Not the best day at work: demotivated after a three day weekend which wasn’t helped by knowing that I’ve a fortnight off after Friday :)

Today was Jon’s 3rd birthday party. We held it in Wacky Warehouse as we are lazy and it’s a good way to entertain a group of 3 year olds! Jon enjoyed himself immensely. I think his favourite part was opening all the presents though! After the party, we went to The Nightingale with Mum, Dad, Jacky and Sam for some grown up food. As usual the food was excellent and we had a good time.

Back at home, Jon was allowed to open Jacky & Sam’s present – a tricycle as the weather was good enough for him to play with it. He kept repeating “bicycle” over and over again, so I think it was a hit! To round the day off, Gill and Helen came over and Jon had even more presents to open!

What a day!

Ordered an Almera; delivery before end of the month :)

I hate it when a cheque for work I’m doing freelance bounces…

I ended up getting the Rover through it’s MOT in the end as when I told the garage that I was going to scrap it, they reduced the price by ?90! The car is worth more than what I paid to MOT it, so I figure that trade-in / selling is a good idea.

Georgina has had a flash of inspiration and we think we’ve found a way to keep the Micra and get a new Almera too. Basically we refinance the Micra and don’t use Nissan’s finance deals and the monthly payments should be manageable.

If there’s a problem, we can always drop the Sky subscription anyway…

MOT people came back with a full price for getting it through it’s MOT: ?606.00. They also let me know that the CV Joints are wearing and will need replacement soonish. That’ll be another ?300 ish…

So clearly it’s not worth keeping the Rover. The question is now “can we pay for another car whilst keeping the Micra?” and I’m pretty sure the answer is no if we want to have the extension (we do!).

Looking at the market, our situation and the money we have to spend, the candidates are either a Nissan Almera or a Toyota Corolla.

Jon really likes the new T-shirts we bought for him this weekend. The one with the crab is the best one and, co-incidentally, it’s his favourite colour!

Car failed it’s MOT big time. Question we have to answer is whether it’s worth spending the money to get it fixed or if to buy a new one to replace both cars. Obvious benefits of one car are the cost savings. However trading in the Micra at this point isn’t especially good as we’ll get a tenner for it after the HP is taken out…

Ideally, it’d be nice to get a new car for me and continue with the Micra. That’s a tad expensive though and I don’t think we have the cash.

Searching MSN for “rob” brings up this site as the number 1 result :)

If you do a search on yahoo.co.uk for the word “rob” and select “UK only”, then I’m the number 2 result. A UK only search for “rob allen” makes me number 1 again :)

Doesn’t happen on Google though :(