A Food Focus

Twitter was listening amongst my woe is cars week and Ford came to my pity party driving a brand new Focus. We all know how I loved this one, so I said, give me a try of the sedan.

With nearly three weeks for us to get to know each other I was very keen to become BFFs again.

Festive Drinkies.
 Hot nights and outside bars are so very hip.

Sadly, Mr H stole my friend, it happens, but I moved on and became a very happy third wheel on this adventure. We decided to make the Focus our family car for the festive food season and we had many feasts in many different homes and lots of towns.

Myrtleford: Old Butter Factory. The butter is amazing. The food devine. The service lovely. The wait for food is long. Very long. So long that complimentary ice cream was delivered to the little ones.

The Focus got packed to the hilt, two car seats, presents for 15 people, bags packed for a weeks travel, Peppa the dog and food for Christmas cooking all made it in and away we went. I would have taken a photo of how we got it all in, but this was one of the only times I got to drive (and you should not use your phone and drive at the same time).

We ate at the Bright Berry Farm too. Beside this poster, so you can imagine how much fun that farm is. Good ice cream though

The Focus took us all over Victoria, to towns you may never have been to. To Seymour, over to Marnoo, than Stuart Mill, back to Melbourne, off to Milawa, Porepunkah and Bright. Had a few trips to Riddells Creek and then dinner in Kensington – I really should have taken a picture of the sugar free cheese cake lovingly made for me there. Totally indulgent. 

Deer Farm - Bright, except this is a goat, and we didn't eat it.

We stopped for cheese, for wine, for berries and honey, in Stuart Mill we went yabbying (don’t worry Fordie people, we took Grandpa’s ute around the paddocks not the Focus)

Sorry Mr Yabby, this was your last moment before landing in a bowl of vinegar and my tummy.

Quick Girls, grab morning tea. (Milawa Cheese Factory)

The Focus took us to secret swimming holes in Bright and cruised the city for carparks on New Years Eve. The road was bumpy and gravel but the thing I liked most about the Focus is the quiet, this may be because I am used to driving noisy vehicles, but I really liked it. It is smooth and refined, kind of like a nice red wine.

In Bright I wanted a place that was less touristy.

I tweeted to see if the locals could help and was given directions to a secret spot. It was fantastic, we set up camp for the day and stayed for hours, shallow sections for Immy to splash about in and rapids that were perfect for Popps to float down in her swimming tube, with the odd deep hole for those that can brave the icy deep of the river, which is not me.

Thanks to @workingwomenaus for all the help around that area.  There is much to see and many lovely drives to take so we did a few of those too, it was really hot, so getting in to the cool car was nice and often become the time that Immy slept, after not sleeping well in the heat at night.

Mr H became so friendly with the Focus that I could see him run to the car to be the driver every time.

Pretending to want to strap Immy in but really getting to the drivers side first.

Is it different to the Hatch – yes, this version was not as smart on the inside, no seat warmers that I could find. However they may be there, someone else had stolen the car manual before we got it, I am wondering if perhaps they wanted a souvenir of their time with the car? For us, a pantry of jam, mustard and honey will be souvenir just fine.

But I have just noticed some head rests under my bed. Opps, better ring Ford and let them know that I have the head rests from the back seats, which you need to remove to put the kids car seats in.

Room enough for two kids in the back seat ...
Minus the head rests, which are still under my bed so that the kids didn't touch them.

If you want to get picky about things with this car that you might not like, there is this: Where the kids car seats buckle is, there is a hole in the seats, a DS stylus thing can easily be dropped in there and takes some time to get back out, especially if you are parked on the side of a road with a crying child that thinks her Santa present is ruined and will never ever be used again.

Lastly, we all had favourite things about our time with the Focus, for me it was the rear sensors for reversing, Mr H seemed to like the auto wipers, Popps loves the voice recognition and likes to play games with the lady trying to guess what she is saying from the back seat. Immy likes the ipod connectivity as that allowed us to be able to listen to The Fairies Music over and over...(which could be a reason not to buy!)  

Disclaimer: 

Ford contacted me and asked if I would like to take this car over Christmas. I was not paid to write this review and Ford have not requested anything from me. All thoughts about this car are my own, and I wish the car was too. Sadly it isn't, and other than the headrests it is back in the land of Ford.