Untrue Grit.

Grit belongs in two places only. At the bottom of a budgie's cage and in Westerns starring John Wayne. The presence of grit anywhere else is unwelcome.
The first example is on the A339 near Thatcham.
Carrots, Wilto and I had just finished such a lovely weekend, which may come as some surprise when one learns that we were in Wales. Despite a reputation for enhanced precipitation, the various valleys and hills failed to deliver any rain, despite looking threatening at times, and we had a top weekend weaving our way along near-deserted mountain roads and passes. I won't succumb to worn out cliches about ribbons of tarmac unravelling across the countryside, no.....I'll come up with my own version....the roads were like an unfurling piece of asphalt string, very flat smooth string at that.
Utterly fantastic despite the intentions of occasional suicide sheep, with some top company too.
In true Seveneering style we stopped overnight at a simple campsite with minimal equipment, making for a reasonably easy get away in the morning, and our minimalist approach had the advantage of giving us a good excuse to make for the nearest cafe where tea and breakfast awaited without, apparently, any sense of humour on the part of the cafe owner who looked a little bemused when Carrots joked that we wanted a table for three hundred in the deserted early morning eatery.
Making the most of our Taffian weekend we retraced some of our route from the previous day, with the Seven proving a frequent claim that when it comes to bikes it can more than keep up. Towards Monmouth I did battle with a biggish sports bike ridden by a fat bloke who blasted along the straight bits, then petered out in the bends. And his bike looked like it was inspired by Batman's iPod.
Then we gently wove our way home over more unfurled string of asphalt although being Sunday afternoon, the closer we got to London, the slower the traffic got.
Our target for the afternoon was Nelson's Diner, near Thatcham, which is showing considerable promise in becoming a favourite haunt to rival the Market Diner. Late afternoon tea in an American diner.....surreal, but great.
After the Market Diner though, the grit set in with heavy gravel scattered liberally across the A339. Utter rubbish and, typically poor slap dash road repair. It was everywhere, literally lying loose on top of the old road. And I simply cannot see how this lazy "refurbishment" can be considered an improvement. The surface is not only rougher, it pebble dashes passing cars and, for those who dare to give it some beans, the small stones give all the grip of marbles.
Once home, I de-gritted the car and with the surplus creating a small rockery in the garage.
Then on to some maintenance. heavy cornering in Wales had taken it's toll on the wheel bearings with a noticeable clonk coming from the front off-side. But this wasn't normal wear and tear.
A little disassembled investigation revealed the felt washer that seals the back of the hub had come adrift, effectively opening the innards to grit and corruption, the worst the Welsh roads had to offer. The real irony is that it was a felt seal that gave way, a wool derived product, as though the sheep of Taffialand were getting their own back.

Words don't come easy.

Words fail me, not out of disbelief or disgust, but out of the simple, overwhelming feeling that remains after a full weekend of blatting through mid-Wales in brilliant sunshine, not a cloud in the sky.

Wild camping for civilised people.

Regular readers (both of them) could be forgiven for thinking the Land Rover has fallen from grace lately. Flicking back through previous blogs entries, it features very little.

This is probably because, in true Landy fashion, it's just been getting on with the job in hand.

That said, over the past few weeks, months in fact, it's had a few little treats and add-ons to make the job in hand easier or more comfortable.

After the night time outing on Salisbury plain, when alongside Dave H's truck the 90 looked a little saggy, I set about replacing the rear springs to make it a bit more industrial. This process was surprisingly easy if a little hefty. It was simply a case of disconnecting the lower damper mounts, jack the body off the old springs, swap them with the new ones and lower the car down again. Same again for the fronts.

Now, in a strange twist of Land Rover simplicity, heavy duty front springs are rated the same as standard rear springs so overall only two new springs were required (for the rear) with the old rears going in to the front, and the old fronts going in the bin.

And although still young in Land Rover terms (at less than twenty years old) the new springs have spruced the car up a bit, albeit at the expense of a little ride comfort. The new springs are, frankly, rock hard. Good for loading carrying, as long as the load isn't someone with a slipped disk.

Other additions that have slipped under the road radar of late are, in no particular order, a ladder, security grills in the rear windows, a work light on the back, a power point for the all-important fridge, a water heater (of the type fitted in RAC vans) and the fitting of the winch that's been lurking at the back of the garage since the Defender took over from a Discovery two years ago.

All of these proved their worth during the recent Bank Holiday weekend with a trip to the Lake District. Previous trips like this, I've always felt the car could do with beefing up a bit, but this time at no stage did I think "I wish this was better".

On both the domestic and driving fronts the car is now really nicely set up, although "nice" isn't a particularly emotive word when used in connection with cars. But it's true. With the roof tent on top, the fridge fitted and the water heater.....errrr......heating, the Land Rover had become like a little compact campervan.

The plan for the weekend was to meet up with a clutch of other Land Rover people at Coniston Hall, and although less than 300 miles away, the journey took nearly seven hours thanks to those ubiquitous merchants of buffoonery, The Highways Agency, deciding the Thursday evening rush-hour leading in to a long weekend was the ideal time to polish the cats eyes on the M6, or something.

Just as it got dark I arrived at Coniston Hall Campsite, possibly the worst campsite in the world and one we moved on from after just two nights of a planned four. Lesson learnt here is never let someone else book your campsite, as an entire tented village sprawled over the untidy field as the weekend progressed. During the two evenings we were unlucky enough to stay here, gangs of marauding kids blew through the site like an irritating gust of wind, dogs wandered around unchecked and by the time we upped sticks and headed for the wilderness, the ground itself was totally hidden under a sea of nylon and canvas. The site owner was, predictably, not open to the idea of refunds, or fire safety, or rubbish disposal. Awful, just awful.

Dodgy campsites aside, once teamed up with AJ and Mrs AJ in their nicely prepped 110 Station Wagon, Toppa in his 110 Van, and James and Debs in their gloriously battered ex-military Series III, the weekend was just epic. After a damp start on the Saturday, the weather improved gradually until Monday arrived over Haweswater (where we'd parked up for the night) without a cloud in the sky.

The laning was a combination of old coach roads which are child's play for a Landy, through to a number of tricky rock-crawls that even with traction control and anti-stall proved "interesting". Although the 90 lost traction in places, the anti-stall has an eerie quality to it, where it simply will not stop with the vehicle bouncing over rocks and grappling with loose shale as it tries to make progress, seemingly ignorant to the fact that it's simply and quite literally digging itself a deeper hole.

No. Must.....keep.....going.

Once we'd slipped away from the tribes of savages and marauding gangs of the Bartertown campsite, the weekend took on a whole new identity, with a true expedition feel since we opted to camp wild. This doesn't mean not washing or running naked round a camp fire. It means camping where ever one needs to, and making do with whatever provisions and supplies are already in the vehicle. This is one of the beauties of roof top tents - they have a minimal foot print, no larger in fact than the vehicle on which they're mounted so it's easier and less intrusive to "park" rather than "camp". I prefer this approach since it relies more on self-sufficiency, and although requiring a little more effort and planning, brings with it a handy disconnect from those who cannot cope without a TV or a microwave. Things like the fridge in the Land Rover catapult campsite life forward a little though, with fresh milk for brews, fresh ground coffee and a decadent smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel breakfast. A few luxuries and comforts needn't impact on the trip though, and this is the key - the modifications and add-ons that have been installed on the Landy of late mean it's possible to make the domestics fit the overall exped, not the other way around. The other big advantage is that once everyone else has headed for their crappy campsites or twee B&Bs, we were still out on the trail, needing none of the services offered by the towns and villages we overlooked from high in the hills. It really did feel like we had the place to ourselves....

Lightly oiled.

A little noise in engineering is sometimes a good thing. Let me explain. Some years ago I was fortunate enough to have a flight for around an hour in a genuine 1944 Dakota. Crucially, this was not a DC-3, but a Dakota, the military variant of the vintage trooper and as such was free of virtually any frills, consisting of two engines, two wings, a tail and a fuselage. Think that was about it.
This lack of any superficial finishing was made up for in what estate agents call “character”, a character that only revealed it’s self once the aeroplane was bouncing along the runway and then shortly afterward chundering through the sky to the smell of aviation fuel and hot bakelite. And all this was accompanied by an orchestra of assorted sounds - The rush of air over the non-sound proofed fuselage, the deep growl of the engines just feet away at the root of each wing, then more discreet sounds of aluminium creaking and groaning as it eased and strained under aerodynamic load, the occasional squeak from a bearing somewhere, and an ominous compressed air hiss as the gear came up. But this was a cacophony of reassurance – all the time the Dakota was making these noises meant it was working.
Much the same can be said of aluminium cars, where the traditional engineering occasionally announces all is well with a light squeak, brief rattle or mild groan. That said, this sometimes gets to the point where the noise cannot be ignored, nor taken as the all-clear. No, it becomes what is known in technical terms as cause for concern, and this in turn gives rise to that favourite past time of aluminium car owners everywhere - the initiation for plenty of tea, the trigger for long phone calls to likeminded aficionados of hand built cars, and the cause for many a late night cramming twenty minutes of work in to four hours. It becomes the cause for an investigation.
In the case of the Caterham, this investigation was in to why the clutch was allowing the revs to noisily run away with ease every time the accelerator was floored. See? Too much noise. Over the past few months this has given rise to much debate about what needed adjusting, what was out of tune and just how entertaining it can be to overtake another car with all the right noises but none of the acceleration. The presence of oncoming traffic elevates this to being highly entertaining.
To investigate the clutch of the Seven means lifting out the entire engine and gearbox assembly but this isn’t as daunting as perhaps it sounds and is very much a case of following a logical process (and owners of aluminium cars tend to be the type who like logical processes) and simply work around the engine disconnecting anything that won’t come out when the engine is lifted. The tricky bit comes when it’s time to separate car and engine, an activity akin to childbirth but with more spark plugs and less in the way of epidurals, but having said that a little pain relief to the lower back isn’t such a bad idea after a while stooped over a live axle mother as it gives up a 1600cc baby.

Once out, the engine and gearbox could be split and the real cause of all the recent slippage was revealed, but not before Carrots and I comtemplated the idea of towing the dead Seven to the top of the nearest big hill and trying a little soapboxing.
Back to more pressing issues. The gearbox input shaft oil seal, which is an oil seal around the input shaft to the gearbox, had hardened with age and was weeping oil along the input shaft and on to the clutch gubbins. Now, some things are better when lightly coated in oil – olives, old steam engines, lap dancers and so on, but not clutches. It was a write off, which is a shame really as the friction plate still had loads of life left in it, bar the unwanted lubrication. The real snag was that although I’d pre-ordered a new clutch, to replace it without curing the actual oil leak would be pointless.
So, with the Land Rover adopting its some-time guise of Caterham Support Vehicle I scrambled in to town in search of the errant oil seal, leaving fellow ReHaBer Brent to fettle and fiddle with the clutch whilst I was gone. My local independent motor factor, who in the past have been pretty good, appear to have adopted a Halfordesque approach lately and denied knowing what an oil seal is. No matter. Taking the longest of long shots I headed for the main Ford dealership in town, and it’s a pretty large affair. They’re even described as a Transit specialist so I was half expecting to find a copy of yesterday’s Sun and a polystyrene cup wedged in the window of the parts department. What I did find was an unusually helpful German of all people, someone who knew what a Type 9 gearbox is, and crucially, stocked input shaft oil seals for them. The only disappointing bit was a price tag of nearly ten quid for the little rubber o-ring.
Oil seal refitted a minor modification was made to the input shaft shroud – a small hole (3mm I think) was drilled in the six o’clock position to allow any future oil spillage to drain in to the clutch bell housing before it reached the clutch itself.
Assembly was refreshingly quick, and before it was even dark the car was back on the ground and ticking over, if a little rapidly. The only thing that didn’t work was, in true Caterham style, the indicators. I can only assume all the huffing and puffing in and around the transmission tunnel, with its close proximity to the dashboard, had dislodged the wiring – after a quick waggle everything was fine. Job done. Although it took a little tweaking of teeny tiny brass adjustment screws on the carbs to get the car idling happily, its already been out on a few blats and it's also nice and quiet again, having had the gearbox topped up as part of the re-install, and I suspect it's been losing oil to the clutch for quite a while.
Best of all though, it now pulls like a premiership footballer in a strip joint.

A little moonlighting.

Bad news for presenters of day time TV – night time is more interesting. When daylight evaporates, anticipation rises and excitement follows easily. The boring becomes interesting, and the interesting becomes an adventure. Night fall brings with it an unavoidable hint of illicit goings-on, shady dares done away from the glare of sunlight, of clandestine raids, literally in to a heart of darkness.
After an evening of typically random conversation at ReHaB, some of which was vaguely connected to motoring, the Seven was in need of fuel – always a good excuse to take the long way home. A clear night, and as the orange glow of Hartley Witney’s street lights faded in the rear view mirror, it’s as if the car was floating through the blackness. In the company of the ubiquitous Wilto and Carrots, the cars cut through a damp and earthy Hampshire, a little mist curling up in our wake, nocturnal wildlife scurrying out of our path, signified only by a flash of eyes darting in to the hedgerow where they then vanished. Part of the pleasure of night blatting is the near total absence of any distraction. All that’s visible is a tunnel of headlight through silhouetted trees, and the car’s own instruments. The roadside clutter that in daylight flashes past in the periphery of one’s vision is gone, hidden by the dark, and the anti-social hour cleanses the road of other cars.
With the twists and turns of the A339 ticked, a fast stretch of the A31 followed, with its liberal sprinkling of roundabouts to ease the boredom or test the grip, depending on your choice of car.
Running parallel in to the roundabouts, the faces of Wilto and Carrots flashed a devilish grin in the eerie glow from their own cockpits, accompanied by a flash of devilish flame from the car’s exhausts.
Coming down a peg or two on the thrill scale, we rolled in to the all-night petrol station near Farnham. I love petrol stations at night, odd though it seems. They offer a brief but essential amnesty from the buzz of driving, a short break from split second decisions or the tang of a hot engine. Despite their mundane frontage and commonplace existence, all-night petrol stations have an unassuming nobility about them – without us, they wouldn’t survive, without them, blatting would cease, so despite the ungodly hour and edgy weather there is a reciprocal sense of service and gratitude. With its inviting floodlights spilling only so far in to the black void of the dual carriageway the Farnham BP was like a space port, with other vehicles coming in to land along the long approach slip, or launching in to the galactic night from the opposite corner of the big concrete pad. Warm drinks followed. Caffeine is not the answer, and would only confuse and cheapen the natural high of life above 4000rpm, so a simple hot chocolate softened the edges of mild frostbite from a 30 mile drive under the stars. Thawing fingers is not an issue though. They serve as a reminder of being alive and sharpen the senses, which in turn add to the satisfaction of beating the odds, of exploiting empty roads to enjoy a raucous blat, itself an overall heightening of sensory awareness and raw stimuli.
By comparison, the Land Rover may seem less able to provide a similar after-dark high but this isn’t the case. The Seven delivers the thrills as a de-fib shock to the system, whereas the Land Rover gives a drip-feed. A few days after the taking the Seven out in the dark, I met up with Toppa and Dave H to try out Land Rovering at night. We met in the late afternoon of what had been a glorious early summer’s day and to be honest, I was expecting Salisbury Plain to be awash with dog walkers, horse riders and other green laners. But it was totally deserted, almost suspiciously so, with usual off-road haunts being devoid of any other users. Great stuff. Following a fairly simple plan we started on the Eastern edge of the Plain, heading across to Larkhill and on to the “East German Village” near Copehill Down, which is neither in East Germany, nor really a village. It’s a FIBUA training compound where FIBUA stands for Fighting In Built Up Areas, or the more simplistic FISH – Fighting In Someone’s House. Being the only vehicles around only added to the ghost-town eeriness of Copehill, as did the setting sun. We parked up in a small copse, and let the sun depart fully before continuing with some night nav. Although being perfectly at home in the rough chalk down land of the Plain, our three wagons looked nicely discreet. They’re all plain van-bodied Land Rovers with none of the rubbish often seen adorning similar vehicles - those usually sourced from eBay, and cluttered with bolt-on rubbish intended to make the driver appear more adept or expert in the off-road environment. Big knobbly tyres and all-over roll cages simply aren’t needed until one reaches the height of serious competition or very deep mud and, on privately owned domestic vehicles used for gentle green laning, serve only to suggest something of an inferiority complex or a desperate urge to be taken seriously. The funny thing is, the greater the effort in trying to acquire even a shred of credibility (Upside down stickers saying “If you can read this turn me over” are a classic), the harder it is to look at such a vehicle without stifling a giggle. Day-glo jackets are also a huge no-no. I have one in the Land Rover, a genuine Police-issue Motorway jacket, and the clue is in the name. I use mine should I end up stuck on major roads where personal safety is of genuine concern. Wearing it at any other time is about a subtle as Dame Edna working at a branch Specsavers.
Being out and about at night, blending in is the way forward, quietly making our happy way about without attracting attention, not because we’re up to no good, but this is our trip, our idea. And anyway, we only had enough burgers for the three of us. As the last daylight wafted away over the horizon, the small BBQ we’d brought along sizzled gently, its culinary progress being bookmarked by occasional puffs of light smoke escaping upwards.
Once fed, we made gradual but deliberate progress eastwards, retracing our inbound route. Whilst Caterham night driving offers the sense of darting between shadows, the Land Rover offers a different but no less enjoyable experience whereby the wagon is simply swallowed whole by the night. Knowledge gleaned in daylight, the ability to round a bend knowing just how sharp it is having done it countless times at a more sensible hour or feeling just the right point to ease of the throttle as the car crests a favourite hill, it’s all useless a night, the emphasis being on treading gently, and sensing one’s way as if blindfolded, simply trusting the car to power through whatever ground it finds laying before it. Joining up with the North-South road that dissects the Plain we turned North, the intention being to join the perimeter track and what amounts to a 12o’clock position, then skirt round the top right corner of the area. In addition to the increasingly black night, fog rolled in as we rolled up to Redhorn Vedette, adding to the slightly sinister isolation. The warm cab of the Land Rover felt totally comfortable for this though. It has no electric windows, no air-con, just two seats and the vehicle controls. This is just right. When you need the car to perform, it’s still the same as it ever was – a little less than luxurious but it’s the same car that only a few weeks ago was pounding through foot-deep snow as if it wasn’t there, the same car that trailered the Seven to its flat-floor session without a flicker of reservation. No matter what, the crucial thing is the Land Rover’s simplicity remains constant, and comes to the fore as its best feature. It’s adaptable because it’s uncomplicated. Stopping at the furthest North we could go without leaving the training area, over a brew we pondered the rationale behind coming here at night before then heading home. I’m still not sure what that rationale is, but it does make the Plain seem less of a challenge now, and I wonder where to go next in terms of making it more interesting again.
No doubt the answer will come to me in the night.

Alright on the Wight

It’s been a busy few weeks, doing stuff either in or to the cars, both of them - so much so that the recent engineering upgrades will probably warrant a blog all of their own later.
The prominent feature of the last fortnight is undoubtedly the third edition of Wight Blat, which began for me at around 06:00 on the Friday morning when I rolled the car out of the garage in to damp fog, a meteorological condition that always reminds me of mid-1980s public information films about surviving nuclear war, since the same sort of fog was inevitably used to represent fall out. Worrying really, when one considers it is, in fact, harmless low cloud.
Radioactive issues aside, I can’t say I was massively optimistic about the blat down to Portsmouth with condensation frosting the windscreen of the car as I drove off, but at least it wasn’t actually raining and as I dashed along the A339 I’d forgotten how irritating it can be trying to get somewhere in rush hour traffic in the Seven, something a truck driver reminded me of after I overtook him on a wide open stretch of tarmac, after which he then chose to speed up (something I’d been willing him to do for several previous miles) and get his shitty skip-carrying truck as close as possible to the Caterham. The next straight stretch and I was gone, leaving Kevin, Terry or whatever truck drivers are calling themselves these days to his Sun-reader attitude to what’s right and wrong.
Knuckle-dragging truckers were soon out of my mind after meeting up with Dick Whittington (not actually Lord Mayor of London – just another Seven owner) and blatting South for a traditional blat breakfast and the Isle of Wight ferry afterwards. The well worn hunting ground of south Hampshire never fails to provide a good blat, and today was no different although it did throw up the usual occurrence of what can best be described as the Caterham Double Take. After nearly T-boning Dick in his bright red car by pulling out from a side-road too soon, the driver of a black Fiat Punto then watched as Dick drove past, and assuming the probability of there being two such cars in the same place at the same time is nil, pulled out even further as I approached, their attention focussed firmly on the first car. This near-miss deserved that most British of consolation, a cup of tea, so on the coast at Hayling Island we parked up the cars and took in Delia’s Diner run, bizarrely, by a bloke called Steve I think. But then what he does at weekends is his business.
Now, there are those who probably say seaside cafes offering full fried breakfasts are the epitome of poor health. I’d beg to differ. Stepping from the moist, maritime air at something less than 10c in to the fug of an early morning kitchen is akin to entering a sauna, but with more fried bread. Likewise, after indulging in tea, toast and eggs, going back to the car in the clear morning air was something of a refreshing shock.
So onward to the port. By late morning the fog had lifted and the sun was starting to shine through in a bright but ultimately futile fashion with which only the British feel truly comfortable – it was still chilly, and at the ferry we met up with several other Sevens and their owners, all eagerly anticipating a fun filled weekend on the Isle of Wight. Simple cars, simple pleasures. Now, lots has changed at the WightBlat venue of White Cliff Bay Holiday Camp, in fact, I’d go so far as to say it could be called a Holiday “Village”. Good job then it was full of idiots for the weekend, something borne out by the Friday Night quiz, where a good knowledge of Beatles album covers, 1950s politics and the source of Panama hats was essential. The beer didn’t run out this time either, a sure sign things are looking up at White Cliff.
One highlight of last year’s WightBlat was the locking of horns with the chef at breakfast regarding the serious matter of sausage allocation, but again, this year was different. An unattended and, more importantly, heavily laden servery awaited, with scrambled eggs almost as hot as the shower I’d recently stepped out of. Where would these improvements end? After breakfast, we blatted off to Godshill, the kind of picture postcard village often seen gracing the lids of boxes of fudge, or thousand-piece jigsaw puzzles or indeed, postcards. Highlight here is the Toy Museum, since it’s not really a museum as such, it’s more a collection – a collection of Dinky and Matchbox toys, so a Seven driver will feel right at home. This is not the only reason a Seven driver will feel at home though. Most of the toys on display came from before the Far East got in on the act and started making everything out of plastic, and the packaging was just enough to make an item eye catching and appealing to ten year old eyes. In other words, no frills, as per a Seven. Interestingly enough, a lot of the vehicles modelled back then were straight forward cars, industrial vehicles (cranes and stuff), agricultural plant or military equipment, and not in a GI Joe way, I mean authentic scale reproductions of genuine combat hardware. This is an important observation, since it means kids used to be able to subconsciously teach themselves about the real world, as opposed to that fed to them by TV – the basis for most of today’s playtime tat. But then again I suppose a Dinky toy combine harvester just isn’t cool enough anymore - instead of suggesting complex machinery being put to work to produce worthwhile results for all of society, farm vehicles are more easily linked to European subsidies, cow pats and an increase in the occurrence of Hay Fever. All-metal toys though, they’re the future because once played with, they can be recycled and turned in to something useful, much like the childhood memories that accompany them. Something else well worth noting is that by far the most common marque in miniature was Land Rover. After suitable reminiscence and acceptance that there is some value in “keeping the box it came in” we returned to White Cliff via Ventnor, (home of one of the first RAF Radar Stations d’rin’ the war), for a spot of late lunch. Later that evening the atmosphere of Friday night was replicated by way of the WightBlat raffle, a noisy yet highly rewarding affair with some top prizes on offer, but sadly, a Caterham Motorsport jacket still evades me.
A hazy Sunday morning (and I’m not talking meteorology here) offered nothing more challenging than a photo-call, always an interesting affair since it proves there are no two Sevens the same. It also proves the time needed to take a photo is exponentially proportional to the number of people in the photo.
Photo done thoughts started to turn towards home and by three in the afternoon the Isle of Wight was receding off the stern of the ferry. But the entertainment carried on regardless, with the “Shannon Express” male voice choir (who are neither from Shannon nor have anything to do with trains) making the same crossing. Treating us to numerous show tunes during the 45 minutes crossing, they proved their own lyrics in that there really is no business like show business, especially when the choir-master’s excited claim of “You may have seen us on the BBC!” was met with enthusiastic silence from a clueless but appreciative audience.
From Portsmouth the dozen or so Sevens that made the 3pm boat dispersed, with Dick and I heading for nearby Goodwood and a nice cup of tea, then from there a spirited drive followed, going via Midshurt, Petersfield, Winchester then Alresford and home, on that twisted old friend, the A272. This was without doubt the longest single time I’d spent in the car all weekend long, but then it occurred to me WightBlat is more social than driving, and on that basis another top weekend was over.
And in case you’re wondering....they’re from Ecuador.

Brighton Early.......Again

It is, apparently, a fine line between love and hate. And no where is this more graphically demonstrated than in Hampshire and West Sussex on the first decent Sunday of the year.

Drive past someone at 30mph, and they'll smile and point out "The funny man in the noddy car" to their kids. Drive past at 50mph and they'll yell "advice" on road safety and give you a look that suggests you're the anti-Christ.

But no amount of Daily Mail readers can keep a good blat down, and the key to feeling really smug about it is to hit the road sufficiently early that those middle-Englanders who take such offence later in the day are still asleep.

And so it was that I arrived at Farnham station just before 7am to meet Carrots and The Long Bloke for an extended blat down to a favourite target....Brighton.

Progress down through Surrey towards Hindhead was refreshingly swift, with the three Crossflows gulping up the cool, damp morning air. The further South we headed the better the road surface was too. That, combined with the recent corner-weighing and balancing the Seven received, made for some spirited driving. Now the weight of the car is evenly distributed fore and aft, the steering is more responsive and the rear end bogs down less as the power comes on.

The only down side to this is that it does encourage eating slightly further in to the usual margins of safety, something I became all too aware of as we approached Petworth and very nearly slid in to the rear of Carrot's car, being unashamedly caught out by the combination of a slight downhill gradient and a greasy surface where the sun was yet to fully dry out the road.

This minor infraction was soon counteracted by the sound of rorty exhausts echoing off the walls of the adjacent Petworth House as we pushed on to Brighton.

Over the South Downs and some classic Caterham roads, with pale blue sky overhead and a misty English Channel on the horizon, and still it was before 9am...just excellent.

Despite being a good blat, we were somewhat let down to discover the Market Diner, star of previous nocturnal blats, no longer stays open though the night and in to the next morning. Although it was only breakfast time, the cafe was shut, so by way of an alternative we ended up being the first customers of the day for The Garden Cafe in Hove which is, as the name suggests, in a garden-like setting of a local park. Just as the Market Diner is basic and almost a bit rough, like a badly made roll-up, then The Garden Cafe is a bit of St Bruno ready rubbed in an ornate pipe.

Simply a great venue to indulge in smoked salmon and scrambled egg bagels, really good coffee and a fresh spring morning, all enjoyed whilst the cars ticked themselves cool. Over breakfast we shared views on the mixed reactions the cars had already drawn that morning. I'm truly intrigued by what makes people resort to swearing or physical gestures as a Caterham drives past. Is it envy? Is it the genuine but misguided belief that anything over 30mph is lethal, or do they just not like the hint of other people actually bloody enjoying themselves? Whatever the cause, it just makes me want to get out there and enjoy the car even more so and leave ill-informed busy-bodying personality vacuums far behind.

After breakfast, which dragged on through the morning, we returned to the Market Diner to take in the "urban" artwork on the walls opposite, then dawdled along the coast to Shoreham Airport, the oldest public aerodrome in the UK. Luckily, it hasn't experienced the same success or commercial burdens of say Heathrow or Gatwick and has remained mostly unchanged since the 30s, the added bonus being it's also free of any threats of a fifteenth runway or another two dozen terminals and so gets left alone by those who hug trees. It also has no Sock Shop, Starbucks or Tie Rack, another big bonus.

With time ticking by we topped up on more coffee then split for the remainder of the day. But blatting was far from over as I had a small but crucial part to collect from Sunbury for the Land Rover, a purely functional drive.

But the beauty of blatting is that just when it starts to become boring something comes along to change all that. In this case, what came along was a dark blue Aston Martin DB9, which even on a Sunday easily qualifies for the title of The World's Biggest Car, especially when spotted in the rear view mirror.

Now, the Seven is small, compact and a bit pokey when required, and at face value a DB9 is none of these things. Monumentally rapid yes, achingly stylish yes, but nippy and nimble along rural Surrey lanes? Hardly. Oh how wrong was I and every time I leaped out for a nippy overtake, a few cars back I could see the massive Aston doing the same.

Eventually it was right behind me, but did it get past? No, in my slightly antique and smelly Crossflow I held off, and let's be quite clear here, an Aston Martin DB9.

Maybe it as the traffic conditions, maybe he stopped trying but either way by the time we reached Guildford we'd both calmed down and went our separate ways. Me first, and that's what matters. Goodness only knows what the Daily Mail would say.

All in all, a busy couple of weeks for aluminium cars.

No blog would be complete without mention of the light snow flurries that brought UK PLC to an abrupt halt a couple of weekends ago. But did it bring the Defender to an equally abrupt halt? Did it heck. The Land Rover simple laughed in the face of six inches of snow. I tried not to laugh in the face of those who, in automotive terms, put style before function and went down the German route. Alas BMW do not fit tyres called "Grabbers", they fit near-slick performance tyres with names like "Sport", or the name of a bird of prey. From the toasty comfort of the Land Rover, parked majestically at the crest of a hill, I came to the conclusion the "performance" in the title of BMW tyres refers to what can be witnessed when a company director tries to drive his 5-Series up a slight hill covered in compacted snow. Now, in those "Describe yourself" questionnaires you get in in-flight magazines, Smug isn't a box I'd usually tick but with this winter being the coldest for twenty five years, I considered the past time of rescuing BMWs and its quarter century occurence to be reason enough to feel a little bit superior. But not as much as declining BMW Man's offer of cash to drag him even closer to home in favour of rescuing a mum and four kids in an equally inept Astra. Or maybe it was the driver.

Tyred, and a bit smashed.

This month has seen some unexpected expenditure on both aluminium cars. The reasons and scale of this have varied greatly.
In the case of the Land Rover, someone and I know not who, decided to show their appreciation of traditional British automobilia by smashing the rear window and redesigning one of the tyres using a screwdriver. But it wasn’t all bad, although it was all mightily bewildering and leads me to believe the perpetrator of the act has no appreciation of aluminium cars. First there is the blatant vandalism which I suppose is just a fact of life in modern “Ing-errrrr-lund!”, but more curiously, the hoodlum who shattered the glass left everything in the Land Rover, which included a lightweight trolley jack. Leaving this behind says to me that whoever had a go at the Defender has no need of a trolley jack and doesn’t appreciate its potential value. If only it had been an iPod.
Now, losing a tyre isn’t usually too traumatic, but in the case of the Land Rover the timing couldn’t have been more critical. Of the five tyres (including the spare) on the car, three were due imminent replacement anyway, and with the act of a wanton yoof and his Stanley knife, this then meant there was only one good tyre left on the car. Annoying, but it forced me to accept the inevitable and re-shod the Landy. And it’s obviously been a while. BF Goodrich have virtually doubled their prices since I last purchased one. General Tire (as the Colonials call them), evidently, have not so time to switch brands.
After a little confusion over model years and disclosure that a 4pm appointment actually begins at 5:30pm, Autoglass replaced the rear window, and luckily for me they only stock glass with heater elements so it may be time to re-fit the heated rear window facility, dormant since the new door was fitted.
In view of the unprovoked and inconvenient attack on the Land Rover, I reviewed the concept of storing and carrying the spare wheel on the outside of the rear door. It doesn’t actually need to be there. It’s open to damage (deliberate or not), obstructs the rear view, and adds weight to the door hinges. So, as something of a trial, I’ve removed the wheel from the carrying bracket, and stored it inside the wagon then, using my air impact wrench in anger for the first time, removed the carrying bracket from the door. All in all, a good thing I reckon.
After all this I gave the Land Rover its first real clean since Christmas and its assorted outings of the Festive period. In something of a Johnny Morris moment I used a broom to actually wash the car. This reminded me of the 70s children’s TV uncle scrubbing the elephants at London Zoo whilst giving them the voice-over persona of Noel Coward. (Or Margot from The Good Life in the case of lady elephants)
So, with the Land Rover fully repaired I felt it only fair to lavish some times and money on the Seven. So at approximately 1/100th of the cost of the Land Rover’s new tyres, I acquired the switch I’ve been searching for in order to connect the heated windscreen I got for a similarly knock-down price earlier in the month, with both items being sourced through Blat Chat as always.

New Year's Freeze.

Well it's been a couple of busy weeks in areas other than aluminium cars, so a less than inpiring update.

After some intense Caterham usage, the temperature plummeted and the Land Rover came to the fore again with its traction control and ABS to overcome the sheet ice formerly known as the UK.

After Christmas Day, which this year fell on December 25th, I added the roof tent to the Defender ready for the LRUK Christmas Treasure Hunt, an event which can be traced back maybe ten or maybe even twelve months.

The treasure hunt was a great success, with seventeen surprisingly complete vehicles turning up to scatter to the four corners of Salisbury Plain. No one's car broke down, no one got stuck. Bit of a let down really but by the time we'd all defrosted the event raised a hundred quid, split between the LRUK website and Help For Heroes.

Sub-zero temperatures are actually pretty good for green laning - all the moisture is frozen out of the ground making everything more solid to drive on. It does compromise the socialising somewhat, although Land Rover drivers are, by definition, hardy souls many of whom are used to living life with permafrost in their cars so sitting around at -5 chipping beer out of a tin was child's play.

With the Defender already packed for overnighting the next night out was New Year's Eve - in Scotland. Obviously this involved a little trip North but with brilliant if chilly sunshine the scene was set for a bit of a roadtrip.

Long distance journeys in a Land Rover are more than just a journey from A to B. Rumbling along at a comfortable 60mph gives the chance to take in the view, relax a little and really travel instead of just drive.

Stopping off for a bit of a break at one of the many motorway services, clearly aimed to relieve drivers of stress and Sterling, I got the chance to discover what may be the real cause of car related climate change.

The basins in the "rest rooms" had hands-free taps. Yep, just place your hands under the tap, a sensor detects one's digits and the water flows. Ditto for drying them, with hot water replaced by hot air. And this is the problem. Whilst tree huggers around the world berate the car, they don't stop to think about all the other crap that soft-headed marketing executives firmly believe should go with owning one. The automated basins require one crucial ingredient - electricity. And that doesn't come without leaving a trail of the carbon footprints that we're all told are stamping the icecaps to pieces. So whilst society struggles to find a viable alternative to the car, its already wasting the energy allegedly freed up by banning them, and worse than that, it's wasting it on something that for centuries has been done perfectly adequately without the need for electrical input. But then again, anyone who thinks water and electricity should be mixed is clearly insane from the start.

Land Rovers don't have any fancy electric bits where they don't need them.

Pressing on through the frozen wastes of the North, one place name stuck in my mind - Ecclefechan, simply because this struck me as a suitable expletive to describe the arctic weather.

My target for the night was Wanlockhead, the UK's highest village and thus a suitable memorable location for New Year's Eve.

But this too was a bit of let-down. Although it was good to meet up with long term fellow road adventurer Wes, the inn itself was about as welcoming as a sign saying "Go away". In return, once parked up in the pub car park, I did experiment with various ways of off-setting the nocturnal after effects of several pints of Guinness without leaving the comfort of the rooftent.

New Year's Day was refreshingly clear but still cold. For the journey home I took a detour over Shap Pass, stopping at the top to take in the view of white frosted electricity pylons. Also noted was the memorial at the top of the pass with an inscription remembering the shelter afforded by local people to lost travellers in the days before the pesky M6 opened.

Arriving home well after dark the Defender was in dire need of a good wash. A day on Salisbury Plain had left it smothered in mud, then two days to Scotland and back had coated it all in salt, but in true Land Rover style it looked no less capable or indeed appealing due to its heavy weathering.

Washing had to wait anyway. Frozen hose pipes have limited uses.