So here’s the thing. I drive a 1999-registered car, which is lovely, and which has suited me very well since I bought it in 2002. I loves it, I does. But – and this is a rather damning but – it is too old a model to have such things as Isofix moorings. Isofix, for the uninitiated, is a sort of natty, built-in-to-the-car-when-it’s-made affair used for bolting in seats of the kiddywink variety. Of course, Quercus drives the Nutster Mobile, also known as a Citroën CX, and that too predates Isofix by some years. Rather more years, in fact.

So, we were planning to sell the CX because it goes wrong and we don’t know how to fix it and because it’s super-hideous to run (25 mpg, anyone?) though a delightful drive and faster than shit off a shovel; now it seems we are going to sell both cars so that we can get summat with this Isofix malarky.

Now we get to the really interesting bit.

The car that I have hit upon as a workable alternative for me is a Renault Laguna. (Not quite the linked one, I hasten to add – we’re talking about my spending £1200 here, plus the £500 or so that my current car is worth. Such money gets you something like a five-year-old with 90,000 miles +.) (Please don’t tell me about your friend, the one with the Laguna, which needed not one but three clutches by the time it had done fourteen miles; I am aware of their, er, reliability reputation, but I still can’t argue with five NCAP stars, and yes, I am aware of the limitations of NCAP tests, and that they only got the fifth star because of an intelligent seatbelt warning, whatever that may be.) And of course, the aged parent drives a Laguna, in its ridiculously-named estate incarnation (that, ladies and gentlemen, is a ‘Sport Tourer’. Yes. I shit you not). I want a hatchback, and a diesel at that. I mentioned this to the AP in a general discussion about the forthcoming changes (one which was a bit sticky anyway, because of course any mention of money is generally A Bad Plan, in case it leads on to the topic of his wanting back the £13k that he lent us on the never-never, and clearly wanting to change my car must mean I have money to burn… Ho), and he went away and cogitated, and has now decided that it would be most sensible, and generous to boot, of him to sell me his Laguna, which he has been muttering about changing for about four years, at what he considers a knock-down price – £1700. Which is probably what he’d get on the open market for it, as a private sale, I think. It’s got a few things wrong with it (nothing big, but irritating); it’s got a few dents and dings; it’s done over 100,000 miles. It’s also an estate. Which I don’t want.

How to back out of this without giving offense, if that’s possible?