Shiny new Subaru

Behold, our new car! Registration is AM49FV, which of course has been translated to 'Australia made 49 foxy vixens', which I guess is as useful a mnemonic as any other...

It's a bit of a beast, really - slightly more chunky than our previous Saab, and a lot lighter on the steering... The top box was a) a brilliant idea, and b) a lifesaver, as we otherwise would not have been able to get all of our cases in the boot, despite it being an estate. The only downside is that HORRIBLE new car smell, which gives me a real headache and makes me feel sick...

We bought the car on-line, back in the UK, and had lots of fun trying to pay for it using our Westpac telephone banking facility. It turned out, after we'd got all the proceeds from the sale of our house in our Australian bank account, that we could only transfer over AU$5,000 at a time - not enough to pay for the darned thing in time for when we originally wanted to collect it, so it arrived at the Intercontinental Hotel a day (and several hours...) late.

In the end we were driving into the sunset all the way to Wagga, which was 500+ kilometers of squinting eyes and fatigue, but we got here in the end. I'm blogging from my parents-in-law's computer desk on a lovely hot, sunny day in Wagga! Michael had fun today adding to the car's machismo by buying a covered box trailer for it so that we can move furniture etc - pictures to follow when I've actually seen it.