That used to be a slogan Car-free is carefree and carefree is by Bus! that one saw on - Buses!
Well, I am about to re-discover the truth of that. Yesterday when we went for our healthy walk in the Stodmarsh nature reserve (chief excitement - flights of greylag greese) - there was trouble with the car and we had to stop in a layby near the airport and call the RAC. Sadly the head gasket is gone. Even more sadly, we don't have the £946 estimated cost of repairs. So we are parking it outside the house until we have the money to repair it.
This means I will have to do all the shopping on foot.... or by bus with an attendant child. And that all leisure trips will have to be cancelled. Our weekend trip to my father's for bonfire night will require a hire car... but £41 for the week end is affordable - just.
Obviously we will be saving enormously on petrol (about £80-100 a month) - so that's something. Perhaps if I put it aside in the savings we could repair the car by next August.
There is something terribly symbolic about not having a car, it puts one in the ranks of the uber-poor... I woke up worrying about it this morning, now I don't have to. God knows when we will get it back. M says he saw a Citroen estate for £600 on the side of the road... I don't think buying a new crock is the answer. I feel rather as if everything we have is being stripped away - are we being taught a lesson? I think we learned years ago about credit cards, we just couldn't get out of the habit. Even now, I find myself thinking "well we could use the credit card" before I remember that we don't have one. Perhaps once I have lost that knee-jerk thought we will be felt by the cosmic powers to have learned our lesson.
At the moment we have about £150 in the bank, £400 in savings and a payment for £2,700 coming in on Wednesday. And an awful lot of equity in the house that we can't use. We could try and sell and move somewhere smaller - but not in this market really. M is going to sell a reasonably valuable old camera... damn, why couldn't we have been saved by the Iznik tile - but both Christies and Sotheby's think it's a 19thC replacement tile, made to restore a gap in a pattern. Interesting really, perhaps more interesting - but not very valuable. Actually, if you think of it, much more interesting, since it was a one-off - and it's been done well. Not as mass-produced - or at least more individual than the proper ones.
If you're so smart, how come you ain't rich?
Well, I am about to re-discover the truth of that. Yesterday when we went for our healthy walk in the Stodmarsh nature reserve (chief excitement - flights of greylag greese) - there was trouble with the car and we had to stop in a layby near the airport and call the RAC. Sadly the head gasket is gone. Even more sadly, we don't have the £946 estimated cost of repairs. So we are parking it outside the house until we have the money to repair it.
This means I will have to do all the shopping on foot.... or by bus with an attendant child. And that all leisure trips will have to be cancelled. Our weekend trip to my father's for bonfire night will require a hire car... but £41 for the week end is affordable - just.
Obviously we will be saving enormously on petrol (about £80-100 a month) - so that's something. Perhaps if I put it aside in the savings we could repair the car by next August.
There is something terribly symbolic about not having a car, it puts one in the ranks of the uber-poor... I woke up worrying about it this morning, now I don't have to. God knows when we will get it back. M says he saw a Citroen estate for £600 on the side of the road... I don't think buying a new crock is the answer. I feel rather as if everything we have is being stripped away - are we being taught a lesson? I think we learned years ago about credit cards, we just couldn't get out of the habit. Even now, I find myself thinking "well we could use the credit card" before I remember that we don't have one. Perhaps once I have lost that knee-jerk thought we will be felt by the cosmic powers to have learned our lesson.
At the moment we have about £150 in the bank, £400 in savings and a payment for £2,700 coming in on Wednesday. And an awful lot of equity in the house that we can't use. We could try and sell and move somewhere smaller - but not in this market really. M is going to sell a reasonably valuable old camera... damn, why couldn't we have been saved by the Iznik tile - but both Christies and Sotheby's think it's a 19thC replacement tile, made to restore a gap in a pattern. Interesting really, perhaps more interesting - but not very valuable. Actually, if you think of it, much more interesting, since it was a one-off - and it's been done well. Not as mass-produced - or at least more individual than the proper ones.
If you're so smart, how come you ain't rich?
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