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Saturday 12th February 2005
(19:28, left to right: Helen, Liz, Stu and Anthony) Today seemed like a long day. Maybe it was. M**** and I spent the morning kind of tidying the house up. M****'s mum and M****'s mum boyfriend, Stuart, were coming over, to help us choose/find a decent second-hand car. I think they were meant to be here by about midday, but it was more like 12:30, maybe 12:45 . . . I dunno. There was the obligatory tour, then we sat down for coffee, I realised we could really do with an Atoz covering Leeds AND Bradford, so I moseyed on down to the garage on Kirkstall Road. It was ring bound, the Atoz, and costed me five pence short of £11. Interesting, this transaction appeared on my statement as ESSO-RIVERSIDE 056. Well, it's near the river Aire, but not really by its side. Odd. Anyway . . .
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(20:20, the interior of Maxi's restaurant, The Light) So, perhaps it ended being something like 13:30, and we were getting peckish, so a quick lunch at Fat Chops was in order. Mmmmmmmmmm, sweet Thai chicken panini with sun-dried tomatores. HA HA HA HA. I spelt that wrong and there's nothing any of you can do about it. HA HA HA HA HA. TOMATORES TOMATORES TOMATORES . . . . hmmmmm. yes. After that, it seemed only right, now that we had the map, the directions, food in our bellies and everything, that we should head for Bradford. Stuart was driving. We went up Bridge Road at the Kirkstall Morrison's junction and followed a load of A and B roads towards Stanningley,
(picture to the left: 20:22, Liz and Anthony, Maxi's again)
Pudsey and then Bradford. On the outskirts of Bradford, we headed right (well, actually left, as we couldn't go right off the dual carriageway and so had to turn around at this freaky huge triangular roundabout affair) up Gain Lane. A few more turns, and we were on Otley Road and there was our first port-of-call, Elite Motor House. Mysteriously, the car I had enquired about less than 24 hours ago (I believe), had now increased in value from £2495 to £2595, although we spotted a Vectra for £1800. The next stop was the Central Motor Company, the other side of Bradford, on Great Horton Road. This was a red 1.6 litre S Reg Vauxhall Astra (I think they were all Vauxhall Astra's . . . well, all the ones on our list anyway), going for £2295, although the value of this one was now £2495.
 
We were beginning to suspect something was going on. M**** and I went to the sales office to try to find out. "Hi there. I rang earlier about the red, S-Reg Vauxhall Astra. When I rang it was £2295 but now it's advertised as £2495 and I was wondering if you would be prepared to take £2000 in cash for it." The next bit was hilarious. (two pictures above, 21:34 (left to right, that'll be M****, Stu, Liz and Anthony) and 21:36) The salesman said something along the lines of, "Ah well, when you rang earlier you said you had £2200 cash to spend on a car," and I could scarcely believe what I was hearing. Maybe it was a genuine mistake, but I think it was another awful selling technique, like he expected M**** to go, "Really? Oh, okay, if that's what I said, that's what I said." But I just started laughing about what I just heard from the salesman and turned to M****, "Did you really, M****? That was very bad of you. You know we only have £2000 to spare." To cut a long story short, we asked to check under the bonnet, turn the engine over, that kind of thing. There was loads of creamy gunk under the oil cap, so we made our excuses and got the hell out of there.
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(Maxi's yet again, 21:37) Our next stop was a fair way down Manchester Road, towards where the M606 starts (or ends, I guess). On the way here, we passed somewhere called 'CarNation' (clever) . . . heck, maybe we even went to CarNation. That would make sense. It was Helen who spotted this place, and it was a good job she did. They had a green Vauxhall Astra 1.6 litre something or another, going for £2495 but, as the salesman kept saying, he would "do [us] a deal." I kept saying to the salesman that we had other cars to see yet and if you would not accept £2000 then there was no point in us sticking around, but he just kept saying,
"Sure. Well, we should be able to do you a deal." Finally, the guy had us sat down, filling in some kind of sales form, before it finally sunk in. No, we weren't going to sign anything or hand over any money, although admittedly it was the best car we had seen all day, but we were only about half way down our list. We said we might be back later that day, depending on what condition the other cars were in.
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Next car was a white, V-reg, 1.7 litre, turbo diesel, Vauxhall Astra and, visually it looked a much better car than the last. There were a hell of a lot of miles on the clock (127,000 miles) compared to the last one (47000 I think), but that didn't seem to matter. Besides, it was a diesel. It must have been 16:45 by the time we got to this garage, so there wasn't time to test-drive or anything. Oddly, the engine was running when we turned up, almost as if they had been expecting us. We checked out our last car (at a small garage on Ingleby Road called 'Ingleby Fast Car Clinic'), another red Vauxhall Astra, but this one was very similar to the green one at CarNation. There didn't seem much in it, although I got the salesman down to £1750. I guess we headed home at this point.
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In the evening, we went to Maxi's for dinner and then Baroque for a drink or two . . . then a few more drinks back at home.
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February 2005
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