Bad luck comes in threes

They say bad luck comes in threes, don't they? Alan broke his tooth the other day. So he got his first taste of American dental treatment. Usual thing: very good, very expensive.

Thursday night I went for my first class in a stained glass course. It was good. More about this another day.

Friday night, we went to Georgetown to pick up Alan's shiny new car. He bought a VW Golf GTI, (Rabbit GTI for our American readers) in sparkly metallic black. It looked lovely waiting for us in the parking lot. Apparently VW are doing a promotion at the moment in which they proclaim that 'VWs Rock!' and as a result of this, we are meant to get a custom VW electric guitar in the post soon, which you're meant to be able to plug into the car... Anyway, Alan drove it back. He thought it was great.

We then get back in the house and find the washing machine has got stuck (again) and has been churning water through the rinse cycle for the last two hours. I guess that's cost us a couple of hundred bucks on our water bill. You have no idea how much water an American washing machine gets through.

Today (Saturday) we drove over to Fredericksburg for a fly-in. The weather was perfectly flyable until we got past Johnson City, when it started raining. Heavily. The airport was not actually raining but was very damp and only a few aeroplanes had made it in. I got some photos of what was there but nothing was flying. That said, Gillespie County Airport is a great facility, with brand new hangars, a hotel, diner and conference center. We'll be back, hopefully on a nicer day.

So we went back to Austin via a few shops for some stuff we needed. About a block from the apartment, we were waiting at some lights. They went green, Alan stalled the car - unfamiliar gearbox, wrong gear. And **WHACK** from behind as the huge GMC Yukon truck went straight in the back of us. Goodbye shiny car, hello very dented and bruised car. Hadn't even had it 24 hours.

Everyone is OK at least. The Golf's rear bumper is totally stoved in. The boot (trunk) lid will need to be replaced. Luckily the glass looks intact. Of course, the only damage to the Yukon was a slightly bent license plate.

We're meant to have an estimator chap around tomorrow and the car is scheduled to go for fixing at 08:30 Monday morning. To be honest, that's pretty quick work on the insurance company's part. We were only yesterday being pleased that we will save $400 next insurance period for having Texas driving licenses, but now we are hoping this might not affect our no-claims, as if we lose that, it's going to be another $1000 instead, and insurance is expensive enough as it is.

*sigh*

Oh, we did finally get our mattress at least. We get to sleep on our new bed tonight at last.