many and oppressive hot English days...

Ahhh, the glorious sunroof. Took me three days of owning the car to realise that it existed; needless to say I was quite excited when I saw it, a little less excited when I realised it only opened 2/3 of the way.

In general though, it's a great little thing. So what if the temperature light kicks on when we drive any length of time of 75 (or at 70 going up a hill) or that occasionally all the lights on the dash (of which there are a total of FOUR) turn on? I'm sure it'll be fine. So far it's gotten us down to Chester and Liverpool, not to mention trips around the area, so in comparison, what's a little jaunt down to Greece and back?

The family we bought it from even threw in a child seat and a frisbee. Glad to know that Canadians still conform to their national law of 'Canadians abroad must have a Canadian emblem on display at all times.'

And I'll end with my favorite bit of the car, the dash. You can see from the photo below all the gauges and indicators we have, but my favorite gauge (of our two) is the one to the right of the speedometer. At first I couldn't figure out what it was, and then it dawned on me: it's a clock.