Searching for a Vehicle

---

Oh the joys of looking for a car to buy. We had pretty much decided after selling our ageing 4 x 4 last year (sob,sob) to buy a kombi (minibus) as this seemed the most useful vehicle because we spend a lot of our time camping and in game reserves and not much time going anywhere we might need a 4 x 4. Also the kombi would allow us to sleep in it making setting up camp so much quicker. Now that Andy is an old age pensioner (albeit one with no pension yet) we thought it was time to upgrade from sleeping in the front seats.

We don't really want to spend half our holiday finding one but it's not as esay as you might think. We saw a few yesterday, ranging from the pretty clapped out one hiding in the garage as her ex husband doesn't like her selling it and has cancelled the insurance so we can't take a test drive, to the one described as 'immaculate' by the eager salesman. He was somewhat flummoxed when Andy pointed out that he normally liked an accelerator on his vehicle as it helped with the moving.

After a third unsuccessful day searching and viewing the VW Caravelle Exclusive that was a VW but not a Caravelle or an Exclusive we have decided to rent this year and look again next year. We asked if one vehicle was 4x4 and the salesman said no, we closed the boot and there it was in chrome 4WD, oh yes it is, fancy that. So is it permanent 4WD, definitely said the salesman, no says the manager later, how these people expect to sell a vehicle when they know nothing about it I don't know.

However, there have been some good moments in the last 3 days. We had a first visit to Ocean Basket for their seafood platter, delicious as always, that was followed by a lunch at a Mike's Kitchen (not ate at one of them for probably over 15 years) and last night was kids night at Spur, so lots of noise but some lovely steaks.

The weather so far has been lovely, hot and sunny in the day and cooling at night but today brought a huge thunderstorm just as we went to the shops. It has stopped now and it's not really cold, not by Scottish standards anyway.

---