Goodbye To An Old Friend

It's only a car but in the four and a half years that we owned the Toyota Prius we grew very attached to it as it was our main transport during the six months that we were living in Scotland and making regular visits to see the builders in Suffolk. In that six months we notched up almost twenty thousand miles and spent an awful lot of time in the car. We'll never forget driving away from Southport with the Prius loaded to the roof with everything we might need for six months of caravan living.

But since we bought a new car in June last year the Prius has been sitting on the drive for most of the time as it's nowhere near as comfy as the new car. We sometimes need to travel individually (even though its only short distances) so a second car is a necessity. We wanted something comfortable to use for most of our short journeys around Suffolk and regular visits to the family in Kent while saving the bigger vehicle for Scotland and longer trips. After plenty of research we came up with the Mercedes B200 sport. It was the Which Best Buy in its class and the Mercedes Dealership, Robinsons in Bury St Edmunds, were very helpful last year.

It arrived yesterday. It's not the best looking vehicle but it's beautifully equipped and very comfortable. The salesman went to great lengths to sell us the special stone chip insurance and, it's a good job he did as, driving back from the dealership, a lorry threw up something that hit the car.

So, with less than fifty miles on the clock, we were on the phone to the insurance company today making a claim - an insurance worth taking out!

I mentioned visits to Kent earlier. We went on Friday to help the family prepare for our granddaughter Catherine's birthday party. It was a stiflingly humid sunny day but in the evening a huge storm cloud suddenly blew in and within a few minutes we went from dusk to pitch black. Paul filmed a few seconds on his phone.

Sudden blackness (the green is a pedestrian crossing).

An enormous lightning flash.

And back to blackness with another lightning bolt in the top corner.

We've witnessed some of the wildest storms we've ever seen in the UK over the last few days - they really have been spectacular.