Yip it’s official… Rossco now has her first set of UK wheels! A 2003 Ford Fiesta to be exact… one prior older couple owned her before me and apparently she only did around 1,000 miles in the last year! Of course that is all set to change now she’s mine haha I’m not one for worrying about keeping the mileage figure down for possible re-sale!

I have Mum, Vicky, Auntie Marcia and Uncle Ali to thank for my new wheels as only two days after arriving from NZ Mum and Vicky set out to find   me a car and give me a bit more independence and found this wee gem in a day! First I knew about it was when the receptionist at work called me to say my Mum was in reception… Admittedly my first reaction was OMG how embarrassing what is Mum doing here! and then I thought OMG something must be really wrong so I raced out and Mum was standing in reception with a sombre look on her face and she says  “Amanda, I’ve got some bad news…” and my face just dropped. Then she said “We’ve found you a car!” which is when I called her a name and pushed her away from me! I really thought something was wrong with my Dad but she totally got me back for the way I told her about the Paris trip!  I couldn’t get off work for another hour so they went into town to do some shopping and then we went to the car yard to sort it all out. Hardest part was having to wait from Wed arvo until Sat arvo to pick her up haha.

Ironically my bus pass was due to expire on the Sunday so it all worked out perfectly and I’ve been driving to work all this week and it’s so much better than riding the bus.

Ok… so here’s a bit of background that I couldn’t blog about before in case Mum read my blog (only a slim chance but I wasn’t going to risk it) basically Mum’s good mate and close neighbour (only an empty section between!) Vicky emailed me with the idea to surprise Mum with a trip to Paris for her birthday in August and I thought it was a grand idea! So we were playing Secret Squirrel over phone/email for a couple of months and I booked the flights and Vicky took care of the accommodation – check this OUT… http://www.specialapartments.com/24_chapon.html

Now, I’m such a loving and fantastic daughter that I couldn’t let Mum off too easy when it came to telling her that Vicky and I had planned this surprise trip could I? All along I had thought we would tell her maybe a couple days before we were due to leave but Vicky pointed out that it might be best to give her a bit of warning etc so in the end it was a couple days after they’d arrived that I told her.

Here’s how it went… we were sitting in the living room of my Aunties house (‘WE’ being Auntie Marcia, Vicky, Mum, Me) and I turned to Mum… took her hand… put my game face on and said “Now Mum…. I’ve got something to tell you. I don’t want you to be mad at me or get upset…” and at this point Mum has this priceless look on her face and says “Oh God” hehe and I’m struggling to keep a straight face before yelling “We’re going to Paris for your birthday!” There’s this moment of silence before she starts laughing and whacks me on the arm.  Classic! She totally thought I was pregnant or something haha.

Also,  my Auntie’s face was priceless too as she was apparently thinking “Oh God Amanda’s gone and got herself pregnant when I was supposed to be looking after her!” and as Vicky knew it was coming she was tryin to get her attention to wink or something but her eyes were glued on me wondering what the hell I was going to say…. Ahhh I’m such a brilliant daughter to age my mother 10 years like that.