Another newbie

[PaPaJ0]

Hi all,
I bought my first Terrano last week (2003 Terrano li S 2.7TDi), hopefully the start of a beautiful relationship...
It didn't start without a hitch or 2 tho.
All went well on the trip back from buying it.. (48 miles including all types of road, and it loved it). Took the family a ride out in the evening and it was still fine.
Sunday night turned out to be much cooler than previously, so got in on Monday morning for the trip to work and it wouldn't go into any gear. Fortunately I still had my little Mitsubishi Colt legal so took that. I got back from work to have a look (am no mechanic so was dreading the diagnosis) and it dropped into gear straight away, but the tacho and fuel gauge sat stubbornly at 0. By this time I am totally confused, so ignored it til Tuesday, when I had instrument panel (after a quick tap) but no gears again.
When I returned from work Thursday evening I decided to try and figure things out a bit more. I got into the driver's seat and suddenly realised that the clutch pedal felt further away. I checked if I could find a gear, but no luck, until I put my foot under the pedal and physically lifted it up....I could feel the pressure rising, and sure enough, the clutch worked fine after that (I have today noticed a couple of people mentioning a sticky pedal while browsing through the threads here).
Since the discovery of this little quirk and the random "fix" I have already started to fully enjoy the car and am now ready to start fixing the issues I know about, and am capable of although I am pretty confident of needing to ask for advice on here