I opened the door today, to be greeted by my brother-in-law, my mother-in-law, and a key to a Rover 300 that was sitting in the parking area just next to our house.

We have a car.

Gulp.

It’s been ten years since I’ve driven properly- but now, I’ve got the opportunity to get some experience back. Plus, I’m in exactly the right place, as once you get off the busy road that’s in front of our house, there’s miles and miles of quiet country lanes, which will be perfect for getting back my driving mojo. The possibilities this opens up are boggling- most particularly, it’s going to mean fairly soon I’ll be able to go to London completely under my own steam. Insurance will be sorted on Monday, and there’ll be other things in place soon to make sure the driving experience should be pretty smooth.

It’s good news at the end of a tough week. After having gone back to work for Hotdog last year, it looks like I’m about to be shafted again- SMD Publishing are about to go out of business, and I’m probably going to lose £876 as a result, and this is at a point when we really can’t afford to lose any money at all. Financially, things are really, really difficult at the moment, but we’re going to be doing things to get them back under control. Finding out from the Landlord (of the flat) whether he’s been able to book the builders for the refurbishment would be a massive help- we’re not going to be able to make progress until the monthly £715 drain on our finances goes away, and I’m praying that it’ll be sooner rather than later. We’ve had a couple of other setbacks, but we’re going to keep going. No matter how hard this gets… I’m glad we’re here. It’ll be worth it in the end.

And now, I’m off to stop my new car from making pithy comments and engaging Turbo Boost when I expressly tell it not to. A hefty spanner should do the trick…