Forgot to tell you about Monday morning. Remember my broken sleep from last week? Well, at 5 am on Monday Mrs W's mobile phone rang and it took her yonks to answer the thing. 'twas a friend of hers from Germany who just wanted to say hello on his way to work ... thinking about coming over for a visit!! At least Mrs W was able to set off back to the land of Nod! Unlike yours truly, of course. Cursed or what? DW

Dima started back at school yesterday. A new school as I felt his old school was just too mediocre: poorly led and staffed by lazy teachers. A levels now, four of them: French, Economics, Ancient History and Government& Politics. What a mouthful! Did I tell you that daughter Fran has passed her driving test at the tender age of 18? 17 years ahead of me. Fran has an automatic car now and was fraught when her mother decided to drive it and, having set off in 1st gear, was puzzled when she couldn't find the clutch to change up to 2nd gear!! Complete lack of mechanical empathy or what?! DW

So I've driven the car around town now, I went to Southampton and back and I've been to Oxford and back. I washed it and waxed the thing too: never waxed a car before in my life! I have to say that the seats are very comfortable; the arm rest is a boon; but what I like most of all at this stage is the cruise control feature: I can just set the thing to tootle along the motorways at 70 mph and relax. Given the comfort and the cruise control, this car is a pleasure to drive. Off to Yorkshire for the weekend, after going to the shops with Mrs W! DW

Here's that long awaited picture of my car: If you have eyesight the equivalent of the Hubble Telescope you will see the reflection of a window in the rear window of the car; and if you squint a huge amount you'll see a reflection of me in it. Bonus, bonus! Can't afford to put a full frontal up here can I? After all, someone who didn't quite like my page on Zero Base Budgeting or my review of Legally Blonde could feel the need for road rage vengence! By the way, history repeated itself with this car. When I bought my first ever car, it got a puncture wiithin its first 24 hours ... so did this Beemer: a slow puncture in this case. So for the first time since goodness knows when, I changed the wheel on a car yesterday. Will get it repaired on Monday all being well. I did a bit of idle Blog surfing just now and the third Blog I looked at was called American Culture ... this is the honest truth [isn't that tautology, Ed?] is that it has daily entries but the entries I saw were all blank pages! What conclusion can we draw about American Culture then? Answers on a postcard! DW