Saturday has been and gone now with a few fragments surviving. It must have been mundane but I recall waking up feeling rough after a poor nights sleep and struggling to get going. My partner and I did manage to go food shopping before settling down to watch my local rugby team win their semi final match and make it to the Twickenham final next Saturday. This was followed by watching a piss poor England football team get a one nil victory over Andorra, a team 169 place below them in the world rankings. England were appalling, it was worse than watching paint dry. Give the teams much hyped talent they lack ideas and any sense of urgency. I’ve seen games on the local park more entertaining and energetic than this lot produced. I watched Department Q and then took my night meds and headed for bed. That was my plan but at the last moment the finalised manuscript for my next poetry collection came thorough so I of course staid up to read it through and make my comments. It is really good in terms of presentation so I am hopeful that all will come together. So I went to bed tired but content.

Sunday and its a lazy waking day that meanders towards a late breakfast of bacon sandwiches and some faffing about. Then at lunch time, we go out to Loughborough and a car dealership. That is where the fun started. Watching my partner haggle with car dealers is like watching the Romans throw Christians to the lions. She knew exactly what car she wanted, what plate, what millage and what price. We sat through the preliminaries, the usual attempts at rapport building, being friendly and helpful and offering us drinks. Then there was all the taking of info and of course the taking of pictures of the car to be part exchanged, which had to go into the system to work out the possible deals to be ready for us after the test drive. The test drive went well as my partner knows all the roads around the dealership so it got a good drive. On arrival back there were more drinks and biscuits and the manager made himself known. A typical car sales person who was somewhat oleaginous. My partner swung into action in her frank and brutal “I tell you what deal I want and if you can’t do it we are leaving “style. Every time they tried to sell her add ons or some form of finance she demanded figures, a calculator and repeatedly asked whether they could meet the trade in amount on her car. The manger wriggled and did his best to try and sell her stuff and not up the part exchange. In the end my partner just looked and him and said this is a deal breaker either you can or cant, and if you can’t we are out of here. After some pantomime shuffling a figure was agreed that was well under my partners budget, included two services and protective coating for the car. Bottom line she now has a 2025 plated make and model of car that has less than seven hundred miles on the clock. Result! We collect it on Friday.

We drive home triumphant to eat sandwiches and drinks on the patio. It was a grind but well worth it. I find my new Jim Harrison poetry collection has arrived. This is the name I saw being read by Patrick Swayze in the movie Roadhouse a couple of night ago. I start to read the poems and immediately like what I am reading, he is very much an “outside” poet and his use of words and description are lovely. Even after a short read I recommend him. Of course he is very well know in America and probably amongst proper poets but he was new to me and I found him accidently through late night movie watching.

I set aside the poetry and start to draft the blog before the evening meal and the final of the European nations cup football tournament. Spain are taking on Portugal so it should be a good game if they can avoid it becoming a blood bath. After which I will finalise tomorrows Tesco order and scuttle off to bed full of night medication, my finger in a splint and smiling at how effective my partner was in the wild arena of car buying.