Its been ages since I've posted anything on MLOC, in fact September 2009 seems to be my last entry.

I'm still enjoying life with my Elise, a red 58 reg R on a private plate, with a Pipercross kit. I've done just over 13k miles, so am on my second set of rear tyres and heading for my second service.

Having bought the car new from Stratstone Leicester, I decided to try Lotus Silverstone for the first service. They are about the same 35 miles from home and offered a more interesting choice of courtesy car. I was very happy with the Silverstone guys and enjoyed a day in their MX5. However the journey home was a traffic nightmare on the A5, so when it came to new rear Yokos just before Christmas, I swapped back to Stratstone in Leicester. They were really quick and it was good to see Andy who sold me the car again. Also, they are only 25 miles from my new office at Binley Business Park in Coventry.

So, life with an Elise.... We have four cars in the family at the moment. The main family load lugger is a Honda CRV iDTEC auto, a superb family car much maligned in the motoring press, but more fool them. My daughter has an 02 Punto and the gang is completed by my our Toyota Aygo. The Aygo is really the other half of the Elise! It does the town trips and dropping off and collecting of kids when the Elise won'tt do. All in they cars complement each other and I can't imaging many people have a CRV, an Aygo and an Elise!

The best times with the Elise are summer evenings with the roof off on a cross country run. Where it is less good is on a long motorway run. Last summer when it was really hot, I went up to the Peaks with the roof off on the M1 and the wind noise was deafening! On the return trip, the roof stayed off and I came home on A and B roads. That's what its all about.

My original plan was to keep the Elise for three years. I've now started the third year and unusually. I'm not bored. There are still loads of things we want to do with the Elise. I have to try a track day, I want take it to France and the road trip to Skye still has to happen. Family illness played a part last year, so hopefully we can do more in 2011.