just another morning here

The funny thing is, that the journalist who wrote this article doesn’t even drive, and has never bought a car!
Still, I think it was a good piece, and it made me smile more than once - prizes if you can guess where

However, and it is the only thing we could find to pick on, apparently there is a missing ‘minus’ in the quotation about earnings! Steve says, for the record, his answer was that his garage could earn from ‘minus 50k to 100K’.

Edited to add: The article came about completely by chance. Apparently LB was in the city doing a similar article on a Met Office worker, and wanted to find a car salesperson to interview for the series, and just contacted Steve from the phone book (or google, whatever he used, I don’t know!). Not quite sure what made Steve say yes, it’s quite unlike him really!

Another gorgeous day here, which we ended up spending on Dartmoor. Steve had arranged to go to a meet-up of some Subaru people from a forum he visits. Interesting conversation on the way there about how I would chat on a forum first, and then meet people in real life, whereas he prefers to meet people in real life first, and then chat on the forum …

Anyway. We had a lovely (and huge) carvery at the Plume of Feathers, and then went up further to find an ice cream van for pudding! After that people went different ways, and we stayed on for a walk, which is when I really needed a caching system that works on the go - we found a letterbox which we thought might have been a cache/letterbox hybrid but having read logs etc. from caches in the area I don’t think it was.

No photos of the cars as I wasn’t interested enough to get the camera out (we didn’t take his subaru in any case as it is (a) in pieces in the workshop and (b) only has 2 seats). Instead the usual subject matter

Home after that for X Factor repeats, laundry and a few essential jobs before falling into bed again. Need an extra day in this weekend!

Some more smiley faces on my map, and it all happened spontaneously which was fab
Joe was at his friend’s house, Anna was on the way to hers, when my friend rang up and decided to come over for some caching. Abbie moaned and groaned about it, desperately ringing round her friends to see which ones were in, but didn’t find any - then the minute before we left her friend rang and invited her over as well!

So I had a happy couple of child-free hours to walk and hunt. We picked Josiah up and did one more cache on the way back, which is why he’s in one of the photos too! Especially pleased with the cache where I’m in the photo - firstly it was a satisfying puzzle to solve, and then it was a cool cache hide as well

Steve won his class at Wiscombe hillclimb again today (no Cosworth, yawn), while his dad was doing the honours for us at the Guildhall Motor Show, which we did last year and it was good enough for us to want to repeat the experience this year as well. Steve and I will be there tomorrow so if you read this and you’re in town during the day, then pop and see us.

Steve just got sent this video clip, taken by someone else who was at the hillclimb, obviously. Made us laugh anyway!

Steve went out to Mamhead again today; the kids and I went to church, and then decided to go out and watch the end of today’s hillclimb. I knew there was a chance that Steve might do well again and I wanted the children to see him! Also, Mamhead is just such a lovely venue, and because it is a small event at the moment, it’s really friendly. So we chucked a few things to do into the car, and drove out to spectate for the afternoon. Kids were generally good and made friends with a few other children, and amused themselves well. The rain held off until half way through the very last timed run, and Steve clocked the fastest time of the day again

Very tired now, so falling asleep in front of the Grand Prix (recorded from earlier ).

Today saw us back at the beautiful Mamhead House for another hill climb event. Thanks to Steve’s mum who was looking after the children, I went with Steve for the day, so was able to enjoy it without worrying about what the kids were up to! It is quite a nice day in those circumstances, especially at Mamhead - what could be better than relaxing with a book in the grounds of a gorgeous country house, on a sunny day?! Thankfully the early murky mist/rain did go and we had a nice afternoon.

Steve managed to achieve the fastest time of the day so he was pleased with himself, and I was very proud of him too He did attempt to re-landscape the driveway on his next run, which wasn’t so good, we are hoping that the owner isn’t going to worry too much about it!

Have come home to change and we’re now about to drive back to Mamhead for a BBQ and band evening (in the fabulous Orangery!) laid on as part of the hillclimb weekend. Then collecting the children and back home to try and regroup!

We finally managed to tear ourselves away from Guitar Hero - actually what took the time in getting ready was that I decided that all the kids should have a bath/shower before we left! Packed up and drove from Abingdon to Reading to visit the Portico. I was in trouble on a couple of counts - firstly that I’d arranged a visit when Violet wasn’t there, and secondly that we weren’t staying the night! We agreed in the end that it was better to see them than not at all Had a lovely couple of hours catching up, having lunch, and seeing other friends too.

Left there mid-afternoon, hoping to be home by teatime, but the traffic was horrendous, and we got home early evening instead.

Amused ourselves by taking photos on the road - loved this pink Ka and then saw that it had my name across the back windscreen, how cool is that?! (don’t answer that, I wouldn’t ever do it to my own car but if it ever came in in part exchange I’d have to keep it!)

Luckily we were already planning to come over to Steve’s parents’ for a takeaway so we dumped bags, packed more (the kids are staying over) and went straight out again! Steve and his Dad went out and picked up an Indian which was really nice.

Anyway, we have had a really lovely week, so thanks to all the people who put us up, fed us, and generally entertained us