Farewell Peckham

Car hunting in London was a nightmare! - We kept going to "dealers" that don't actually have a forecourt - i.e. Arthur Daley's. The worst one yesterday was a car described as "STUNNER! SHOWROOM CONDITION! PERFECT!! - electric seats, heated seats, cruise control, Electric Mirrors Air con, 40,000 miles, new MOT. etc etc..... we got there and the car was on the road side and after calling the "dealer" he said, "take a look and call me if you are interested, then I'll come out"... hmmm... so he won't come out unless I'm interested!!?! - suspicious...

Well, it was grubby, with a ripped roof (hardly showroom condition), no air con, no electric anything, no heated anything, no cruise control, 50,000 miles and one tyre was so bald it was slick - how did it get a recent MOT??? Bloody robbers. We left very pissed off.

...It's been really getting me down, searching for cars non stop. I sat as usual this morning and kept hitting the refresh button on the car search site and BINGO! a car 8 years newer than we have been looking at, £500 less than our target, and a whole model range up was appearing before my eyes. The photos had not even had time to process. We were down there like rats up a drain pipe!

Voila! £1900 and we have this with a full service history, all the right things have been done, lady owner...

All we have to do now is grab a boot rack and a case for it and we are off to France!

YAY!

Just a brief update as you will have noticed the blog has gone all quiet - not a lot to report really. We are in London staying with friends while we sort out a car. We hope to be gone within a week. Can't stand being back here, apart from seeing our friends of course.

The plan is to grab a cheap rag-top and some camping kit, then hit Europe, working down through France, Italy etc. Buying a used car in London is proving a pain in the butt! - conmen at every corner. We'll get there! :-)

Well, we are just about ready to go! House is rented out, Thai Visas sorted, and 1st flights booked.

We are flying out to Amsterdam on the 2nd of Jan '08, then from Amsterdam to Bangkok on the 4th - got a cracking deal on Business class to start the trip in a little style :-)