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I was flying in this beautiful old Warbird this weekend having spent an amazing two days at Goodwood Revival. I'm in the back in the first pic, second pic is the closing display running in at Sunset at Revival on Saturday.

I think this would explain it all.

Thought I should probably put an update on here so nobody sends a search party out! Big couple of days finished. Made it to Düsseldorf last night shortly after 9pm. All was well except for the last half hour when I lost all of my Freewheel controls. Not ideal to lose your indicators on the autobahn at night time, but I got there anyway! Turned out just to be a wire that had been trapped by wiper pot cover which was shorting. Tidied that up and modified the routing slightly so all good again today. This morning around 10am I set off for Denmark. Rain was spitting and the clouds looked pretty ominous so I thought it would be best to try out the half hood I bought from SBFS. I think this is probably the first bit I'm not overly impressed by on the car. When I did the fittings in my garage, I remember being disappointed with the fixing at the rear using cable ties. Sure enough, as soon as I tried to tension the roof, the supplied cable tie started slipping, so I had to spend a half an hour getting stuff out of the way in a McDonald's car park to fix that. Even with new cable ties and the roof fully tensioned, though, it leaks. I expected some water to get through gaps around the doors etc. But not through the actual roof seams! Anyway, nothing to be done about it now. Waze reckoned about 6 hours of driving to get to my camping spot for the night in Denmark, but I have no idea what speeds it was anticipating me doing on the unlimited stretches of autobahn. It was pouring down rain for a good chunk of the drive, so having set off at 10 am, with three stops along the way for food, coffee and petrol, I arrived at the camp site around 8:20. Slightly wishing I'd taken a photo when I arrived, but it was very nearly dark and I wanted to use the little remaining light to get my tent set up! I'll take one in the morning though! Tomorrow I'll set off for Sweden. Aiming to be in Stockholm on Wednesday to meet a few friends I haven't seen in years so I'll just drive that general direction and pick a point along the way to pitch a tent tomorrow night! It'll be nice to be off the autobahn. Everything today except the last half hour was autobahn which is not the best for my car - especially with the front wheels toed out. At one point the next instruction on my satnav was to take the exit in 133 miles - to go onto the next autobahn... Exciting stuff. Anyway, photos tomorrow! Time for some rest now!

They will be back! I literally threw everything left by one son in a skip - walls, ceiling, bed, cupboards - absolutely everything. Sent him a photo at uni to say he didn’t have a room at home anymore. He still returned. 😀. Enjoy the time before they come back. It’s special.

Fixed £90 inc Vat for ‘recoding’. Can’t explain why😂

Exactly, same as the Irish, with their low tax rates to attract inwards investment.

Take ZERO notice of the PM of Luxembourg, one country that stands out as being at the heart of one of Europe's biggest economic issues. How? You ask.... Amazon, Skype, iTunes, Paypal and the like set up HQ's there to take advantage of what can only be described as devious but legal means of paying little or no corporation tax in the countries that you actually do business, and an effective rate of about 6% in Luxembourg.

So Boris didn’t show up to a press conference due to a few anti-Brexit hecklers? What an incompetent shambles that creature is... Brave Sir Boris ran away. Bravely ran away away. When Brexit reared it's ugly head, He bravely turned his tail and fled. Yes, brave Sir Boris turned about And gallantly he chickened out. Swiftly taking to his feet, He beat a very brave retreat. Bravest of the brave, Sir Boris!

The biggest issue I find with this is consistency. Watching every f1 race I see some circuits where track limits are enforced others are not. Exceeding track limits needs to be enforced consistently at every race. I've heard the usual blurb from the FIA about they only enforce where the drivers gain an advantage. Nonsense. If there was no advantage to be had they wouldn't be out there. Rather than launching some poor soul skywards isn't the answer. What if someone was trying to avoid an accident or had lost the car mid bend. They dont deserve the wrath of the sausage kerb. Everytime a driver exceeds track limits with no real reason add a 1 second penalty. It would remove the advantage gained and it would stop it overnight. These guys are the best in the world (well apart from Vettel who looks like his heads gone) if they cant keep at least one wheel on the track then theres something wrong.

Alarm set for 4:30 this morning, loaded the car and set off at 5:06. Nicely heavily laden with tent, sleeping bag, air mattress, hiking gear etc. The drive down was cold and noisy, but it didn't stop me smiling like an absolute muppet the whole way! Had to resist the urge to wave at random cars as I passed them a few times! (before anyone worries, the below photo was taken using my phone in a mount, with a timer and the shutter pressed while stationary) The car is absolutely fantastic. I'm so happy with the little changes I made to deviate from the standard car - Freewheel is so good for night driving, being able to switch between dip and main beam mid corner without taking your hands off the wheel. The quantum suspension is just incredible too. I took my friend who drives an M3 for a spin yesterday and he said the Westfield soaks up the bumps better than his car. When I take it on a track too, I can just dial up the damping to wherever I want it. Very glad I asked JK composites to put heater pads in the seats as well. They really make a massive difference and they're so comfortable. A heater in the car would be nice, but wrapped up as I was and with heated seats, I don't see any reason I couldn't drive this car in the middle of winter. When I arrived down at the port, the security guard at checkin directed me into the lane to have my car searched, although I think he did it just to confuse his colleague who was carrying out the searches! "eh... Eh... Can we have a look under the bonnet?". He then proceeded to ask me a few details about the build rather than anything security related! All safely boarded on the ferry now. Car is up to 798 miles now, less than half way through its 4th day with registration plates, although, granted more than half of those miles are from the trip up to Carlisle for the IVA test! I've taken a couple of pictures but the WiFi on the ferry is pants and there's no signal in my cabin so I'll have to edit those into the post later tonight when I get to Düsseldorf! Edit: managed to upload them eventually!

Didn't seem to bother these guys

Sorry . another no from me. Moving the remaining 'ankle biter' to university. No 'kids' in the house after a 24 years!

@AndrewBClarke Mothers and families don’t you just luv em 🤬 you can adopt mine if you want to 🙄 remember the old saying from Madagascar! Smile and wave boys, smile and wave, have fun . Ps take her to Micheal’s in the Westie 😝

I'll be there.

Nice little run out yesterday

Hi Bernie, If there's still room then can you add me please

The side effect of removing gravel was that drivers now had no fear of running wide or cutting corners. So going faster into a corner was the un-intended consequence. The sausage kerbs were to prevent drivers taking those liberties with track limits and I agree that if they are going to be implemented then more thought is clearly required. Ideally what we need is a track limiting "device" where safety is not compromised but where there is a clear disadvantage to breaching track limits. Gravel is out. Something slippery is likewise just as iffy. What about a "shell-grip" type surface that is very abrasive so that they hurt the life of the tyre? No danger of inducing an immediate failure but taking a few laps of life out of them so they hit the cliff earlier or start to blister must surely not be beyond the wit of man.

It was a pleasure to meet you all and have a good old chin wag. I really enjoyed the convoy coming in, the noise and look fo the cars. Such a good variety. Hopefully see you all again sometime.. Regards Patrick

I'll be there 😎

Why? Is the exhaust blowing?

It's been a while, but I am still around and lurking, Westfield is still enjoying a rest while I am pursuing other hobbies that end in a visit to A&E and a cast for 5 weeks.