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Banned to the office to get on with doing the 2017 tax return before the end of December, had spent all day in front of a screen trying to sort out bank accounts and paperwork going back 23 months. Thank heavens for the internet which at least helped in all the cases where I couldn't work out from the bank statement what had been bought.

For instance, one entry was the initials of a company + Ltd + London. Simply by entering the initials in Google got the dozens of business directory search entries that usually have next to no useful name than registered office and perhaps directors. But amongst all of these, there was an entry on some Forum complaining about the said company. And straight away I knew what the bank statement entry was. Angie at a Horse Show in Augsburg in Sept 2017 where she bought some bits from an Israeli company with UK registration (I guess so as to trade in EU).

Actually went quite well. In the course of filing away invoices and correspondence, came across a letter from the car insurance company asking for an update on mileage. I had assumed it was simply another pre-renewal notice for the coming year. All German vehicle insurance policies, apart from new purchases and sales, run from 1st January and the insurers are obliged to inform you what the new charges will be. They have to do this before the 30th November so as to give you time to change companies or alter the cover.

So out to the car and as we do nowadays took a photo rather than find a pencil and piece of paper. Turned out this was the only photo of the day. So you get to see it!

On checking my now up-to-date paperwork found the car had its' TÜV/MOT exactly on this day last year. So the resulting 7,432km since fairly represents the annual use - peanuts and reflects how little I have got out and about. Checking further back to around 2010 when I gave up work, the average has been 7,700km p.a. The years from the showroom in 2002 until then had been closer to 14,000km even though it was only a second car. I used to commute in Angie's car, over 40,000km p.a. It now has 205,000km on the clock after 12 years.

Interestingly when I checked all the invoices and paperwork in the "Car" file, saw that exactly to the day a year ago, the Jeep had it's TÜV/MOT bi-annual check (TÜV) where the kilometre reading is shown. So I could exactly see the annual total - a miserable 7,432 km and reflects how little I have got out and about. Checking back to 2011, the average annual

Angie's 12-year-old Megane is now showing 205,000km. Not bad for a Renault! Anyone remember the Mercedes Benz adverts (the Jeep has an MB Motor) of their engines lasting for a good million miles.

Just numbers - something on my mind in certainly more valuable ways than any speedo, tax return or spreadsheet.