Clear Out

Last Monday we got rid of our car for scrap. We've had it for about 4 years and bought it just before my son had his bone marrow transplant as we needed something reliable anhe d our old car just wasn't that.
The Skoda was a great car. An estate, so it had plenty of room when we needed it. On top of that it had roof bars so we were able to attach cycle bars to the top of the car which allowed us to take a couple of bikes to my sister-in-laws or even off to triathlons. We've driven to Bala and Nottingham with bikes attached to the top of the car.
Sadly this year the car began to have lots of problems. We've had to replace the regulators on both front windows and several other repairs were needed.
When we were told that the catalytic converter was breaking up and then the car simply wouldn't start it was time to get rid of it. Another £1000 in repairs just isn't economical.
So last Monday she went off to the scrap yard.

At the moment we're going to try and manage without a car, which means either walking (good for fitness), bus (can't believe how expensive that is), train (need to do that to get to Exeter) or taxi.
Food shopping is done online through Tesco direct for home delivery. It actually works out cheaper for us to do that and get it delivered on the right day because a taxi to our house is actually more expensive than the delivery charge if we get the right time slot.

With the car gone though we decided that we didn't need to carry on renting the garage from the council. I'd not really realised just how much they were charging us for the privilege of putting the car away at night. We're certainly not paying for them to do anything because in all the years that we've rented it we've had them come out to do a repair on the door once.

Today we spent over an hour emptying and then sweeping out the garage. We ended up with about 10 bags of rubbish and a lot of other bits that will be stored because we want to keep them or have yet to sort through and get rid of them.

It was interesting what came out of there, cassette tapes, gallons of anti-freeze and screenwash, empty containers of the same and oil. An empty gas cylinder, a car battery and lots and lots of other things that we've not used for 2 years or more. Some of the things were actually emptied out of the old car so have been in there for over 4 years. We really should have had a clear out before now. Perhaps this will be the first in a series of clear-outs. Who knows where they will end!