So, I filled up my car with Diesel tonight, it is a Volvo V40 Estate with over 170,000 on the clock and worked out that it is doing over 52mpg. Based on a UK gallon of 4.5 Litres.

My Volvo V40 1.9 Turbo Diesel is doing more than 50mpg, I am so impressed, plus it goes like stink and is only £115 a year to tax. I believe that you guys just need to think that diesel is a cheap fuel and not a nasty fuel unlike petrol. If you don’t then you are missing out on cars that to 50+MPG. And who needs to drive to work in a car that seats 8 people and does 8mpg???????

I would rather have a big V8 if I could!!!!!!!!!! But I will have a Dodge Ram one day.

Well thinking of things to say, for starters I have to be cafefull with my thoughts as her in doors is American as well as my son T. So my thoughts are mine only.

Firstly my thoughts on the election are that the faster they get that idiot Bush out the better. Even in the UK we did well under Clinton, we have just coasted along under Bush. Under Clinton we had prosperity and respected the man, I really hold him in high asteem. Bush; I would not put him out if he were on fire.

So to Barack. I think this man can and will turn round the USA. I think he cares, he is half black but so what, if he can put Dollars in your pocket, proect you from Muslim terrorists and cares for a change I would give him my vote 100%.

I have had two operations recently here that were paid for by our NHS service, not perfect but as a UK citizen I have access to totally free health care. Ok, I pay 10% of my salary like all folks, some pay more some pay less and some pay nothing, but we have in my opinion a first rate health care system.

For the average guy you can have that heart attack, get treated and you will not go bankrupt. You can go home and get all the care and tablets you need as you have paid for it. Cancer is paid, heart transplants paid for even a broken foot is paid for: in my opinion a first class country like the US is riddled by almost a 3rd world health service. Even India has free Health Care and there taking all our jobs???!!! Perhaps as her in doors says is 1st class if you can afford it. but what about the 40m Americans who can’t afford it?  When you are billed $10 for an asprin then something is wrong. Which gets me back to where I started. I think Obama should get in.

McCain and that Christian idiot Palin will just drag America back, I want to move to the US but under McCain/Palin I think I’d be better of here. At least we do not have wierd Christian religions that she seems to stand for. I am not a religious man, personally I do not believe in an after life as I cannot believe. I kind of believe that Jesus existed but I do not believe that there is a God. But a woman to be so against abortion. I do not believe in abortion as birth control, but hey what about a poor girl who may have been raped or been told the child is mentally dead?????

I think England has its fair share of problems, as well as most or Europe but at least we have a health scheme, that all people pay into. So I do not have to worry about seeing the doctor as that is free. We pay here £7 for a prescription.

I do not want to get into politics but on watching the US debates I honestly think that Obama will be the best candidate and will pull America back to the country it used to be, not just a Super Power. But a country with the vision and wealth to look after it’s citizens. Under McCain and Palin I think I will stay in the UK and hope the Conservatives get in next time.

Today we had a run out to Lyme Park in Stockport with me, her in doors, son and daughter. It is a big house (kind of usual in a stately park) and some gardens, roses and more roses. It is the first proper run out in my new motor, that I bought off our neighbour who was moving to New Zealand, sods just before winter as well. Monster mileage on it, it just clocked up 170,000 today, but it is a Volvo and a diesel one so shoud be good for another 100,000 miles.

So we had a nice day and her in doors took all the photographs she wanted to, she is learning HDR which is High Definition photography, basically taking 3 identical pics at different settings then stitching them together on the PC for an awsome image.

So as her in doors has a cold that I apparantly have given her, even though I had man flu and was near death, we set off for home. The pics look pretty good.

Well as I recently  joined the ranks of the great unemployed I have to attend the zoo tomorrow, to declare to some useless oick that I havent worked and will get my benefit, some use that is. Could spend that on a good pub night and curry. Now if I lived in a council house and had never worked I could live like a lord, but as I own a house I am lower than a slugs belly in their eyes, so I get bugger all. I hate Labour!!!!!

Well at least I don’t have to work at my old crappy job with my crappy boss, sure something will crop up.

Last Friday I was on some calls in Liverpool when I had a call from my boss, saying he was in my local pub/restaurant, and he wanted to see me. Now, as I had kind of refused to go down to Kent for a sales meeting made me suspicious. Anyway, as I have hated this job I met him and was laid off. Ok, for some people a real bummer but I got two months salary and has given me the kick in the pants to set up my own company. Well, me and her in doors are looking at setting up 3 companies. We are going to open a web business called Wetroomproducts.co.uk (or com) selling what I was selling before. As I am car mad I am opening a business doing car detailing called Superiordetailing.co.uk, plus if I need to I can also do plumbing or tiling again.

I am still going to do my visa for the US but with the options here and the house value dropped and the dollar value dropped (we would be $18,000 worse off moving to the US, that is a car )

So her in doors is trying to get together a few web pages as I cannot get my head round this, also our Broadband supplier TISCALI has let us down on an upgrade and we have had no internet access for 4 days now, what a real cowboy company they are, If you are after internet access I would never advise you to use TISCALI- crap service, crap support (call centre in India, I cannot undrstand them) crap company.

Well it has rained now for 4 days, but in the UK that is not unusual, so if we get another day of sun before next Spring I will be surprised, but as it rains here 365 days a year the odd day of sunshine is nice, I should have a coat of wax applied to me and a pop out umbrella out of my head.

As I have always had a massive passion for cars, the bigger the engine the better I am looking at car detailing as a possible career when we move. I’ve bought some stuff and practiced on her in doors car, well wow what an amazing transformation. Who would think running a block of clay over the car would get rid of all the crud stuck to it, I wish I would have taken some before pictures. I have some buffing disks for my sander (yes sander) that are foam and I will take pics. It is a dark green car and you can see the clouds reflected in the roof, and that is doing it by hand, just waiting to see how it shines by machine, plus sealer to the paint and carnauba (from a tree in Brazil apparently!!) wax, the dogs cahoonas!!!!

I am also going to do the bonnet of my old Ford Escort van as it does not shine anymore.  I’ll take pics and post them.

Ah well bed soon as I’m off to Hull tomorrow for another day of misery. My boss just wants appointments; where as I have always worked from home and only done appointments when necessary, I just feel like I am driving round wasting diesel. (Which I am)

In a post I read recently the rainy period in the UK is from January to December, this made me laugh as it is probably true. And yes rain is forcast tomorrow!!

Well we were sitting there last week talking about our move to the US. And I have had it on my mind for a bit that the Tri Cities area in Washington maybe the wrong place for us. We live in a one horse town in Cheshire and I felt that Pasco in Washington may become that to us, as were are both suburban types from quite big cities.

So her in doors uncle lives near Dallas and there seems everything for us there including much bigger houses for less dollars than Pasco.

My eye is now better so that was a big relief.

As it has been a holiday weekend here I have done all the gardening and cut the grass with a new push mower I bought, who would have thought ME using a push mower. Well it cuts fine and is really easy to push.

For the past 6 months or so I have had cataract in my right eye, how this happened no one knows, I thought it was when our son poked me in the eye, but there is no medical proof of this.

So every day for the last 6 months or so I have gone off to work looking through a cloud in my right eye with my left eye having to compensate for this. I was living on headache tablets as I used to get bad headaches and was usually exhausted by tea time. They say it is easier being blind in one eye that to have to suffer cataract.

Well, yesterday arrived and I had my surgery in a unit that travels across the country operated by a South African company, very clean and hygienic, I felt safer with them than in a MRSA infected dirty hospital.

The operation is weird, they only use a local anaesthetic in the eye, then wheel you in the the operating theatre. They place a cover over your head and cut a hole in it for your eye, you look at this really bright white light when they clamp your eye open. The worst bit was the cut, felt like a scratch. Then they remove your old lens and insert the new one, that was basically it, only took 10 minutes.

At first my vision was slightly blurred and dark, then yesterday afternoon it slowly came back and I could see colours again, it was amazing. I got up this morning early and saw the world properly for the first time in ages. I will have to have reading glasses from now but I will have perfect distance vision, her in doors is so jealous!!!!

We are still doing the house prior to selling, it is coming together slowly, but hopefully I won’t be so tired in the evenings anymore and can do some after work .

Ah at last the weekend has arrived. I feel like a work slave Monday to Friday, when I turn off works mobile at 5 on a Friday I have a big smile on my face.

Well as ever I slept in a bit, got up had coffee and toast. Today I was taking my daughter and son to see their grandad. We had some food there with grandad and my step mum then did some shopping on the way home. It’s always good to see my dad even though he asks the same questions, he is loosing his marbles a bit. But, hey is is 74.

Tonight her in doors is in work so I’m baby sitting. I took them for a walk before and got some really good pictures of my son on the camera.

Hoping the weather is better tomorrow as we need to get in the garden, all it has done all week is rain.

Well Diesel here has reached £1.40 a litre, that’s £6.36 a gallon (4.546L to a gallon), petrol is about £6 a gallon. In US$ that would be $10 a gallon (based on US gallon of 4Litres) for petrol. It’s currently about $4 over there, just goes to show how much the Labour corrupt Brown ran government rip us off.

The sad thing is that all these rises are speculation, so the stock markets are ruining our lives again. The Saudis say there is no shortage of oil and the barrel price should be about $80 a barrel. Is there some conspiracy trying to destroy our economies?

So roll on 2010 and lets vote Labour out and vote the Tories in, they need a chance.

Summer, what happened? Ever since last Saturday we have had a deluge of rain and it was so dark and miserable on Sunday we had the lights on at 5pm. I am looking forward to this so called global warming it has not happened in our town yet. Now it has gone humid, so I am in double misery.

I don’t worry about global warming in England I just worry about going rusty.

This is the full picture on my intro page that I took one cold morning on the way to work. I just thought I’d play around putting some pictures up. The other one is me playing with the black and white settings on my digital camera at the recent canal boat festival.

Me and her in doors are having a bit of a competition with pictures, I think my little compact Nikon takes great pictures.