STOP PRESS! I've made a monumental discovery...

My car has central locking!

Now, admittedly, this shouldn't have been a discovery. I should have, y'know, noted the central locking controls on my keys and used the damn things. But I tried it for the first and only time, until today, on the day I bought her and it didn't work. Admittedly, that day, neither did the normal locking as the lock barrels had frozen so I've no idea why I expected the central locking to work...but I figured it just didn't and got on with life, enjoying the fact that, although my car "didn't have central locking," the little buttons made the lights flash. This amused me intensely. Today, when removing my PG Tips monkey's "tongue piercing" (a dressmaking pin) in order to check the drainage holes of the blue one when we were stripping her out (which, if you're interested, went very well - no more carpet!), I was playing around with the buttons, pressed one, forgot about it, then tried the door. It opened. Imagine my confusion. So I stepped back, shut the door and pressed the other one. Now the door wouldn't open.

Cue yelps of "my car has central locking!" to Tom and blushing when he asked why I'd not figured this one out before. For someone who's pretty damn intelligent, I can be incredibly stupid at times!

Oh, and just as an update to my original wishlist:

• Headlights have been adjusted, though the right one isn't quite right just yet - think the adjusting screw has been cross-threaded somewhat, so that needs to come out and back in again. 
• Wheels have, as noted, been changed. 
• Fuel economy is fab on long journeys, as it transpires. As good as, if not better than, my old Astra.
• Mats have cleaned up beautifully. Just need some carpet tape to stop the driver's side one from migrating forwards.
• Central locking has been fitted! Ahem. Ish.

Some actual work...

Our new car, the racer (currently nicknamed Iris - she needs a punchy Japanese race name - see http://bluemx5.blogspot.co.uk/ ), had beautiful white powder-coated wheels when we got it.

So Tom and I decided it might be cool to swap the wheels out with mine so Poppy could have pretty wheels instead of the scratched up alloys she had beforehand. And that's precisely what we did on Sunday morning. Good thing too; the tyres on the blue one were much better than mine and it gave us a chance to look at the mechanics etc. on both of them...and they do need a little doing to 'em that we hadn't realised.

I'd only changed a tyre once before Sunday and that was a 'practice' so Tom had to remind me what I was doing. From there? Full steam ahead! I couldn't crack one of the wheel nuts as it was just too tight but, that aside, it was good fun :-) Poppy ended up with four very pretty white wheels and we did consider swapping the aerials as Poppy's is an original, somewhat akin to a coathanger, which is pretty awful and Iris's is a stubby one (useful considering she doesn't have a radio, huh?), but it was getting late and we had to head over to Tom's Mum's as it was, admittedly, Mother's day.

Anyway, getting stuck in and doing my own work was great fun and I'm definitely up for doing lots more. Good thing too, really, especially on Iris. It is *our* little racing car! Tom said he was proud of me for doing it, too, but I don't see the point of being one of those girls who sits back and lets their boyfriend do all the work before taking half the credit for it. Er, no, it's good fun and teaches you things. Of course, I fly planes so I suppose I'm hardly typical but nonetheless...

So what to take from this post? Get out and give your own maintenance a go :-)

Getting a friend...

Poppy now has another friend!

We already had Scarlett, the red '00 Mk2.5 MX-5 (Tom's) and Gladys, the red '94 Peugeot (Tom's) and, technically, Little Em, Tom's '73 Mini...although she's not starting, so doesn't really count, and we'd been idly discussing a track car. Had we got the Mini started last year, that would have been our track car but, as we didn't...

He may have slightly bought a very cheap Blue Mk1 MX-5 on eBay.

Ahem.

She was picked up last night from Milton Keynes, which was fortuitous as I'd been in MK with work anyhow, and ferried home (via the chinese for his birthday dinner!) and, except the incredible amounts of oil burning due to a leak, she seemed ok. She's pretty solid and very pretty. Lovely white alloys, too, which will be being swapped for my scratched original 'daisies' - after all, she is a track car. Track days only for now but maybe a racer in future! Needs some work on the body to avoid any more rust and remove some badly done filler, as well as sorting that oil leak, but she's our project car. Just need to think of a name now!

Pictures to follow :-)

Getting things straight...

Poppy's needed so many minor adjustments over the three weeks I've had her and she's come on a big adventure with me too. It's been great fun. More of that later...

When I got her, the boot was very wet - apparently, that's a common issue with MX-5s as drainage isn't fab but my god it needed some serious drying out. So everything got turfed out and dried; Tom is suggesting Hammerite to sort out the incipient rust in the boot soon, too, so that'll be a plan for the next few months. Everything was duly replaced and I headed off to RAF Cranwell for my Officer's Initial Course for a week (there was a Mk3 in the car park at Daedalus Mess too...never did find out whose it was) - epic adventure for my little car.

On my return, Tom gave me a present - well, two, actually. First was a metal 'Roadster' emblazoned tax disc holder. It looks much nicer than the plastic MX-5 OC one that the previous owner had left, and ripped, in the windscreen. Second? A geocaching Travel Bug which has been stuck on my fuel cap for geocachers to 'discover' when they see my car. Not sure what this geocaching thing is? Have a look here: www.geocaching.com

There are now only three pressing things to be done to my car over the next few days/week:

• Wash her! She's currently filthy after the drive to/from Cranwell.
• Adjust the headlights as they're lighting up most of West Berkshire on full beam but, well, not an awful lot of the road.
• Put some more air in the tyres.

Got an MX-5 Nutz meeting next week, too, so she needs to be shiny for that so everyone can admire her to their heart's content :-) 

I definitely have two loves in my life: Tom and Poppy!