Buying A Couple of Cars

As good as public transportation may be, we cannot make it without a couple of cars. The school buses for John & Amanda cost £2,000 per year. ($4000 - per child) So economically, it is much cheaper to buy some cheap cars.

So on our third day there, we hopped in our rental car and went forth to purchase at least one car and ideally two. I grabbed the phone book and had it opened to the list of Used Car Dealers. Of course we couldn't find them so at the restaurant where we got lunch, I asked the proprietor directions to a particular car lot. As he gave me directions, a lady walked up and patiently waited until he was gone. Once gone she said, "We just got here from the states and were recommended a guy who gets people like us cars. I'll give you his number. You just call, tell him what you want, and he'll find it for you. We bought two from him and the whole experience was great." So she gave the the number and we called him. Sure enough, he was great and had a car on his lot for us to look at. So, after many missteps even though we had a GPS (you have to be here to understand how you can make mistakes even with a GPS) , we found him. We really wanted the cheapest, reliable cars he had. And that's what we got.

From what we’ve heard, most dealers just take your credit card. We discovered at the last second that our guy does not take credit cards. And we didn’t yet have a bank account! So I told him we couldn’t get them until next week once we had the bank account and the cash. He said, "Let’s do this. You can come and get the cars today and pay me next week when you get the money. I’ll give you a deposit slip for my checking account, you deposit the money as soon as you have it." Not the sort of thing you’d hear in the states!

The last leg of the 'get the cars' journey was that afternoon when we decided to go get them. We still had the rental car, and Shirleen wasn't comfortable driving it, so I drove it and dropped her off to drive home. This was only her second experience driving in the UK. The first had been an hour earlier. The car dealer was about a half hour away. The rental car had the GPS, so she was going to follow me. As soon as we pulled into traffic we had to take a left turn. Someone pulled in behind me, so there was a car between us. I quickly pulled over to let them by so Shirleen would be right behind me. But Shirleen was so tense she didn't see me do that and drove by me.
So get this. We are 30 minutes from home, no cell phones, she has no GPS, we don't know the home number yet, and we're driving on the wrong side of the road.
As you might imagine, that was panic time. Traffic was really heavy, so there was about 10 cars that passed before I could pull out behind Mom. I completely lost her. So I'm driving all around trying to find where she might have gone. I can't find her, and despite having the GPS, I'm still fairly uncomforable getting around. So I went home. About 30 minutes after I got home she drove up, a bit flustered, but she made it. Luckily, she had a map and just worked it out. She saw a route near where she was that we'd driven a few times and went to that and followed it home.
That was the only real serious scare so far, the rest has just been frustrating due to lack of familiarity.