So...I was wrong.

My apologies to Kate, when I first met her, for tarring the whole US with the one-size-fits-all-America brush. Again. I can't believe how awful I was when I met her, but thankfully she, being a very generous person actually allowed a second chance and eventually I learned to stop being mean about the US...

So I just spent 3 weeks in Washington state ( Read more...or just leave it at the summary... )

Awesome time. Fantastic Holiday. Lovely people. :)

I had forgotten...

...how hard it is to get hold of 145R14 tyres. This obscure size happens to be that of the Morris Minor *AND* the DAF 44. Interestingly, it's also the size of the Lupo 3L, but that doesn't seem to have helped our cause a great deal, in so far as the 3L didn't sell that well, and thus the Bridgestone magic tyres that fit it are apparently on back order.

I've now rung every tyreplace in the Slough phonebook, of which one has come back claiming that Continental make a 145R14 tyre (I'm not convinced, I've never heard of these, and last time this 'oh, we can get such-and-such-a-brand' happened I got there and that garage'd ordered the wrong size); and most of which have gone "we can't get them". My best option, as it stands, is to order them from Bull Motif (a moggie specialist) and get them fitted locally, a painfully expensive process (well, in all honesty, compared to most modern cars, no, it's really cheap, but to me it seems painfully expensive), but marginally cheaper than the best local quote so far.

It's frustrating, the DAF persists in this state of 'so near, yet so far'. The tyres currently fitted I'll take around the town in the dry, gently, but the motorway is definately out as the newest dates from 1994. The oldest, I suspect, is late 70's (on the spare) and the two rear tyres are probably early 80's as they have lack date codes and are a size that doesn't exist at *all* anymore...

Still, it's been fun pootling around Slough in the newly taxed DAF. And it gives poor old Rebecca a break from being the only car in the family. Anyhow, I've astonishingly failed to get any work done this morning, so I'm going to craft a quick e-mail filled with questions to (a) My sister and (b) the hotel where we're getting civilised, and then I shall away with the fairies to lunch then work :)

(As a side point, Cory Doctorow just replied to my last post. How the hell did he *know* I'd written about Little Brother, behind a cut tag on my obscure journal?! The world is a strange strange place. I should have mentioned that I'd recommended it to Terry (via Sherry) for her to use as a resource in training teachers, but I forgot).