50+ and proud of it.

I was going through the wallet-full of documentation that came with my new Dacia 1 Duster the other night. Y'know, just to ensure that I really did know how to wind up the windows and where to put the key in, that sort of thing, just before you file the handbook under "seen-it-before", next to the Haynes Manual about the Spitfire and Weber carburetors. Now, I don't know if it's a Renault thing, or a specific Dacia thing but when you tick a few boxes on the order form marked "extras", that indeed is what you get - extra. Extra paperwork by the ton. You get installation and user-handbook sheets for every single one of the extras. Dacia new car order forms work by having a box called "touring pack", which contains a tow-bar and an arm-reset etc. They have a box called "protection pack", which contains reversing sensors, mud-flaps and a metal plate that sticks to the rear bumper 2 etc. Oooh, lots of etc's. And so on. And so on.

Today I reached two milestones. One: I reached my minimum "you-can-go-to-the-ball" sponsorship level of £1,750 for the Demelza House 101 Bike Ride to Paris, and two: I clocked 1,000 miles in the Duster (in a week!), and thereby have officially run it in. Wow. This means that the bear can now get strapped to the handle bars - any £1 over the minimum is a mile towards Paris before the bear gets flung into a hedge (or The Channel). £270 over and it gets rinsed in The Seine. It's not coming back, OK? Trust me.

So, this is Christmas And what have you done? Another year over And a new one just begun Yoko Ono; John Lennon. Yes. That's just how I feel!   On the plus side, I bought a new car, like, brand new and I've never, ever, done that before. It's a Dacia Duster Laureate 4x4 . I picked it up Christmas Eve, just after "the storm" the night before. The interesting part was getting out of the village that morning to pick it up - a tree has fallen across our street which I had to cut out of the way with a hand-saw, then the main road blocked with a *huge* fallen tree, the back road blocked with a fallen power line and the only other road out was flooded to about 7"; which caused some concern when the vehicle we were using was a smart roadster which holds you bum about 2" off the tarmac. We got back from the dealer 1 ("don't worry sir, you don't need to run it in") and I settled down to read the owner's manual. Five minute