Bikes, Cars and Accidents

Bikes
Finally, after about 2 years of threatening to buy one, I've got myself a bike. It's nothing special in terms of value, in fact it was one of the cheapest as I certainly wasn't looking to spend in the hundreds as some of them were costing, but it will do for what I want it for... a bit of excerise now and then. Mainly I intend to use it to get to work (only on nice days! :p ) when we have to start using both cars to get around once Josh starts attending school.

I've been out on it already when I made my first work trek on it on Sunday. There's a canal that runs from the bottom of our estate and it takes you literally right to where I work which is handy. The journey is roughly 3 miles and despite having to get off for a couple of low bridges, it's quite a pleasant trip. I've got to change the saddle though as it's a bit thin and got a bit uncomfortable after a while, was like sitting on a razor blade!. I'll also be adding a bike computer for distance & speed measurement this weekend. They say you never forget how to ride a bike and given that it was around 17 years since I last rode one then the adage is true as I had no problem getting into the stride of the things. The gears are a little bit more complicated than they used to (why on earth do you need 18 gears!!) but I'm totally looking forward to riding this as often as possible.


Cars
With the sale of the old house eventually going through and Josh starting school in less than 6 weeks (doesn't time fly!) it was time to get Lisa's new car.
We were looking for something bigger than the Ford Focus which we currently have and had a shortlist of either a Ford Mondeo, a Volkswagen Passat or a Renault Scenic. After a little while looking around we eventually settled on the Scenic, or to be more precise, an 04 plate Grand Scenic which means that in the boot there are a couple of fold-a-away seats which can turn this into a seven seater!. It's nice car with plenty of space inside and it's definately bigger than the Focus. Unfortunately, this is where things went a little wrong....


Accidents
Our drive way has two brick posts either side of the entrance and because we on the sloping part of the crescent, the drive can be a little awkward to get into.

So, given that you've just driven it straight from the garage, it's been yours for less than 20 minutes and you are now going to park it up on the drive, how do you approach this? do you:
A) Think to yourself "this is a much bigger car than I normally drive so I'd better take it slow into the drive, checking the sides at all times"?
or
B) Think "I've done this a million times before, I know how much room I have, the cars not that much bigger"?

If you think A then pat yourself on the back as you still have a car that looks like it's come from a show room. If you thought B (and I mean really, who would go for B eh?? ) then the above pic is what your car now looks like after being scraped along the drive post by the wife when swinging it in to park it.

I was not a happy bunny. I've calmed down somewhat since it happened and I know it was an accident (albeit an avoidable one) but it doesn't help the fact that as well as looking battered before we've even had it a day, we're now going to have to shell out x amount of pounds to have it all fixed up. You can't really see it in the picture but the wheel arch is totally crumpled up and some of the scratches go right through to the metal. I just hope it can be repaired without costing a lot of money. Still, sh*t happens and what's done is done, and as numerous people pointed out, I'll be reminiscing and laughing about this in years to come. A bit like the time when I threw up all over Lisa's bed whilst drunk when we weren't even seeing each other (She wasn't happy about that at the time either but it get's raised and laughed about once a year or so now*!). I digress...

Anyway, in order to stop this from happening again, I've had some improvements made to the brick posts to minimize damage should contact occur again:
I think that might do the trick ;)

Even the kids are giving advice...

And on that note, I think I'd better head on over to www.makeawill.com as this may be my last blog post!!

All is forgiven now, love you honey really :)

* when Lisa is not around!