Mondeo Man.

The car? Oh, that’s fine. The drive both to and from Devon was fine, and there’ve been no problems with it at all.

Well – that’s not strictly true, but the two problems we did have were so minor, it’s hardly worth commenting on. But all the same, I will…

First, the power-socket (AKA Cigarette lighter, except neither of us smokes, so it’s just a power socket) in the centre console was knackered, and I didn’t realise. Obviously it’s one of those things, and the car’s three years old, so hey ho. But we didn’t realise until the TomTom satnav started bleating that its battery was low, once we’d done a six hour drive with it plugged in to the power socket. Oops.

Still, it’s been fixed now (a quick visit to the local Ford dealership, and one fuse later, all sorted) so that should be fine. That little bit may eventually need replacing, if it keeps on coming adrift (it was loose as well as no power going to it) but for now it should be fine. Even better, it somehow didn’t cost me anything – not quite sure how that worked out, but hey ho, I won’t complain.

Second, well, we got stuck on a single-track road in Devon, and I had to reverse the car back down to the nearest passing place. (the other driver was in a Ford Ka, and obviously far more local, but wasn’t going to move one fucking jot) Unused to the length of the car, I got it wrong, so the nearside rear wheel arch and bumper now have a bloody great scrape along them where I interfaced the car with a wall.

I haven’t yet decided whether I’m going to bother getting it repaired. I probably should (and the brother-in-law – well, brother-in-semi-law – is going to recommend it, I know) but it’s not serious, and I can’t be chuffed. Besides, it was always going to happen at some point, so *shrug*, I dunno yet what I’ll do. It’s not serious, and its not affecting anything, so pah.

But little things like that aside, it’s proving (so far) to be a good buy. And we’ve already put nearly 1,000 miles on the poor bloody thing.