Selling a car

Tonight we are experiencing another ‘first’ in our abroad-career.

We’re trying to sell a car.

I think this has been the first car we ever sold.
O, no… how can I forget my lovely rusty English white Volkswagen Golf. The car that gave me freedom!
All the other ones though, were driven until they couldn’t go any further.
Our Peugot 309 broke down during our honeymoon.
Our Fiat Panda on one of the motorways in Holland. (driven by me)
Our Swift on one another motorway, also driven by me.
Coincidently, obviously….

I can’t remember what happened to our English Vauxhall Vectra. Although I do remember I had nothing to do with it…
And then our Vauxhall Astra arrived. Just before Tim was born.
The joys of a station-wagon are immense. Especially if you live abroad.
Hurray for shopping in Holland! The car was always packed full driving back home.

But the teller had miles and miles on it. I think around 190 000 miles. (Does that seem right?)
And so we thought, in the beginning of the year, that it was a good idea to orientate on another car.

The Vectra might break down at a motorway (NOT driven by me…) and we didn’t really wanted to buy another car in just 2 days.

So Mark had a look, compared, had another look, I made a comment that one of the cars looked like a biscuit-tin, Mark had another look. Compared some more. I mentioned again that a red car would be nice. (It’s an inside joke. I would like to be the owner of a red car since we’re married. But Mark always replies very kindly to me that he’s not going to buy a car on the colour. So we never had one yet… Still worth to be mentioned once in a while, at least I think)

Anyway, we’re months down the road when Mark is still comparing. By this time I don’t care if we buy a yellow car with purple spots. So when the right car happens to be at the dealer in Chantilly I want to buy it immediately. It takes 3 more days but after that we are the proud owners of a black Mazda 5.

That happened in June. We’re still the proud owners of a Mazda 5 with a bit more scratches than in June. Thoroughly enjoying the car though!

Anyway, the  right-hand drive Vauxhall Astra didn’t sell. Much to Mark’s surprise.
And for the MOT (APK in Dutch) there were to many things to be done.
So we wanted to get rid of the car.

I don’t know a lot about cars. If they don’t drive they’re kind of useless in my opinion. But Mark thinks we can sell it for parts.
At the moment we have 4 cars in our drive (it’s a whole other story and one of them is not ours) so after the Vauxhall stood there for about 2 weeks we decided this afternoon that we would put it on the French kind of ebay site.


2 hours later we got a phonecall. The man wants to pick it up at 7.30 pm. We are surprised. But the rest of the evening the phone keeps ringing. Every time we think: “ We should have asked for more”…

Anyway.

7.30 pm is delayed until 8.30 pm.
The man wants to buy a new battery for the car.
By 9.00 we text-message the man that we’re waiting.
It’s pitch dark by this time and Mark has to work at 5 in the morning.

He will be there in a sec.
We know you can always count on the French time wise but at 9.30 we feel it’s getting a bit ridiculous.
Of course our house is hard to find and so on, and so forth, but still…
Mark’s cell-phone keeps ringing with people who are interested.

Finally, at 9.43 the people arrive.

Right now it’s 10.10pm.  
I can hear the car doors slam. The deal is made. The car is sold!
We still should have asked for more… and maybe made the appointment later.
Only 6 more hours of sleep left.