Double Trouble just weeks away!

So as many of my clients and readers already know, my wife is expecting twin girls in roughly the next 4-5 weeks!

Obviously they arrive when they arrive but the longer the better, and the closer to pay day the better!

I am still finding myself on the occasional quite moment sitting back and just thinking ‘twins……oh my god twins……..!’

As excited as we both are, we are also under no illusion how difficult the next, oh, 25+ years are going to be when we add our twin girls to are family which already consists of one little boy, who is just about to turn two years old (where has that time gone!).

Yes two new babies and a two year old…….all at once……just let that sink in!

To be honest though, at this point, we are as ready as our current situation in life allows us to be.

Currently we have a three bedroom house, which for now, will suffice. In years to come of course we’ll need another bedroom, or we could build one I suppose! I think once the terror years start, me and the wife might just build a log cabin (full of nothing but gin) at the end of the garden and move into that! Let the kids destroy the house without us seeing!

My latest concern however at the moment is not the house, it’s the car!

Years ago I deliberately bought Top Gear’s at that moment in time ‘reasonably priced car’, the Vauxhall Astra, but the estate version, with an eco diesel engine, knowing that the vehicle was a brilliant family and utility car. It hasn’t let me down once. It’s reliable, decent looking, super economical, cheap parts, barely any road tax, and a massive boot for a mid sized car. Safe to say, I love it. And it would have been the ultimate family of four car, that I could have run into the ground and more that get my monies worth….

However, though no fault of it’s own, and due to the fact we skipped the idea of a family of four and went straight to a family of five, the Astra is now a seat short! Nightmare!

I know what your thinking – you can get 3 people in the back of it. True. But not if those people are in child seats for the first few years of their lives!

Oh those big, bulky, clunky, finger slicing, seat belt tangling, crumb magnet child seats are the absolute bain of my life at the moment!

I need to have two Isofix units  on either side, and then another seat in the middle, and guess what……..yup, they don’t all fit! Because of the plastic housing on these things, the middle booster spills over by a few inches, as do the seats either side.

So the last few weeks I have found myself trawling through the 7 seater adverts online, to try and grab a bargain motor.

It’s like I am de-evolving on the car front.

I was the twenty something that had nippy hot hatches, convertibles, and even when I bought the estate car, I bought the SRI trim to make myself feel mildly more cool.

The 7 seaters however, are somewhat difficult to do this with.

One of my close friends is a mechanic, and has told me when looking at these big van type cars, there are three standout options for size and reliability, Ford Galaxy, VW Sharan or Seat Alhambra, the latter two effectively being the same vehicle nowadays since being built solely by VW.

I really like the Galaxy, so likely I will go for this if I can get find a good one.

The wife is telling me not to bother switching. She has a little buzz box to get her from A2B, and it’s soon to be loaded with nothing but car seats the same as mine. Meaning if we ever go out as a family, we need to take both cars! There is an argument that this could be beneficial, but I just see it as two lots of fuel being burned, and double the parking ticket.

Plus in the back of my mind I keep thinking about transporting another friend or family member with us since me and the wife will be outnumbered anyway!

Any other family of fives out there with 3 young kids? What are you driving? What should I do!?

Anyway I’ve harped on about cars for a long while now! Any advice appreciated by the bigger family!

Oh and keep booking your cruises with me, in a few weeks I will have another two mouths to feed!

That’s it from me today, as ever, thanks for reading, and until next time….