Once at Bognor, we indulged in breakfast and cups of tea on the front, discussed the merits of various engine upgrades and microwaveable lamb shank, then returned home for a pub meet and BBQ with even more Seven owners. A superb afternoon all round.
The following day I was signed up to join a SELOC (South East Lotus Owners Club) run to Reims in France for the day. Leaving home at 5am to a fresh summer morning, with the prospect of several hours behind the wheel in France, it was as though blatting would last forever.
Arriving in Folkstone to an empty car park is never a nice feeling though. I was first there, and by quite a long way, so in the end I was first across (or under) the Channel and waited for the rest of the cars there.
An hour and a half later I was still waiting.
Eventually the other seven cars appeared and off we roared.
But not for long.
Imagine our surprise when it transpired we had chosen the one day when French truckers, those selfless crusaders for all that is fair and just, had decided to protest about having to work a thirty-hour week, only being given two months holiday per annum, having enough red wine to float a battle ship and tolerating the sight of that leggy sex-pot Carla Bruni as First Lady. Yeah, real bummer that.
About 60 miles south of Calais we sat for four hours in slow moving traffic, deliberately delayed by truckers.
Cars get hot in traffic. Older aluminium cars don't like getting hot, specifically the ignition coil which after several stops and starts in quick succession simply went "pop" in a subdued, unspectacular fashion but with just enough presence to signal the end of that day's journey. A big pawl of white smoke, oil spraying out through the bonnet louvres and, I swear, a sort of lightning flash in the engine bay all suggested this was pretty terminal.
Now, France is renowned for all sorts of things......wine, women, food, protesting truckers and so on. But they are clearly not up to speed on breakdown recovery services.
For a whole two hours I waited in the blazing Gallic sun for a tow truck to appear. After a suitable but brief shoulder-shrugging session at the road side, le homme de recovery then dragged the Seven to his garage. I say garage, it appeared to be more of a rest home for retired family cars. At the end of his long over grown driveway a small meadow awaited, strewn with wreckage, casualties and retirees from the Peage all in various states of decay or destruction.
The certainty with which Recovery Man pushed the Seven right to the back of his workshop was a little worrying, and there followed a little more shoulder-shrugging and mention of another Seven he had taken in to care. Sure enough there was another Seven, broken down in the same garage. What are the chances? I know the chances of two Sevens being broken down at once are nothing to write home about, but I thought it curious that we both ended up at the same garage.
"They are of the British. We cannot be getting parts here" he explained.
A slightly sweeping generalisation but with lunch time now well behind us I didn't argue and concentrated on getting the car home instead.
Now was the time to call in the might of RAC European Recovery Services, a decision I would later regret. Given my circumstances, embarking on a course of flower arranging lessons would've proved no less useful. After a whopping seven hours of "management referral" they finally agreed to fund towing the car back to Calais where I could then ferry it back to the land of tea and cake. Actually, whilst we're on the subject of tea and cake, during my entire time with them, the garage owner and his mother never once offered me a cup of tea and I think this may be key in their inability to help stranded motorists. Perhaps they just do not understand that regardless of how bad a motoring ailment is being experienced, all will appear much better after a nice cup of tea. But no matter.
A gloriously symbolic sunset at Calais saw the car dragged on to the ferry by a trailer tug, but only after much debate as to where the towing eye was. Eventually I removed the nose cone of the car to reveal the front of the chassis a bit more and thus ease the confusion. I was still in France let's not forget, so I probably could've stripped it to component pieces and they'd still be confused. Towed on to the ferry, the Seven was set aside with other invalided vehicles. A VW campervan and, oddly enough another VW, a Touareg with very black windows and massive chrome wheels, carrying what appeared to be members of the Ali G fan club. They also had what I believe is known as "phat ICE" but since I have no idea what this means I shall move on.....
Now, with the campervan I felt a certain affinity, a common bond through running a unique vehicle, and one where breaking down isn't so much an inconvenience but more of an educational process, a challenge to be overcome and in doing so get closer to one's car or van. But a 55-plate Touareg? I'd be asking for my money back.
Anchors aweigh and all that.
Whilst on the oxymoronic "Pride of Calais" I learnt three things:
- Teenagers are very loud.
- Fruit machines bear no fruit.
- Truck drivers consider their less-stained vest meets the criteria for "Dressing for dinner"
At Dover, now under cover of night, numerous recovery agencies were lined up ready to do their thing, a bit like X-factor but with more flashing amber lights and hi-viz vests.
Despite the late hour, my increasingly close relationship with the utterly inept RAC control in Lyon, the disinterest of Mr Tow Truck, and so on, things were looking up.
I was back on home turf, and so were the Jaguar Cars Ladies Equestrian Team whose horse carrier-cum-mobile home had also conked out in Calais as they returned from Three-Day Eventing in Poland. They were parked up waiting for assistance on the quayside too, and what a fine collection of fillies the Jaguar Cars Equestrian Team are. Very sporty, stunning to look at and clearly from fine stock. Apparently they had some horses with them too.
Strangely enough they showed a higher-than-average interest in the Caterham, and I concluded it came from working with horses which can no doubt be equally temperamental. They didn't quite understand aluminium cars, but they seemed to understand how one could be so involved with them.
At this stage events became something of a race: Me getting the Seven going versus them and their truck/stables, in order for me to give demonstration laps around the docks before they were able to drive off, no doubt drawing comments like "Gosh. This is orrflee farrrrrst". You need to remember these young ladies spend a lot of time around powerful brutish beasts and, in all probability look very good in Jodphurs.
But it was not to be and they were soon on their way.
Then again, so was I.
When the real RAC turned up to assist the campervan he brought with him the oh-so-elusive ignition coil I'd needed that morning back in France. This bloke understood what it takes to own and drive a Caterham, and offered me exclusive access to his toolkit, inviting me to crack on with the coil change whilst he sussed out the campervan.
Coil swapped, the car started first time and actually ran slightly better than when I'd left home that morning, an amazing 19 hours ago by this stage.
I was tired, it was late and it had been one hell of a day, so a gentle 60mph rattle home, car in the garage, me in bed. But only after my first cup of tea that day.
