Relentless Rain Redressed at Reims

With memories of four days of near constant rain in Shieldaig now fully dried out and stored for future use, thoughts turned to a restorative blat to redress the balance of nearly a week in Scotland watching rivulets of water dripping off the Seven, the roof tent and the end of my nose. Oh and that bloke Andy with his 3mm Allen key and thinly veiled need for some new friends in his life.
The gamble of going all the way to the Jockanese Congo hadn’t paid off. The snag is it’s so bloody far, and the climate simply cannot be relied upon to deliver, unless you want a few million litres of water, then it delivers that with aplomb. The combination of distance and drizzle make it unworkable as a blat destination, or a blatstination for short.
France however, in an unusual break from trade unionism and Gallic attitudes to delivering on a promise, is quite accommodating in this respect. (One possible exception to this is the size of the car park at the Ibis hotel in Nice but we’ll let that go for now).
It’s still a bit of a trek to get to and there’s the small matter of 22 miles of English Channel to cross, but chances are you won’t be playing meteorological roulette when you get there. And funny old thing, it was that time of year again when the French throw what little Health & Safety they have to the wind, close the roads round the old circuit at Reims and let middle aged men in middle aged cars burn off some energy and tyre tread.
It seems hard to believe but it’s been two years since Carrots, Wilto and I blasted down to Reims for the Weekend d’Excellence d’Automobile (WEEA), and we’d made plans a plenty to return the following year but never seen them through. It seems for every blat that actually takes place there are another ten that never make it. So in the end it was a spur of the moment decision to go again.
In keeping with past Euroblats, a late night ferry crossing marked the start of this particular epic. Again it was with Norfolk Lines, again it was excellent, and the new WFP and I enjoyed a bit of blatters’ supper on board before a short blast through the night across mist-laden Northern French farmland to the Etap motel in St Omer. I should point out at this stage that WFP elevated herself to a new position of respect by not complaining once about the late hour, the cold air, tangled hair or indeed my repeated misjudgment of where the gear lever was in relation to her right thigh.

Saturday dawned bright and sunny, a potentially great day overshadowed only by the mildy concerning sight (and I’m not making this up) of a bloke wearing a parachute in breakfast.
With thoughts of impending doom or aviation related mishaps cast aside, we were soon down at Reims where the circuit was already alive with the sights, sounds and smells of the French and their classic cars. The event hadn’t really changed a bit from the one we attended back in 2008…..Derelict road racing circuit, big field full of cars, and a champagne tent. Perfect.
And better still, this year the car parking stewards recognised automotive excellence when it blatted in to view and directed us to the special car park for special people with special cars. By pure chance, we ended up parked less than ten yards from the main entrance.
The thing I love about the WEEA is it’s a no-frills event. There’s none of the corporate hospitality willy-waving of Chichester, no one tries to sell you the Sunday Times and a Secret Service earpiece for a quid, and a program which simply lists what’s happening when instead of overloading me with adverts for wristwatches and BMWs is less than £15, which funnily enough also includes entry to the event for both days.

After the sunshine and smoke of the drive down, the cool earthy tunnel through to the paddock offered a little momentary relief, before we emerged in to the main area of activity, where a hazy mix of Castrol, Chanel and dusty hay bales set the scene. I can’t deny it though – numbers were clearly down on the Bentleyfest we’d visited two years earlier. There were visibly fewer cars and of noticeably lesser pedigree. Now this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, although it does suggest Reims hasn’t quite cracked it yet as a “must do” event for the drivers of two tons of 90-year-old British steel.

To be continued.....

So, where were we? Ah yes, Reims.
Despite an apparent drop in numbers the spirit of the event was still strong, and unlike our previous visit, not diluted in heavy drizzle. Although the calibre of cars seen in 2008 was lacking, it was pleasing to see an emerging classic to which I find myself taking something of a shine - The Mk1 Ford Escort.

As a kid I never gave these cars a second glance, but over recent years there's something about the nippy saloon that appeals, more so when one appears in rally mode, the brassy Crossflow engine note, lairy power slides in to and subtle tail-wagging out of the bends strikes a chord. Another daydream added to the wish-list.The lazy afternoon continued, with various groups of cars taking to the track for some very enthusiastic display laps, so enthusiastic in fact that on more than one occasion the track closed and the attendant recovery truck would trundle off out of sight, returning some time later with varying degrees of battle damaged cars. Part of me felt bad to see someone's proverbial pride and joy mangled and mishapen, then again, another part of me drew comfort from knowing these motors were martyrs to the lost cause of speed and thrills, and there was to be had a certain nobility in being wounded in motoring battle, rather than hit from behind in a queue of stationary traffic.

As the balmy evening closed in, so did a barmy group of cars, with the track being given over to modern cars of, as les organiseurs called it, exceptional interest. Personally, I find showroom fresh Porsches and hire fleet Aston Martins being driven by twats and tosspots rather dull, for that's what followed.

In typically simplistic blatting fashion, the later evening consisted of a checking in to a simple hotel in Reims itself, having a simple shower, then decamping to the nearest restaurant for a simple meal. Uncomplicated pleasures.

Sunday was a re-run of Saturday, a little moister in places with some light drizzle, although after the perma-drenching I'd received in Scotland it mattered little. The lap action did suffer a touch though, and by late morning we were thinking of heading home anyway so, with another weekend picnic Euro classic historical motorsport blat in the bag it was back to Blighty....

Eventually, it stopped raining.....

Yes I know, I owe you both an apology. I reignited the blog with all good intent back in the Spring, then a bit of rain in Scotland dissolved any enthusiasm and it all sort of ground to a halt again.
So here goes with another kick-start.

The rain did eventually stop in Shieldaig. Just long enough for me to walk the hundred yards to the local store where they should've been expecting a clutch cable, delivered overnight from Redline.
Nope, the postman had it. Shieldaig isn't a big place, so I made my way to the village hall which in typical micro-community fashion also doubled as gambling den (Tuesday evenings), gymnasium (Mon, Wed, Fri at 7pm), music hall (First Saturday of each month) and Post Office sorting office (daily, from 10:30). Not one but two Post Office vans were parked up outside, and in the hall itself their respective drivers were engaged in a North v South game of pass the parcel. The van from the South carried domestic post, newspapers, tax disc reminders and all the other admininauseum made so utterly irrelevant by the isolation and climate of Shieldaig, whilst the Northern post run comprised ice-packed polystyrene crates of smoked Salmon and mail order chunky sweaters, on their way to a lucky recipient in time for Christmas. In amongst all this was a clutch cable and, on seeing a parcel addressed to a new name, the posty recognised it as mine as tossed it over. I explained what it was, and how I'd tried to enjoy getting to Applecross the day before with the mail man admitting it was one of his favourite rounds in Summer, and one of the worst in Winter. Funnily enough, he used to have a Defender to deliver the post up here but that proved expensive, despite being valuable, and it was replaced with a Vauxhall Astra. That's progress according to Accounts.
With clutch cable now in hand I braved an encounter with Andy at the campsite in order to borrow his tool kit. As he'd claimed to be a mechanic by trade I expected it to be a tidy, organised affair, with a place for everything and everything in its place. But no, he simply opened the boot of his car and there it all was, the contents of his garage. Loose.
The cable change was easy enough, even under water (yep, raining again) so by lunchtime I was able to haul up the anchor and set all-ahead full for Skye, praying it would stop raining.
In good weather the North West coast area would be great for blatting, but under grey, drizzly cloud that hid the tops of the mountains it just seemed at best dull, and at times positively sinister and uninviting. There were points where I thought if the car broke down for any reason, or I had an off, it'd be days before the situation was resolved. Needless to say this took the edge of any enjoyment, and I found myself simply making progress to the next tartan-clad conurbation.
Eventually I rolled in to Kyle of Lochalsh, the UK's most North Westerly rail terminus. Having seen this as the destination of Michael Palin's own episode of Great Railway Journeys of the World many, many years ago, I was slightly excited, hoping to pick up on the sense of achievement in reaching this outpost. The new and highly controversial bridge seems to have killed this off though, with plenty of new infrastructure and the atmosphere of a motorway services, for it now seems KoL is just a fuel stop on the way to Skye. So I got some fuel.
I should add, this was the only place during the entire trip that I heard bagpipes being played and even then it was only in passing.
So it wasn't all bad.
Over the Bridge and the blat-o-meter crept up a bit as the roads grew twistier and, unbelievably, the rain eased off a bit.
Didn't last though, and as the West Coast of Skye fell within striking distance, the satnav showing single figures to get there, I had to admit defeat and head back. The rain was coming down with real spite as opposed to just a gravitational inevitability, and out at sea even blacker clouds were just waiting to have a go too and on a couple of occasions I parked up, popped up the umbrella and just sat there, rain trickling in every direction off the car, me getting colder and colder, just willing the weather to improve. Who was I kidding? Wasn't gonna happen so getting back to the mainland before it turned completely monsoon was a priority, and near the bridge again the sight of a motorbike wedged under the nose of a car on a bend confirmed that I was doing the right thing in quitting. Funnily enough it was a Dutch bike that had collided with a Dutch car. Seemed like a long way to come just to have a crash but that's the Dutch for you. Schhhplendid.
Back at the campsite once more I decided there and then that if it was still raining tomorrow (day three) I'd give in and go home a day early. It was getting pointless now, completely unenjoyable and as recent cloggy events demonstrated, dangerous too.
At least the rain kept Andy in his caravan.
Breakfast on Day 3 came with the default setting of rain, so as promised to myself the night before, once I'd eaten I dropped the awning, closed up the roof tent, trailered the Seven and simply sodded off home.
I'd like to say it wasn't "sodded off home in a huff" but I'd be lying.

The Mostly Aluminium Road Show (part 2)

Shieldaig is way up on the West coast of Scotland. So is the other one.

Yup, there are two Shieldaigs, less than 40 miles apart. Who would've thought? After a little satnav confusion and yes, a visit to the other Shieldaig, I parked up at the campsite overlooking the loch at the right Shieldaig. It was just getting light and just starting to rain, again.

Glasgow was a distant memory, negotiated in the early hours through eerily empty streets, Inverness had been a fuel stop at 4am, and my progress North had been marked by three lane motorway thinning to dual carriageway, which narrowed to single lane A-roads which finally gave way to single track lanes with passing places.

But that was then, this is now and as the light came up I decided to get my head down for a bit before off-loading the Seven, parking up more permanently and a little straighter. With relentless drizzle fizzing on the canvas of the roof tent, I knew I was being hopelessly optimistic.

Some hours later, and I'm not entirely sure how many, I stuck my head out of the tent and....yup, more rain. Not the kind of rain that sees you pack up and go home, nor the kind that you can ignore. No, it was that species of rain that kids you in to thinking it'll clear up later. Very thin patches of blue sky in between slate grey cloud seemed to confirm this, so with the campsite now a little less crowded, I unpacked the Seven and headed even further West towards the row of stone houses called Applecross. This surprisingly English sounding town is just that - a row of houses, a pub and a retained fire station. In the rain, which had defied my cheery outlook and intensified, it was just a collection of buildings on the coast. Even the Evo-esque mountain road to get there couldn't make up for the fact this was my wettest blat to date. Ever.
With water actually pooling in the footwells I resigned myself to an afternoon back at the campsite, grappling with the Daily Telegraph crossword whilst cocooned in the roof tent which at that point seemed an appealing prospect.
I didn't so much drive back as surf back, and taking the mountain road back from Applecross provided some entertainment for the German tourists in their campervan, climbing the mini-Stelvio as I descended. This was getting really silly and I was caught with the age old Caterham dilemma of driving fast and getting a free precipitation-based facial exfoliation, or drive slow enough for the rain not to hurt...and drown instead.
I tried a bit of both.
Now, there's never a good time for a clutch cable to snap, but there are times when it's difficult to think of a worst time for one to snap.
The combination of torrential rain, aeroscreens and the Scottish Highlands is just one of those times. Oh well, at least I now had something to concentrate on that I could actually have some kind of influence over. Clutch cables can be fixed where the weather cannot, so I crash-changed the car in to 2nd gear and plodded back to base.
The grass at the campsite was squelchy underfoot by now, and the Seven was truly forlorn looking as I coasted to a halt near the Land Rover. Without access to the clutch, parking properly wasn't an option so I simply tugged it out of gear and stopped.
At this point I became aware of being watched, and from not too far away. Sure enough, a bloke from the nearest caravan had wandered over. Let's call him Andy, after all, his parents did and who am I to argue?
Andy asked a bit about the car, helped me push it further off the main open area of the campsite and then, crucially, admitted to bringing a fair few tools with him on holiday, which was good to know as I, rather stupidly, had brought none.
My next move was to source a new clutch cable but this didn't faze me too much. I was in Scotland, home of rallying, and where there's rallying there are Mk2 Ford Escorts. And in Inverness there's a Ford dealer by the name of McCrae. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, at the McCrae Ford dealership in the heart of forest rallyland, a Mk2 Ford Escort was ancient history. Set of mats for a Ka? Certainly, sir. Load shelf for a Mondeo? No problem, we hold them in stock. Clutch cable for a mid-70s Ford Escort with a Type 9 gearbox? Nope.
So, a quick phone call to Redline in Caterham and a dose of the usual sympathy....
"Oh you've broken it have you?" said Mick in typically subdued tones.
"Errr, no it broke".
Whoever or whatever was to blame, by 2:30pm a new clutch cable was dispatched from Surrey and, much like the car it was destined to repair, headed North overnight.
Having warned off the post office to expect random car parts in amongst tomorrows newspapers, bread and Readers Digests, I wandered back to the campsite where my new best friend (or so he thought) was waiting. Now I've never considered loan of a 3mm Allen key to be the basis for a lasting relationship, but Andy clearly thought otherwise, and it seemed after helping me push the car round the campsite a bit he felt my entire life belonged to him.
Everything I did was met with verbal approval or critical acclaim from across the way.
I rustled up a bit of chilli con carne, remarkably successfully under the meteorological circumstance (yup, still raining) and sure enough, there was Andy, peering almost over my shoulder, assessing the cooker, the table, the chair, the Land Rover, the roof tent.....everything I'd brought camping was commented on, and all in a weirdly sycophantic, positive light.
This was getting annoying and more than a little intrusive, so I adopted the polite tactic of reducing first the number of words in any reply, and eventually the number of syllables.
Eventually Andy took the hint and buggered off, although the promise of a 3mm Allen key remained intact.
So, I could do nothing until the mail arrived at 11am the next day, nothing that is except remain relentlessly optimistic that Redline had caught the last post.
It was now getting dark, it was still raining (obviously) so I did what any other stranded British tourist would do under the same circumstances.
I went to bed and read a book.

The Mostly Aluminuim Road Show (part 1)

They say nothing is ever a total failure - it can always serve as a negative example. Hold that thought.....

So, after thinking about it for many months, lying awake at night imagining the might of both cars taking to the road at once in a sort of mostly aluminium express, with a borrowed trailer I packed the Land Rover for camping, the Seven for blatting and steered North.

The Defender's come on a bit on terms of organisation for this kind of trip. There's now a place for everything, and unlike previous trips I rarely find myself unpacking the entire car just to gain access to one thing, which seems a bit of a shame really as it has to be said there's always something Tardisly reassuring about stacking the entire contents of the car on the tarmac next to it, taking a step back to observe the sheer amount of stuff that Solihull's Finest can house, then hiding it all away again.

The Defender makes a very good tow car, and the Seven makes a very good towed car so they make the ideal combination. They look right together, and drive extremely well together with the Land Rover shrugging off the additional load as usual.
Setting out late afternoon on the Monday, as the sun started to set, all was good. Pity it didn't last, but more of that later.

As with all Land Rover journeys, there was no hurry. Instead, just solid momentum and a gradual ticking off of the miles. Add a trailer and it becomes trucking, not driving, so I wound down the window and treated my right elbow to a bit of breeze. I also became aware of an overwhelming desire to eat fried egg sandwiches and smoke a B&H.

By dusk, without any major snags so far, I was well past the Lakes and both the Land Rover and I were in need of refuelling. Coasting to a halt in Todhills Services, I climbed out of the cab to cool drizzle, the orangey glow of sodium floodlights and the pong of diesel. Ahhh......trucking.

After refuelling I moved the car and trailer and car over to the empty car park of the nearby Little Chef, closed, silent and in darkness - just the way a Little Chef should be. The vacant tarmac offered a strange sanctuary from the three lanes of the M6, just a few yards away. It was tranquil enough to just stand there, brew in hand, enjoying being stationary for a while, yet every so often another truck would rumble past reminding me of the transport artery I'd temporarily stepped away from.
Despite still being a few miles from Scotland, this break gave me my first experience of what travelogue writers refer to as mixing with the locals.
Over wandered a chap from the only other car in sight - a silver BMW 6-series, isolated in the middle of the empty car park.
"Narrr thoots sweeeeeeeet" he declared on spying the Caterham, which I think translates as "Now that's sweet".
Nice of him to say so I thought, so I did the polite thing and asked him about his car.
It was an early 6-series, a solid looking block of Deutsche Technik, parked with appropriately Teutonic precision between the white lines and despite looking like a reliable motor, Empty Car Park Man soon explained it was a dud. He'd just bought it, allegedly from a former Chief Constable of that parish, and the head gasket had let go soon afterwards. I did wonder if, bearing in mind the car's previous owner, said head gasket's demise had perhaps been brought about by falling down some stairs or tripping over a kerb but my curiosity was soon superseded when Empty Car Park Man then explained he'd tried contacting Plod (Ret) but found him to be "powdered".
Scots accents not withstanding, I have no idea what he meant.
Random car park encounter complete, it was back to the M6 where I continued North through the drizzly night, leaving Tothill Services and midnight behind me......

To be continued........

Right car, wrong colour.

Crikey. Has it really been over a month since the last bit of blogging?

Yes readers (both of you), it has. This can mean only one thing.

It's been a good year for the blatting.

First off, at the end of June, the monthly topping up of Lord March's pension fund in return for some organic sausages known otherwise as the Goodwood Breakfast Club....

A good day out overall, and one that started under a cloudless blue sky at 6am, signalling the first decent dawn blat of the year. Now, with the theme for this Breakfast Club being "Soft Top Sunday", Sevens were allowed on to the track to congregate with all the other open cars be they from the Caterhamesque stable, yet another TVR, or the slightly more subtle offering of an utterly charming Series 1 Land Rover. Like a nice cup of tea, but with four wheel drive. It is a soft top, after all, and probably more appropriate than the Peugeot 206CC on show.

The Pug was indicative of an interesting motoring phenomenon that became all the more obvious and prevalent as the day went on, whereby anyone whose company car scheme permits the folding roof version of a fairly standard rep-mobile came along claiming rights to the Goodwood tarmac. This is where it all goes wrong. People seem to confuse soft tops with "cabriolets". You see, a soft top is a car intended from the outset to have no roof, and is aimed at hardy travellers who drink tea, have no real dress sense beyond practicality and think metric spanners are just a fad. By contrast, a cabriolet is simply a marketing man's clever scheme to make Keith from Accounts buy an otherwise standard car, but one that's been attacked with an angle grinder, and charge him an extra couple of grand for exclusivity about as faux as the leather seats, and have him think he's in Nice not Nuneaton. Not that there's anything wrong with Warwickshire you understand, it's just not the South of France.

But anyway, marques not usually seen gracing a Goodwood event such as Golfs, Astras, and legions of BMW were all present, and an original factory produced Vauxhall Cavalier Cabriolet.

The popularity of these family drop-tops is evident in the following photo. All hail the mighty Ford Escort XR3i Cabriolet......

So, having fought our way through the crowd to admire Dagenham's finest, we noticed another interesting yet all the more worrying trend.......Right car, wrong colour.

Some things in life are just right. Other are just wrong. A Morris Minor in Old English White with a burgundy interior is definitely right. An E-Type Jag in metallic blue with beige leather interior is without doubt wrong. Other automotive hue-related howlers we noticed were an Alfa Romeo in an authentic shade of snot green, a monstrous Bentley Continental in glittery metallic white paint with grout-grey insides, inspired no doubt by Barry White's bathroom, a classic Rolls Royce the colour of a bruise and a Volvo. At this point the game just became known as "Wrong car no matter what colour".

Oh well.....Le Mans was only a fortnight away.....

It's electric!

Quick epilogue to the alternator episode this one......

A bit like Government, you sometimes only realise how bad an old alternator had got when you install a new one.

With over 14 fresh and tasty volts now coursing through its copper-cored veins the car has been totally transformed and in so many ways.
The exterior lights are brighter, the interior lights are brighter, the heater now blows like a cheerleader on prom night. The indicators now beat with more regular rhythm. The list is as endless as the supply of juicy electricity only a new alternator can provide.
The car actually runs better too. It picks up quicker, accelerates faster and fuel consumption is noticeably down. On the over-run, approaching roundabouts for example, gone is the Rice Krispie exhaust chorus to which I'd become unwittingly accustomed, replaced by an occasional cough of a little unburnt fuel, a polite clearing of the car's throat before embarking on the next verse of baritone revs.

Best of all though, the horn is louder.

And the lights all went down in Hampshire.......again.

In fact, everything went off.
Having got to the bottom of the "Will they? Won't they?" headlights, and with the full windscreen fitted, the Seven was all ready for some early summer social blatting. I'd also managed to source that most elusive accessory, a Willing Female Passenger. The WFP was a little cautious after the headlight episode, but after much reassurance agreed to a quick blat over to Butser Hill for a charming sunset picnic, watching dusk descend over the South Coast, spotting the landmarks of Southampton and the Solent as they lit up one by one.

The scene couldn't have been more perfect if it had been scripted by Richard Curtis with Hugh Grant and Hollywood's latest lady in mind - the deserted hillside, a warm gentle breeze, no screaming kids to ruin the evening, and an empty sky that blended overhead from an orangey glow in the West to an inky dark blue in the East.

Come home time, the tone changed a little from idyllic al fresco snacking to a chilly roadside waiting game.

Returning to the car, the WFP wrapped up warm as advised, the picnic basket was firmly lashed to the rear of the car, we each squeezed in to our respective seats (with suitable mirth I might add), at which point the car delivered its punchline to the headlight saga.

So...Waggle the gear lever to check it's in neutral, depress the clutch, poke the throttle a few times and turn the ignition key.

But instead of the usual clattering of parts followed by a healthy roar and stink of unleaded, the engine simply whirred pathetically a couple of times then quit, replaced by the sniggering chatter of the starter solenoid.

My shoulders sagged. WFP looked at me. I looked at WFP.

"You said you'd fixed it"

"I did. This is something else"

With hindsight I'm not sure this was such a good idea. What's worse? A recurring problem, or two separate ones in as many days?

Still, bump starting a car is not the sole remit of Verner von Braun, so pointing the car down hill a little, offering WFP a reassuring and perhaps staggeringly confident "Never mind, watch this" I eased off the brake and let the car roll away, gather a bit of momentum then dumped the clutch.

Success. The Crossflow banged in to life and for a brief moment things were looking up, illuminated by the recently renovated headlights, thus supporting my previous claim that I'd fixed them.

But not for long. An entire three miles later the car was totally dead. Completely and utterly drained of any electricity by the effort of illuminating the headlights and sparking the spark plugs, this immediately stank of a dead alternator. Getting to Butser Hill the Seven had survived on the battery alone. The return journey, without any kind of mobile top-up and the added electrical weight of the lights was all too much.
We rolled to a gentle halt in the entrance to a dark and deserted Tesco car park.
As WFP commented, it could have been worse. It could've been raining. It could've been much worse. I could've been with a passenger who wasn't quite as open minded.
A little over an hour later the car was its second recovery truck in as many days.
A little over two hours later it was back in the garage. A quick check of the battery revealed an impressive 2.8 volts left in the battery. I say impressive because the car had soldiered on, squeezing every last drop of potential difference from the cells.

So, a new alternator.
Sourcing parts for a Seven can be either blissfully simple, or a campaign to make King Arthur and his quest for the Holy Grail look like a rank amateur.
For the new alternator, the latter applied.
The conversation with the chap behind the counter at the local motor factors soon turned in to some kind of back-catalogue of classic '70s Fords spawned during the heady days of Dagenham. Cortina, Granada, Escort, Fiesta.....curious, I thought, that Ford adopted names either of continental holiday resorts or porn mags, and I wondered if this was some subtle reflection of the exact nature of the joys of motoring that came with each car.
Most of the compatible bits were, unsurprisingly, unavailable with no known delivery date. That was the case until we chanced upon the parts list for perhaps the sportiest of Dag Dustbins, the most fixed of the Fix Or Repair Daily stable - the slopey-backed Capri, eventually settling on the monster 2.3 V6 as having a suitable alternator.
This was good news on two fronts. First, the car would soon be back on the road, fully charging, but more than that it would have something in common with a Capri, the motoring weapon of choice for iconic covert coppers Bodie & Doyle.
And so it follows, I now have something in common with Bodie & Doyle.
So there you have it. Caterham Seven - the choice of Professionals everywhere.

And the lights all went out in Hampshire......

According to Manx musicians The Bee Gees, the lights all went down in Massachusetts.
Much the same can be said in Hampshire lately, where small aluminium car ownership has proved trying at best and positively awkward at worst.
Ever since taking on the Caterham (I would say "owning" it but one never owns a Caterham, or indeed a Land Rover - you just borrow it from the next person) the headlights have turned out to be something of an optional extra where the car itself determined when this particular option might be available. The headlights sometimes worked faultlessly, other times they'd fool you in to thinking there was a problem by not turning on then, just as the driver's harness was clinked open to investigate, ta daa, headlights on in an automotive "Ha! Only joking!" moment.
The joke started to wear a little thin though, reaching transparency last week whilst visiting fellow Sevener Carrots to retrieve a borrowed windscreen, needed for some social blatting the following evening. Aeroscreens (another of those upgrades that occurred during the blog blackout) aren't appreciated by everyone, less so by girls. Something to do with hair apparently.
And front teeth.
So, upon leaving Carrot HQ, no headlights. We'd tried everything. Twiddled switches, held fuses up to the light, tapped solenoids, wiggled wiring and even stood around talking lots.
But hey, it was a light evening with no cloud cover. How dark could it get? Quite dark is the answer. Lovely sunset, but pitch black roads. Getting as far as a regular blat haunt of the Farnham 24hr BP petrol station, I finally caved in and admitted 60mph on 5watt sidelights isn't funny.
The man who drove the breakdown truck found it mildly amusing though. Great, I thought, a bloke with a low loader and a sense of humour. How little did I know at that point.
So, after peering under the dashboard and admiring Caterham wiring, Recovery Truck Man loaded the Seven on to the sheet steel of the recovery truck and headed for home.
During any journey in a recovery truck, one can learn a great many things. Things learnt during the next hour were:
Recovery drivers who are about to be laid off do not make the best customer interface.
Recovery drivers who have lost their house in a bitter divorce less than twelve months ago make a bad customer interface.
Now you'd think a phone call from Recovery Truck Man's girlfriend might improve things. Over the handsfree loudspeaker she promised to have a bath run and supper ready for when he got home, and signed off with a cheery "Love you babes", something made all the more touching when I spotted a swallow tattoo on the back of Recovery Truck Man's left hand. And just as I was about to comment along the lines of "See? Not so bad", Recovery Truck Man announced "And she's a liar too".
Great. Recovery Truck Man clearly had multiple issues going on, and nothing I was going to say would change that. The last twenty minutes of the journey were uneasy to say the least and I had visions of saying something unwittingly antagonistic and thence being clubbed to death with a traffic cone.
But atrocities carried out using motorway accoutrements would have to wait, as soon enough the Seven was off loaded and rolled in to the garage.
Further diagnosis was carried out the following afternoon, and the fault traced to a faulty relay. Once this was replaced I guessed the Seven's electrical tantrums were over.
But more was to follow......

Horny

In the bleak mid-winter, when the UK was buried under four feet of snow, the Defender, whilst not at all phased by the onset of a new ice age, developed a mystifying electrical snag where the horn, the alarm and various other bits and pieces would immediately and persistently sound off as soon as the key was removed from the ignition. This was eventually traced to the near-side front side light, and a short feed which was sending a spurious signal to the "BCU" or body control unit, a device installed to prove that electronics don't belong in Land Rovers. Even a tiny leakage of voltage at the wrong point and all hell is let loose in the micro-circuitry that governs everything from the fog lights to the rear wiper. Why systems that've survived for decades using simple elementary electrical principles need the addition of silicon is beyond me.
But anyway, since then, the air horns on the Land Rover have never really worked properly. Having replaced the mute horns with traditional old skool electrics ones a few eeks ago, I thought it was about time to see if the old ones actually worked or if it was the tiddly compressor supplied with them that had given up.
Now, in the garage I have a small workshop compressor for powering tools or pumping up tyres and since this had pressure left in it from another job it seemed like a good idea to test the horns.

I'm happy to report they still work really well, and that 40psi really is more than enough to make a noise. Lots of noise. I think I can still hear it echoing off the brickwork of the surrounding houses.

Half moon and half doors

Many great things come in tubes - Smarties, maps, Primula cheese, underground trains and so on.
One of the better things to come in a tube, or rather in a pair of tubes for double the delight, is Araldite adhesive.
Araldite is top stuff, even before you twist off the little caps. The name alone conjures up earthy robustness in the "Aral", mixed with some schoolboy chemistry in the "ite", I mean come on, you have electrolytes, sulphites, and Han Solo was encased in frozen, and possibly fictitious carbonite. So Araldite mixes Olde Englande with contemporary technology. The name also doubles as a verb. The unassuming snot-coloured goo bonds two surfaces with such strength that words have yet to be invented to describe the chemical joinery, hence the act of using Araldite becomes simply the act of "Aralditing" something.
It seems only appropriate then that this Colossus of adhesives was the solution to an irritating problem blighting the Seven since last summer...In keeping with its Less-Is-More design policy, the roof and doors of the car are secured using press-stud fasteners. Lots of them. It's a simple enough solution, obviously, the drawback being that the rivets holding these press studs in place are tougher than the skin of the car, and over a few years of happy motoring they eventually pull through and the press studs fall off. It doesn't stop there though, as the hole in the skin is usually enlarged and simply replacing the rivet doesn't work. So I turned to Araldite and one of their many variants. Araldite comes in several specialist versions now; "Clear", which is transparent, "Rapid", which is quick-setting and "Steel", which isn't steel. It does come in a stylish pastel silvery-grey tube as opposed to the Lego-brick red of normal Araldite, and I can't help thinking a name like "Araldite Platinum Edition" would add a few sales. It's as hard as steel though and can be similarly machined and worked so ideal for plugging an enlarged irregular hole in the ali sheet exterior of the Seven, drilling a small hole and then employing a self-tapping screw to reattach the errant press stud.

With all studs now in place I could at last put to use something that's been rolled up and poked away on a shelf in the garage for a couple of years (yes, years) since buying them via the For Sale section of BlatChat - a pair of half doors, which allow screen-free (and therefore by default full door-free) motoring without losing the critical driver protection from stone-flick from the front wheels.
As with all satisfying jobs on the Seven, this one was completed after 9pm, but with doors fitted, and a lazy half-moon peering down from a slightly misty sky I grabbed the keys and set off on something that's been missing for too long - a quick night blat.

With the half doors fitted, in body-matching BRG, and recently installed Brooklands aero-screens, from side on the car has a Bentley-esque look, a solid slab of automotive engineering. It seems to be maturing with age too, like fine wine, or perhaps grotty cheese I don't know, but where it once snarled and snapped it now has a fluttering purr, and the Lasham bends were all the more smooth for it. This wasn't an ambitious blat, just a refresher, so the Farnham BP petrol station was far enough. The moonlight flicked through the trees and hedgerows of Hampshire, reminding me of the giga-blat of last July when I set sail for Stelvio and cracked it in one very long but indescribably satisfying blat. On that occasion, the lunar illumination set the moody, silent Alps aglow, a magnificent scene and one I need to revisit soon. But for now, hot chocolate and a donut (of the baked variety) is reward enough.

Besides, we were being watched......

The blog is back.

Take That, Doctor Who, Tony Blackburn......they have one thing in common: In order to make a come back, first you have to go away.

And so it is that The Blog is back.

The previous entry detailed the blatfest that is the Taffia fish and chip run, and since the 2010 event has just closed, this seemed a good trigger to resurrect the on-line on-going journal of the ups, the downs, and the occasional sideways of Land Rover and Caterham ownership.

With any comeback, there's never a one-shot disclosure of what filled the gap. To do so would erase the enigma, replace the question mark with a full stop. Instead, there's the trickle of information regarding the wilderness years, a steady drip-feed of snippets giving a tantalising glimpse in to what's gone on behind closed doors. And Both My Cars Mostly Aluminium (other blogs are available) is no different.

The full detail of the last ten months will out in due course, in chunks large and small as the topic at the time dictates.

There have been near-catastrophic electrical failures, there have been broken windscreens. There has been Stelvio and snow.