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It's been a funny old week. Sunday was another day at my Dad's so that was good. Monday was spent finishing off Battlestar Galactica, so that was fun.

The rest of the week has been a bit meh, trying to work out what to do about cars. The auction on Tuesday was a bit of a bust. We saw some nice cars go through, including a nice diesel Focus estate, and a Bora TDi for reasonable money. We had our eyes on another diesel Focus estate of the same age as the first one, but then they changed the auctioneer for some twat who kept  making up bids to drive the price up of them all. So we left.

Anyway, today I bought a 2000 Vauxhall Astra 1.7 DTi off a guy in Llysfaen. A thoroughly sensible car, which cost only £600 because it has 245,000 miles. Yes, that's a lot, but it's had a lot of recent parts including a cambelt, alternator and four new tyres, and it drives like it's done a fraction of the mileage. Also because it was so much less than my budget of £1000, that's £400 I can put aside to sort out anything it needs. I was sure to drive it up and down steep hills on the test drive to make sure it pulled well and the clutch was OK and drove it over a thoroughly rough road to make sure the suspension was OK. It needs the handbrake adjusting as it's a bit hopeless and the airbag light is on, and the seller said it's probably due for an oil change. Minor things though and worth doing.

It was nice to phone up the insurance and get a £277 refund and see my monthly payments return to normal. Somewhat annoyingly, because the Astra was registered before March 2001, it comes under the old tax classes, so £116 for six months and £220 for a year, whereas the exact same model after March 2001 is half that. Oh well.

The Prelude has 7 people watching on Ebay which is hopeful, although I was annoyed to find it's pristine beauty spoiled this morning by a giant bird shit all down the side. Yesterday I took all my stuff out of it and swapped out my stereo for a spare JVC one I had lying around.

Other than that my birthday was nice, work was OK this morning with a rather amazing coffee cake made by Em, and some other cakes I took in.