Car

Sunday was eventful - I spent the first couple of hours of my morning on the phone trying to get a line to Helsinki. Tickets were put on sale for the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest at 10 am, and varying reports have been floating round that tickets for the final sold out in 13 minutes.

The Helsinki phone system almost melted down, and at 11.44 am I finally got a line. Sadly, no tickets for the final for me, but I managed to get one for the semi-final on the Thursday, and one for the 3rd dress rehearsal for the final. I'll get to see the acts and running order at 2pm, but I won't be at the filming/live event that you see on TV. I'll keep trying though.

Lippupalvelu, the company selling the tickets wouldn't take a credit card over the phone, so they invoiced me and I had to wire the money over to Finland. More expense, to an already expensive outlay. Probably a once in a lifetime thing though.

The car went to the garage to be repaired on Tuesday, and I've been given a Toyota Yaris in the meantime. I'm afraid I have nothing nice to say about this car. It takes unleaded, sounds like a Diesel, and has about as much pulling power as Virginia Bottomley. DO NOT GET ONE.

Hot chocolate time methinks.

Looks like I haven't popped a blog up for a week or so, and I felt guilty so I better do something about the situation.

First off, on the telephone front, Primus will be my phone call supplier with effect from the 15th. This means that I get free evening and weekend calls for zilch, which is great news. The The Phone Co-op have *finally* agreed to refund my overpayment, and therefore a cheque for £70 is on the way back to me. BT now have my line rental (option 1, caller display and diverts), while 18185 have international and mobile calls, and 1899 have daytime landline calls. It's all very complicated, but the Orchid V4 dialler makes complete sense of it.

The Equitalk cashback situation still hasn't been resolved. Quidco have received my support ticket, and fingers crossed the £14 will be paid.

I'm a bit peessed off with my car at the moment. Okay, it passed the MOT first time, but a couple of days after I got the all important sheet of A4, the CD player up front gave in. I can still play CDs in the exchanger in the boot, but no MP3 CDs in the front. Agh, I think a trip to halfords to have it fixed is in order.

20 days left till my holiday in Switzerland. I can't wait to get away from it all for a week. Locarno looks great at this time of the year, and it'll be nice to just chill out. Also, I'm looking forward to my night in the uber nice Warwick Hotel... yay!

Time to move that mess off my bed. I put evetrything on the bed while I vacuumed. Now I have to shift it all back :(

Ah well.

Normally I fill up at the supermarket, but the other day, I thought I'd treat my car to a full tank of BP fuel. Gosh, what a difference! The MPG may be a bit lower, but it feels like I'm driving a different car!

Final negotiations have been completed on the Car Insurance front, resulting in a final premium of £475.00 including Protected No Claims Bonus, Legal Cover and Free Breakdown cover. That's a whopping £121 saving on my original renewal premium. See - it pays to shop around!

Well, the leak in the bathroom appears to have been identified, and has now stopped. Unfortunately, I'm still unable to recommend B&Q to anyone thinking of having a bathroom, or indeed, a kitchen by them.

On the insurance front, I've managed to negotiate a premium of some £510 with a local broker, even though I've had to swallow an increased excess (from £50 to £300!) which I'm not terrifically happy about. I did see that the Co-operative Bank has a new Privilege Premier Account which offers annual travel insurance and Green Flag breakdown along with a host of other benefits for £12 a month.

In the ten years that I've been driving, I've been through a couple of insurers: Drake, Highway at Lloyd's, Colonnade, Admiral, Elephant, and for the last three years, Co-operative (CIS).

Saturday saw the arrival of my renewal invitation. I knew that the premium would increase a little since my last renewal of c£260 (comprehensive), as I moved from a group 3 rated car to a group 13 car. Naturally, I assumed that the premium would move into low to mid £400 mark... but when I opened the renewal notice...SHOCK!

£596 per year was the figure. I'm forking out a mint as it is on petrol, without the insurance company trying to bankrupt me too.

There's been movement in the Bathroom area. B&Q delivered the missing radiator, and this was installed last Wednesday. Sadly, the fixed leak has come back with avengance, and we're having to turn off the isolator after each shower, or risk the kitchen ceiling fall in.

Has anyone seen the proce of petrol lately? It's working out at almost £1 ($1.70) a litre, and with a 70 mile round trip each working day, it's really racking up. Indeed, it's not unusual for me to fill the car up with £45 ($76.50) of fuel each week. Look like I need to move closer to where I work.