As planned, we went down to Weston Super Mare on Friday afternoon to collect the new car.  It's lovely.  It had been valeted within an inch of its life so was gleaming and spotless.  Andrew drove it home while I drove home in our old car.   We got stuck in the usual Friday afternoon bottleneck between the Bridge and the Brynglas tunnels.  The Welsh Government has dicked around for ten years (or more, possibly) trying to get this notorious bottleneck sorted.  It's the main transport artery into the big population centres of South Wales and it took us over an hour to get through around 20 miles of motorway.  While Welsh politicians keep bleating about having more powers, I'd rather they did a good job with the ones they have and sort this out.  With this and the bridge toll, it's the sort of thing that is a disincentive to a business deciding where to set up.  I think it's no coincidence that the Bristol side of the bridge is heavily populated with things like distribution centres etc.  No sane business is going to locate where transport links are expensive and difficult.  To be honest, if we had perfect freedom of movement, I'd locate on that side of the bridge now, as we do so much travelling with Milgi, both to shows, to see our machinists and to go to fabric wholesalers etc.  None of this will help the Welsh economy, which is already flatlining and pretty much entirely dependent on public sector jobs.  

Anyway, we got home, and Andrew spent most of Friday night reading the manual, and then sitting in the car getting the phones tethered into the Bluetooth system.  There's a whole spaceship's worth of buttons and controls and digital displays.

On Saturday morning, we headed over to see our friend Rachel.  Rachel volunteers for EGLR, and is one of the main organisers of their show in May, and I'd been busy making stuff for the event.  I'd done a box of 46 tuggy toys.  These are made from spare bits of fleece, plaited into short strips, and knotted at both ends.  There were also some applique tote bags, a big batch of tissue holders and some nail file holders each with their own emery board.  Hopefully these can be sold on the stall and raise some much needed funds for the rescue.  I was very glad to take these yesterday, as it was a big item ticked off my To Do list and we probably wouldn't have had room for all of it on the day of the show as well as all our own stuff.  

Nail file holders

Callie with the tissue holders

One of the applique bags 

Birds were cut using a Sizzix die

We set off in the car, with the girls in the boot.  Andrew spent most of the journey asking me if I wanted the temperature altered by 0.5C but I was very impressed by the smooth, quiet ride.  It seems difficult to believe it's a diesel, as it's so quiet.  Safely arrived at Rachel's, unloaded our goodies, and the girls were delighted to meet up with their old friends Carrie and Erin, and foster dog Max.  After a nice catch up, we all piled into Rachel's car, a squash with five dogs and three people! Headed into Chipping Sodbury to our regular haunt, the Royal Oak.  This is a lovely pub on the main street of the town, and the dogs are always welcome there.  We had a relaxed lunch, with Andrew feeding Max chips under the table and it was great to have a natter and hear all about Rachel's recent holiday.  

Then back to Rachel's house for cake and coffee while the dogs played and did zoomies in the garden.  Reluctantly, we left mid afternoon, and had another smooth, comfortable ride home.  Had a quiet rest of the day, just catching up with some reading, the papers,and a bit of TV.  

Today, we're off to Halfords to get a boot liner and some mats for the new car, and I've got a dental appointment.