Friday 28 February 2014

GOODBYE WHITE VAN MAN, HELLO...

The actual van, parked opposite Susan Hardy's house.

...my brand new second-hand car! Whooo!

And if you're wondering what this has to do with cat rescue, well let me tell you a story...

In the dim and distant past around the time I first started this blog it was decided that the charity needed a van for all the running around we had do, often with large heavy items like furniture or several 30kg sacks of cat litter,or lots of smaller not so heavy items  dozens of tins/packs/cartons of cat and dog food. So Animal Krackers the registered charity went and bought a white van which was registered to the charity. Now me, I'd never driven anything larger than a Fiesta so at first I didn't do much. However as time went on I ended up doing most of the driving and when Susan and I split up and I moved to my new address round the corner the van came with me. 

A few months later we got ourselves a new van almost identical to the old one. Unfortunately it seemed to be accident-prone. Well, at least when I was driving it. Walls would suddenly appear out of nowhere when I was reversing as did, in the last couple of months, two cars and a van. I'm pretty sure that one of those cars was not my fault, honest gov, but I have to cop to the other two. 

After the second car last Saturday, Susan suggested I buy myself a runaround and drive the van a lot less which is the conclusion I'd reluctantly come to. She suggested a Toyota Yaris as driven by our niece. I checked up on it and the several reviews I read all came to the same conclusion of it being among the best, if not the best, in the super-mini class. Ooh-kay.

I now checked to see what was available in Sunderland. Nothing less than four grand. I went through the lists checking out every Yaris which seemed a possibility and decided to go see one with a mileage under 30 thousand and a price of £6.5k which had just arrived at a Toyota dealers. However, by the time I got there it had been sold. But he did have one coming in on Saturday (tomorrow) and would be available for perusal on Monday. This was a top of the range model with a mileage of only 12 thousand and was going for £8k which was more than I wanted to pay but not that much more. So I'm going to see it on Monday.

I told Susan.

"£8,000!" she said. "I wouldn't pay that much for a car!" Then, "You'd better check to see what else is available at other places!"

"It's red!" she expostulated when I told her the colour. "I wouldn't have a red car!"

I didn't say, as I only thought of it later, "It'll be my last car ever and why shouldn't I have a nice one?" (I did check other available Yarises and decided that on a specs vs price basis this was the best.) And I also didn't say, "I couldn't give a monkey's testicle what colour it is as long as it's a good car."

I'm still debating as to whether to bring Susan with me when I go. A mutual friend has suggested this might be unwise. 

Below is a photo pinched from Google Images. Red looks good to me.

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I also realised why I keep having these little reversing mishaps. The Yaris I intend to buy has reversing sensors which the previous van also had but the current one does not. If it had, I might not have had these little accidents  as it's hard to keep reversing when the car/van is going beep-beep-beep-beep-beepbeepbeeepbeeep-break you idiot!
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Addendum.
What this means is that I'll only be driving the van (which will now be parked at Susan's) when it involves taking a load of cat food over to Carole's or when Susan isn't available. I'll be using my brand new second hand car for transporting cats, small amounts of cat food, and emptying food bins, and stuff.

Cat Info.

I'm always updating -as in nearly every day- the list of cats available for re-homing. Click on the link in the sidebar on the left or cut and paste this into the browser- 
http://catrescuesunderland.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/animal-krackers-cats-needing-homes.html

However, this is what's happened this week. Poppy and Maisie have been re-homed. Black Cat arrived yesterday. An hour or so ago I showed a lady around and she's very interested in Molly but has another rescue to check out before making a decision. Tomorrow  morning I'm meeting more people. Maggie and Morag, re-homed six weeks ago, are coming back.

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