Took the larger of the two aluminium cars to the mystical land of Cornwall over the weekend. Two reasons for this, firstly to see Bill Bailey live in concert at the Eden Project, then on the way home collect some lightweight racing seats for the other aluminium car.
Trogging west on Thursday evening the Defender shrugged off with ease the torrential rain that blighted the journey. In fact, it seemed even more at home in the inclement weather. On the down side the roof tent, still in place from the Shropshire treasure hunt, seriously degrades the mpg. It's a careful balance between improving one's living conditions at a campsite and financial ruin, given the current price of fuel. The journey to the West Country was broken at Exeter services, an unremarkable location apart from one thing - a sign on the petrol station door reading: "Toilet completely out of action". This is a description I'd associate more readily with the Guns of Navarone, and to see it used in an ablutionary sense added an air of adventure to the journey from there on in.
The Eden Project itself is a quite amazing experience and one that, I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting to be impressed by. But I was.
Arriving well ahead of the Bill Bailey gig offered the opportunity to explore the Project itself and well worth a visit it is too. I'm not a massively keen horticulturalist, the spelling alone puts me off, but what did strike me about the whole place was the underlying principles of recycling and re-generation and how these core values are also at the heart of aluminium cars. The Eden Project thrives on the idea of simple engineering being used hand-in-hand with otherwise waste material, and to allow organic growth to thrive. I'm certain similar ideas are the key to environmental motoring. To be green, a car needn't be made from sunflower seeds and powered by yak dung, it's needs to be enduring, it needs to last forever and in doing so reduce it's long-term waste impact. And in order to last forever a car doesn't need to be made indestructible since this in itself isn't exactly environmentally friendly, and nor does it need to be totally recyclable once done. A green car needs to be easily repairable with minimum facilities and using common parts, such that the absolute maximum can be achieved from it's initial build. Both my aluminium cars fit this bill nicely. They grow, they evolve, they regenerate, adapting to needs as they arise, but with minimal impact and often using manual labour and simple hand tools. This is real green motoring.
In amongst the home-gardening section of Eden was the odd garden shed here and there. Anyone who has owned either a Land Rover or
Caterham will appreciate the importance of sheds.
Bill Bailey also has something in common with aluminium car ownership. His brand of humour relies on observing apparently insignificant but none the less critical detail of otherwise simple scenarios. He also has a slewed logic which, although ultimately flawed, can often be made to work. For example, his idea of using four single Kit Kat "Chunkys" to make one large traditional four-finger Kit Kat, and that it would then make us feel smaller is, I think, truly inspired.
His act also included his observations following receipt of a renewal letter from the AA, (something with which I could easily relate given recent experience of break downs in France) and a hip hop version of "Dad's Army" which further aligns with aluminium cars. The old being brought suddenly up to date by adding the new.
The trip to Cornwall also enabled me to collect a pair of GRP seats from a bloke called Mark near Truro. Typical of anything to do with minority interest cars, Mark's workshop is out of the way and has never been organised properly in any way, shape or form. Just the way it should be.
Once Cornwall was over, a quick trip was made to Wokingham to see fellow Crossflow owner Rob to plan a quick blat to Normandy next week.....
