Well, it's New Year's Eve, and I haven't posted any proper blog posts since April. So here's a bit of an update.
We completed the purchase on our house and moved in around April.
We had a period of 40degC+ temperatures soon afterwards and it was _really_ uncomfortable to even exist during that time. I couldn't even work in my bedroom during that time, and had all the windows open overnight.
And recently, we had a complete reversal, with temperatures hitting -6degC, and a thick layer of snow. Since the house is not on the main road, we no longer have priority with the gritters, which lead to some nerve-wracking drives on the Saturday when I headed up to morning shopping.
I later found out my former neighbour in the flat where I used to live (still find it strange to say that) actually lost functionality to their boiler during this cold snap (the pump to their boiler broke), so they had to wear like 5 layers of clothes and sit around a portable heater in order to keep warm -- travelling to a relative's house to get showered and stuff.
I also found out that two Muslim families have moved into the two vacant flats since we moved out. This now leaves only 4 flats out of the 12 available that are inhabited by non-Muslims. I am, sadly, not surprised by this turn of events, the local council have been aggressively buying up all the council properties they can, and then throwing probably the worst people into them -- heck they even bought and sold one of the flats across to a neighbouring council -- so essentially we have a flat in one council that is being used to house people from another council. 1 of the remaining residents is only there because they have a vulnerable relative nearby and will move out when she passes. Another is already looking for a new property, and the other two families haven't made their plans known yet.
We've now gone through over 6 months in the new house and have been getting and going through the new bills. Trying to keep the house warm during the cold spell has been costing me over £15 per day in Gas alone. Thankfully, the cold spell only lasted around a week, and the government's energy assistance did help with the Electricity side -- giving £66 extra per month. That doesn't help with the Gas costs, but it does mean I can use the space heater (which runs off electricity)
My Yaris seems to be having trouble with acceleration even without ECO mode on, so I'm going to start putting money aside to buy a full EV -- maybe a Tesla, Hyundai, or Toyota EV (even if Musk has been an AH with the Twitter purchase, I'm still liking the Tesla interface -- I even got to sit behind one this year, even if only briefly)
As with most people, I grew concerned with Musk's handling of the Twitter purchase, so I picked up a side project a year or so ago: Mastodon.
Back when Twitter had issues with privacy, several projects spawned up: Ello, Diaspora* and Mastodon to name a few.
Ello basically failed and has now turned more into a portfolio site. Diaspora is sort of like a decentralized Tumblr and Mastodon was the Twitter equivalent, so much so that there's more than one auto-crossposter now that allows you to Tweet to Twitter, and it will automatically crosspost it to Mastodon, and vice versa,
I decided to update my TfL Travel Updates project and allow it to post to Mastodon instead. I have it now posting to https://mastodon.xyz/@updatesbf but I am also looking at setting up my own Mastodon instance so I can experiment and break things on my own setup without messing up or flooding someone else's instance
Had my MOT done today. Took surprisingly low amount of time -- I dropped the car off at 10:30 for the 11:00 appointment and they called me back at 2pm saying it was done.
They had a check-in process where you sign in, and deposit the car keys (with a tag saying which bay you had parked the car) into a small locker and that signals the mechanic you have left your keys. It's contactless so you are never near another human.
My daily walk as a result, was much later than normal.
Was another wet and windy day, didn't really do much of a walk, and just managed to walk to the local Co-op to get some milk in the pouring rain.
Toyota later called me advising my MOT on the Yaris was due next month and I should book in the MOT.
Did that today and surprised that they offer a "While you wait" MOT that you can drop the car off and wait for them to do the MOT and then pick it up afterwards.
Next available slot for that is in two weeks. Still in good time for the 9th June deadline where the MOT expires.
Installed more apps that were missing from my phone and set most of them up. Did my walk as normal, no issues there. Had to re-pair my phone with my car since everything was reset, though.
As you probably are aware, I now own a Yaris. And today, I got surprised when Toyota UK on Twitter linked in a tribute to their Corolla AE86 on their Twitter feed, namely the Corolla GT86, although disappointingly, there was no Eurobeat on the trailer.
For those of you who don't know, the AE86 is the car used by Fujiwara Takumi in the Initial D anime series, a young man doing early morning tofu deliveries down a winding mountain pass, learning how to drift as he went, and minimising the jerky movements of the car, since tofu is an extremely fragile food.
Toyota made reference to this also in my Yaris by adding an app to the car called "A Glass of Water" which simulates having a glass of water in the car, and when you finish your journey, it tells you how much water you would have spilt had you had a real glass of water in your car.
Takumi's father used this same technique while training him. Putting a glass of water in his cup holder and Takumi would try to minimise the amount of spillage during his delivery run.
I am impressed how Toyota have been embracing the references to their cars in the anime, and when I mentioned this on my office's slack, surprisingly some people also got the reference ^_^
TfL finally replied and my application for exemption of the CC is refused. Even though my car meets the CO2 emissions requirement, it doesn't meet the 20-mile EV requirement (must be table to travel 20 miles with zero emissions.)
Details on this article: [www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/car...](https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-6516655/Electric-cars-no-longer-Congestion-Charge-exempt-London-2025.html)
They refunded the £10 I paid for registration.
However, I may still be able to get an exemption. Since my dad also uses my car and he's registered disabled, he may be able to register my car as a blue-badge holder, which gives 100% exemption.
Went to get my spare key from Toyota. Took them 2 hours to get my car into the workshop and get the key reprogrammed. They left a sign in my car when they were done. They had also washed and cleaned the car in the process.
A mobile coffee truck came along while I was waiting outside for the car to be done. I got a coffee while I waited
Gloomy day, but still hot and muggy with occasional showers.
My hire car finally got picked up, exactly 8 weeks after it was delivered.
Had a moan at Toyota over email -- they confirmed my appointment to get the key reprogrammed, but attempted to sneak a £10 charge in, for "a 40-point surface point clean"
Considering I'm only going back there due to a mistake made by their mechanic and paint damage caused by them, I shouldn't be paying for any of that.
Mixed weather today -- rain and sun. Went and got some walking done.
Toyota contacted me saying they have my spare key (the mechanic apparently lost it after programming it and they needed to order a new one - to the tune of £250 cost).
I'll need my take my car back to let them program the key, and hopefully get the dinks in the paintwork fixed.
The next appointment is next Monday, so I'll head up after my daily meeting.
During my walk, the hire car company finally called asking for their car back, they're coming to collect tomorrow, so I topped up the car to make sure they don't fine me for not having enough fuel.
My V5C arrived this morning. So I can use that to check and apply for my CCharge discount eligibility. I already know the car is exempt from ULEZ and LEZ.
Though it does seem the CCharge will be chargeable for all cars from 2025 and exemption for EV only from 2021.
So remind me again, why should people buy a EV or hybrid if they don't get any benefits?
My Toyota Roadside Assistance confirmation form also arrived, it's Toyota branded, but the assistance is provided by the AA.
Barclaycard emailed me. Time to pay my credit card bill...
Picked up my new Toyota Yaris Hybrid today. Had to spend about 30 minutes on hold while waiting for verify myself for the 3-day driveaway insurance.
I now need to finalise my own insurance to cover myself from Saturday.
My dad and I drove up to Toyota in the hire car so I could drive back in the new car.
We spotted some chips in the paintwork which we could not resolve while we were due to it raining (any painting we would do would be ruined by the rain). Toyota gave us some paint and lacquer to do it ourselves when the rain stops.
Drove back in the new car. First time I've properly driven an automatic. I previously drove an automatic for a colleague to help her park, so it wasn't a "proper" drive.
My dad also used to have an automatic (VW Touran), but again, didn't drive that "properly"
The brakes on the Yaris were REALLY sensitive. Just a tap brought the car to near stationary. On my old Skoda I had to push the brake pedal to about half way before it started braking.
Car has bluetooth so managed to pair it with my phone. Haven't tested the music playing over bluetooth yet.
Also, Toyota gave me a plushie as thank you for buying a car
Another cloudy and rainy day. I did get to do my walk in between the showers.
Car update -- I've finalised finance with Toyota and we've pencilled in Wednesday for pickup, but that depends on when I need to return my hire car.
Other news -- My neighbours moved out recently and now we've had some people come in to pick up left over stuff and another van dropped off this morning, seemingly to drop of some paints and stuff.
They parked up pretty close to my hire car.
At least they didn't scratch it.
Since different people are coming in and out of that premise, they've mounted a key locker on the front of the building holding the key to the flat, and locked it. Foolishly, they left the key combination visible as I went out to my walk. Then when I came back after my walk, they had reset the dials. Tried the combination I saw, and the lock opened. Cue Mr. Burns clip....
1 hour walk today, in 25degC heat, including some shopping at the Co-Op (which luckily had no queue outside).
Chased up Toyota as they hadn't called me, and they finally called me in the afternoon. They confirmed I had passed credit checks so the backup car was reserved for me.
However, the first choice car was still reserved for the other buyer and they were still waiting to find out if they passed checks on another finance company (Black Horse).
So it seems that the finance is primarily with Toyota Finance and the secondary finance company is Black Horse (which, ironically, is who I had my finance with when I had my Skoda.) According to my Toyota sales person, Black Horse is a higher interest finance company.
Spent the afternoon with Toyota going through different cars and options. Ended up reserving a Yaris Hybrid.
The car I was looking at had been sold by another salesperson two hours ago, but their credit check had failed, so they were running a check against another company. If that passes, they get first dibs on the car.
So I looked at another Yaris Hybrid. Slightly older, but less mileage, and £500 more -- BUT, it looked like it had been treated MUCH better than the other car. It had leather seats meaning it's likely to get extra hot in sunny weather.
So, it was finally confirmed. My car is written off after being assessed by the insurance engineers. Interestingly, they were also on lockdown so had to make the assessment using the photos I had taken from the accident.
They have valued my car at £3000. Which isn't too bad I guess. It's better than nothing.
The car next to me that was also involved was also written off, to the value of £2200. So that's £5200 being claimed against the insurance of the other driver. The two cars other cars affected in the accident will probably claim the cost of their repairs, which I'm not sure how much that will be. Probably in the 1-2K region, so that's at least £6200 in total.
Then there's the driver's own car's damage. Assuming it's not written off, the damage is probably another K at least. So £7200 of cost on the driver's own insurance.
That drink he had is proving to be rather expensive.....
My car is going to be towed to disposal on Monday, with the other written off car to be towed tomorrow (Friday)
I've already started making enquiries to different dealerships in my area looking for hybrids with a size about the same as my Fabia, or possibly the size of an Octavia. Contacted Hyundai, Toyota and Skoda.
So far, only Toyota have come back and they've suggested the Corolla. But I'll have to wait until they open up again so I can take a look at it closer.
