Our Car

I collected our car from the dealer on Friday afternoon. You can see the pictures below. It looks good and drives well.

Unfortunately we have had a problem this weekend with it so I will be needing to sort that out straight away. The engine stopped working a couple of times and on one particular occasion simply refused to start for about 15 minutes. We did get it home (luckily we were only about 10 minutes drive away) and I have looked into the problem a bit.

The good news is that the previous owner kept all of the service documentation for everything that ever happened to the car and the symptoms are identical to a problem she had. There is a sensor in the engine which goes on the blink (and this apparently is not uncommon in Renaults, though it wasn't information I came across in my research prior to purchase). This causes the engine to stop running and refuse to start again.

Hopefully the diagnosis will be able to be done promptly tomorrow (Monday) and the appropriate part/s replaced so I can be up and running properly quickly. I am certainly glad I purchased the warranty the dealer offered me.

Stay tuned for an update.

New Car: A four door hatch with spoiler. Kind of reminds me of another car we owned. :) 

New car: It also came with foglamps. 

New car: Another shot of our car. Here you can see the sunroof. Cool! Lots of cars here in the UK have sunroofs though we are not sure why!

At home: A storm front passes over Ealing. It got dark quite quickly the day I took this photo. 

More on New York

Below are some images from my trip earlier this month to New York. As you can see it was a miserable, wet Saturday for my 'day off'.

Ground Zero: A cross created out of some of the debris of the World Trade Centre.

New York: 7th Avenue on a wet Saturday morning in October. 

Huskers on TV: So that's what the Huskers' West Coast offence looks like? Wow! At least the weather was good.

QPR Football

Natalie and I went to the QPR football game against Norwich City yesterday.

Our seats, about 10 metres from the goalline and four rows back from the fence, on the end with the Norwich fans, were close to some intense chunks of action. From our seats we saw a much more physical game than comes across on the television.

QPR won the game 3-0, scoring all three goals in the first half up our end of the field so we really had good seats for the action.

We had fun at the game and will go to another football game some time again in the future.

Our home: The kitchen has lots of things, including a dishwasher but doesn't have as much cupboard space as we first thought. 

Our home: Our backyard is nice and the view is good too. Green fields beat the concrete of inner city. 

Our home: The main bedroom is nice and bright, even though it safes north and so gets no direct sun. 

Auto Matic

Today Natalie and I made a purchase. We bought a car.

I have been travelling 80-90 minutes each way on public transport for work each day. It is also expensive so getting a car to drive to work seems to be the best solution.

Our selection is a 1998 Renault Megane. It looks good, seems to be well looked after and goes well from our test drive. You can see a Yahoo! cars review that I read before we purchased it.

We hope to pick up the car late this week. More later.

QPR

QPR is for Queens Park Rangers.

They are the local football, read soccer, team for Natalie and I these days.

We are heading off to a game on Saturday afternoon. QPR will be playing at home against Norwich City, who were relegated (demoted) from the Premiership last season. So the game should be a good one as QPR are always tough to beat at home.

Natalie and I enjoyed our only previous trip to an English football match, earlier in the year, so we figured we should do it again. This time instead of sitting up in the stands we will be sitting nearer the field.

On the Road Again

I have been out and about quite a bit with work recently.

Of the last nine work days, I have been in the office for three of them.

I spent a couple of days in New York a week and a half ago, a couple in Paris last week and I am back to Paris tomorrow.

Now, while this sounds like the life of a jet-setting playboy it is far from it. For the most part I am sitting in meetings, or travelling between the airport/train stations and the offices or hotels. Not very exciting. And then I am away from Natalie too.

Still, New York was fun to see again - the first time for me since I was there shortly before September 11, 2001. I did visit the World Trade Centre site and had a walk around the city. But the weather was miserable so I needed no further excuse to sit myself down in front of a TV and watch the Huskers take on Texas Tech.

The game was a great one and the result was in the balance until the last 12 seconds. The winner, Texas Tech. But the Huskers have improved dramatically from where they were a year ago, having come from 21-0 down to get ahead in the final quarter. Alas it wasn't to be.

Paris has offered no such entertainment thus far. But you never know what you're going to find.