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.
