Dear All,

Once more I have returned to the fold.

I have recently had a continuous streak of bad luck with cars involvoing (see what I did there?) a sheared keyway, a jumped Cambelt, a fallow deer, a broken motorbike, 3 visits from the scrap car truck and a lot of sulking on my part.

I behave in a way that demands I own at least one estate (at least one as plenty of my pals like cheap older cars and often need to borrow one), I like said estate to be robust, warmish in performance and Swedish. In short I missed having a volvo and wanted one very much again.

Admitting that the pink slug (ron boxed v70 tdi) was dead did not come easily. Cadley garage confirmed what I sort of knew and I collected a few salvageable bits and sent it to the scrappy.

A replacement was found in the shape of a V70 T5 (auto). It is green, leather inside, memory electric seats, heated seats, dolby pro-logic speaker tumour and 3 cd cartridge, service stamp every 10k miles, lots of receipts, 170k on clock, drives well. No chuffing Sunroof is a disappointment.

As much as anything I am just pleased to be back in a volvo. Will I end up fiddling with it? Probably. Am I happy for now? Yes.

Do I owe you pictures? Yes. Should I clean a week of work-mud off before showing you all? Yes.

Glad to be back.

F.