Not a musing (read: rant) this time, you’ll be glad to see

I just scrolled down and saw my post Making a Mark. Posted on June 6th, it was borne out of a desire to do something with my life (a recurring theme of mine that ebbs and flows like a very sporadic tide) and a decision to make that something photography.

Since then I sold my Canon S3 IS, and purchased a Canon EOS 450D. The full bananas. I thought if I was going to do it, I may as well do it properly. Digital Photography, that is. Besides it’s not like I spend my money on having a life or anything (sorry, but it’s pretty much true) so I might as well splurge a bit from time to time (in monetary terms, that is).

It’s an amazing camera, and despite myself I have actually managed to get a few decent pictures here and there. I don’t have a decent macro lens though, and I remembered when I was just trying to take some pictures of a dragonfly that I actually really like macro photography. Something to go on the list I guess.

The money that I’m not spending or putting into a pension ISA (see, I do have sensible grown-up plans other than just buying shiny toys) is being saved for a new car. I like my current car, but it’s rapidly approaching 100,000 miles and is realistically too big for my needs. More often than not it’s just me in the car, so I have absolutely no requirements for a family hatchback …

Originally I was looking at the second-hand market, but the Fiat Grande Punto caught my eye, with Fiat’s 0% 3 Year Finance deal. It’s an attractive looking car, with hints of Maserati in the styling, and over the last few weeks I specified the exact model that I wanted (pretty much the top of the range with all the toys ) and there were only two sticking points.

Firstly, I hadn’t decided what colour I wanted and secondly (and more importantly) I hadn’t actually sat in one, let alone driven one. The reviews spoke of a great little car, but with a cheap interior and loose gearbox.

Now I like quality (which is why I tend to buy the more expensive of any option given) and I like a nice crisp gearchange in a car, or at least something positive. This morning I took a trip to Newport to take a look.

They had a GP model, the one below the model I would want (the Sporting) in the colour I would probably have it in (red), so I took a seat inside and had a look around. I thought that maybe the reviews were being overly harsh and, as a driver of a 10 year old car, I’d find the plastics and trim pretty damn good.

I was mistaken.

The steering wheel (leather stitched) was a joy to hold compared to the one in my car, and the instrument cluster was smart, but the rest of the interior really fell short. All the buttons felt incredibly cheap and almost soft, not in the ’soft touch plastics’ way but in the ‘this might fall apart when you need to use it’ way. The gearbox also felt really loose – I was sitting still, but I don’t imagine it would get much better on the road.

Overall I came away with a fairly negative impression. I could take a test drive and maybe should, but now I’m going back to the second-hand market.

I found that, instead of paying £15,000 over three years, I could get the Punto through Broadspeed.com for about £12,000. This didn’t involve a finance deal, but I can borrow that money at agreeable terms.

So, what can I get for that money on the second-hand market? A BMW 320 diesel coupe, that’s what. OK, so I don’t get any dealer perks, and the car will have mileage, but provided I do my research and buy a good example, I’ll be getting more car and – most importantly – a much higher level of quality for my money.

And in the end, I’m all about maximising my investment if I can maximise my enjoyment at the same time.

It’s a Bank Holiday!
So naturally I spend a Friday evening doing what I could probably do in my spare day off …

I’ve added more photos (some slightly tweaked) to my Flickr page. Pictures from this year’s Bristol Balloon Fiesta and the British Motorshow have been added.

I’ve also updated the Gallery page. It now has a link to my Collections at Flickr instead of just random images. Check ‘em out

This week (Monday to Wednesday) constituted the only overnight stay of the contract. In Llandrindod Wells to be precise, at the Metropole – a hotel that immediately invokes memories of the Addams Family theme tune as soon as you see it.

Llandod, as we called it (and as it shall henceforth be referred to), is not exactly the most exciting place in the world. Situated smack bang in the middle of Wales it is surrounded by a lot of very little. “The arse-end of nowhere” is how one of my colleagues eloquently described it, as we loitered outside the back of a deserted pub sipping on lager in the crisp and fresh evening air.

The actual work we were there for was much of a muchness, and even more of a boringness. One member of our team had headed up to Llandod earlier on the Monday and started setting everything up, so by Tuesday afternoon, we were all holed up in an interview room, tending to the occasional user query but otherwise doing very little. The lack of … anything in Llandod was driven home further, when we failed to find anywhere that sold men’s swimming shorts (we wanted to use the sauna/steam room at the hotel and they sold them for £20 (!)).

One positive thing that I got out of the trip was getting to try out another car. We got an 08 plate Ford Focus ‘Style’ for travelling to and from Llandod (it’s currently sat on my driveway to be returned tomorrow). As a 1.6 diesel, it was never going to be anything special, but we ragged the crap out of the thing and it was actually quite a fun car to drive, if only for the comedy/fear “will-we/won’t-we” factor when trying to overtake cars on the A470/A483.

It’s a very well-screwed-together car, the quality of the interior got no complaints from me and the steering was tight and direct with a good-sized steering wheel to hang onto. The only complaint I had was the gearbox, which was just shockingly bad, considering Ford’s reputation. I’ve driven five or six Ford vehicles from small cars through to Transit vans, and all have had a decent gear change. The Focus we had absolutely did not, and it was all the poorer for it.

The other story of the week is that some pikey bastards have stolen from me, and I am most definitely unhappy about it.

I ordered a t-shirt and polo shirt from Addict Clothing Co. on Saturday 12th and was a little unhappy to find that the goods had not arrived. I contacted Addict, who supplied a tracking number telling me that it had been delivered on the 15th.

Long story short (as this is already a fairly long entry), somebody has been (we think) following the postman around. Seeing him attempt to deliver a package and fail, this person fished the delivery slip out of our front letterbox (there are scratches on the door from however this took place) and then gave it to someone else (we have a vague description) who went to Caldicot to pick it up.

This is where the Post Office messed up badly, as they are supposed to ask for ID. But in this case they didn’t, meaning that some thieving pikey cow has sloped off with nearly £80 of merchandise, paid for by me.

The police have been informed and are looking into it, but it’s unclear as to where the ‘blame’ lies in terms of how I can get my money back/goods re-sent. Either way I am currently significantly out of pocket, very unhappy, and on the lookout for a scruffy-looking 5′8″ woman with mousey hair driving a blue saloon.

My 23rd birthday was on January 8th (just a heads up for next year), and I haven’t yet had a birthday present. This is nothing new, I think for my 19th I didn’t really get anything at all.

It’s not, however, the product of some awful parentage, it’s simply my diabolic ability to decide on things.

This year, I decided that I wanted a new stereo for my car. The one I have is stock, and whilst it plays a CD just fine, being able to play MP3 CDs and thus not have to scrabble around changing CDs at 85MPH+ would be good, and that’s before talking about the habit my current stereo has of randomly re-tuning itself, occasionally to a radio station that doesn’t actually exist.

I took a trip to Halfords, and couldn’t decide on one I liked. I took a trip to another shop in Newport, and saw one that might’ve been quite good.

Since then (it has now been 4 months, a whole quarter of a year) I’ve not made any further decisions. I know that I want one, I know that it only needs to do fairly simple things and look anything other than a shade of gaudy boy-racer shite.

So why can’t I just decide, get it bought and fitted, and get it over with?