Hah, a week after I bought my Peugeot 407, another one has come up for sale that’s much more like what I wanted, albeit at a much higher price.

When I was thinking about Mercedes, I was sick and tired of them all being black. What’s wrong with people, I thought? Don’t they want any colour in their lives?

But now that I’ve bought my silver 407, I want black. To me it looks much more elegant and sporty. But look at this!

I love that leather colour! That’s what I want! And, it’s got a sun-roof. I haven’t seen another one advertised with these features so I thought it was European spec only. Yet here it is, for sale in Sydney and it’s done 8,000km less than mine, 126,000. It’s the 2.9L petrol version, non-turbo.

The bad news is that the asking price is $8,990, and it’s in Sydney. Dog, I feel like trying to change over. At the price I paid last week, $4,400, I think I’d pretty soon get a buyer here for mine.

On the other hand, a respray of mine to black would be a damned sight cheaper, counting the cost of going to Sydney and driving it back. But then I lose the fun of that trip.

Also, there’s another one came up a few weeks ago that’s black with white leather upholstery, very nice too.

This one’s in Melbourne and the ad was removed last week, so I thought it had been sold, but it’s back. It’s a dealer, so they probably had a buy that fell through. This one’s $7,495 so you can see I got a real bargain last week. Assuming there’s nothing serious wrong.

There are only two main things: the air-con doesn’t get cold and the ultrasonic parking distance sensors don’t work. Obviously, neither stops it being driven and can wait to be fixed.

I drove it a fair distance yesterday (to Ascot and back) and it’s a nice drive, but there’s a bit of vibration and a slight shuddering at times, nothing serious. Also there’s a lot of air buffeting if you have the windows down, seemingly at any opening. Even opening the passenger side a bit doesn’t seem to help.

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We had our two-for-the-price-of-one Northam Senior High School 2020/21 Reunion yesterday. We had to cancel last year due to the virus but we held the annual event this year. It’s amazing how we’ve stayed in touch all down the years.

This is the class of 1960-64. I’ve heard that a couple of other groups have occasional reunions, but we hold ours every year by popular demand. We’ve heard from a couple of former teachers that we were a fairly outstanding group of students and I think we’re proving it. We’ve haven’t produced any geniuses or Nobel Prize winners, no doctors, one lawyer, a couple of good science support people and several teachers, and several nurses. And farmers.

This was our 57th year, so we’re coming up to 60 years in 2024 when we’ll all be 77 (all born in 1947). There are quite a few names in red ink in our database of 216, red for deceased, unfortunately.

The school is holding a big reunion on 15 May for the school’s centenary. It will be at the school in Northam. Strangely, many of us are in two minds whether to go. It covers all years and obviously, there will be hundreds of people that we don’t know. We feel that we get enough from our own reunions. Apparently the head mistress is being fairly prescriptive about what will happen and we don’t feel we need to be pushed around.

The other factor is the weather. As the farmers said yesterday, mid May is when the rain usually starts. I’m not sure. I wouldn’t mind going for a drive (in my new wheels) but I may not stay long. A couple of the ex-Toodyay boys (who used to get the bus to Northam) are planning to book hotel rooms in Toodyay and have a drinking night of it. I could be in that.

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I had another wasted trip on Friday. I had to go to Joondalup anyway so I thought I’d go on to a place I’d checked out in a Morley shopping centre that does replacement keys for modern cars. I checked with them on Facebook Marketplace that they could supply my Peugeot key and the price. Yes, $99.50, no problem.

So I made the quite long drive (everywhere’s a long drive from Butler!), found what I thought was the right shopping centre (it’s dense around there) and went in to find the multi-service kiosk.

Wow, it’s like an Asian marketplace, densely packed with small shops like a Malaysian or Indonesian shopping arcade. It was rather nice actually, with all the smells of spicy foods, Malaysian, Thai, Indian, Middle Eastern, Lebanese and so on. And small shops packed with brightly coloured and LED-lit cheap electronic stuff, just like Singapore. Nothing that interested me, I’m afraid, but if I need any LED strings or lights, I know where to come.

After a long search down narrow aisles, I finally found the multi-service kiosk but they didn’t know anything about the key I wanted. “No, cannot.” Wasted trip. Maybe I had the wrong shopping centre because there is another one across the other side of the main road.

Anyway, I had a very nice lunch of my favourite, Malaysian Kueh Teow. It wasn’t nearly as good as the one I had in Mandurah some years ago (with my cousin Tom, hi Tom), which I think was the best I’ve ever had. By then I was too tired to try to cross the busy main road so headed for home. There are plenty of other suppliers.

Oh, I forgot, after my rant about my four failed attempts, or was it five, at buying Li-Ion batteries for my Sony Clie, I found another supplier whose web-site said they have stock, so I placed yet another order. So far, three days later, all is quiet, no rejected payment, so maybe this time I’ll be successful.

But the price! I ordered two and the total, with postage, came to just under A$100. I was probably silly to have ordered two, but given how scarce they are, I’m sure I’ll be able to sell one on if I decide to.