Sticking out of Mr H's briefcase last night was a fat new car brochure. All glossy-paged and thick paper this starts the trail of a well-laid path of clues which will lead, in time, to an inevitable conclusion somewhere down the line.

Sticking out of Mr H's briefcase last night was a fat new car brochure. All glossy-paged and thick paper this starts the trail of a well-laid path of clues which will lead, in time, to an inevitable conclusion somewhere down the line.

The official hand-over date for new keys (he's got a three year locked-in contract) is not until September 2007 though, so there's a way to go. You get familiar with Getting A New Car Syndrome (GANCS) after a while and we've been here several times before as he must be getting on towards choosing car number six since we got together in the early Nineties.

Back then he smoothed up to the front door in an automatic Mitsubishi one Christmas and offered to drive single-parent (moi) and three sprogs up to my sister's in Yorkshire as it was - almost - on his way to catch a plane in Liverpool. With a puff of exhaust we all climbed aboard and, basically, never looked back.

Since he's cruised about in a little dark green Volvo followed by a blue all singing and dancing Renault, before he became enamoured with VWs and became a confirmed estate car driver. Despite that picking the New Car still means trawling just about every manufacturer, price point and style, maybe occasionally forays into test drives (none this time, yet) and then, if running true to form, as the last two times, eventually ordering virtually exactly the same model as before.

Having tried to seduce him with the idea of a soft-top or something fast and sexy, he's adamantly sticking to his vehicular guns and going for sensible. The only complete U-turn thus far being that despite having urged me definitely NOT to buy a diesel car last time (dirty fuel he said), his advice was roundly ignored, luckily, and he's now a complete convert. He also covets the radio controls being on my steering wheel and cruise control, so GANCS is going into overdrive.

But having spotted the new brochure last night, an uncustomary window of opportunity arose. “I'd like you to help choose the colour,” he said and momentarily Mrs H was wrong-footed, until he added: “I think Maritime Blue, don't you, I know you'd have chosen that.”