Breakfast was a good one

Well done, Nellie, for arranging it in the “car” hotel. In prospect was the first of several days’ hard driving. A team discussion (so vulgar, having meetings), previously held, had recorded a preference to just “get on with the plan”, which the secretary felt obliged to remind everyone meant some very long days on pretty dreadful roads. Expectation management is the key. This having been duly set, we set off duly.

ChatGPT likened the roads to those of a war-torn African country. It’s not wrong. I know it’s dull to keep droning on about the state of the roads, but they occupy our minds, our fears, our expectations — and so drone on we shall. Today we all decided to just let it happen. We would go at a pace suitable for the conditions and get there when we got there. The result was a carefree day of bimbling along without a thought about springs, chassis, shocks, steering, etc. We still ended up at the hotel at beer time.

The day was not without incident, though. We noticed a rather whiffy pong. Initially we put this down to bad drains in the village we were driving through, but the olfactory senses continued to twitch after the village. Curious. Something in the ditch? Don’t be ridiculous! It was going on for miles. I looked at Nellie. Nellie looked at me. Accusingly? I started to think it could be the sunscreen I had put on. Then I wondered if someone had placed a kipper in the engine as a joke. At last we overtook a Chinese truck which was dripping a bit and decidedly whiffy — and Eureka! We had been following a smelly lorry, filled, I suspect, with rotting meat. Urgh.

Nigel is a very earnest driver. When he decides he has had enough of being stuck behind a truck, he lurches into the free lane and floors the accelerator. Sometimes this results in a very hasty retreat with quite a lot of hooting and honking. Other times it works, after a fashion. On more than a few occasions I have witnessed him face down an oncoming truck which happens to be going about its business, but Nigel is not to be trifled with when he is in this sort of mood, and the trucks get the message and allow him to pass. Today we saw a trampolining session with a double Barani (I looked that up). Nigel struck out from behind a lorry and floored it as is customary. The truck being overtaken yielded not a lot, and so desperate measures were required before the blind corner consumed the now dangerously placed Lagonda. Nitrous oxide was pumped into the engine to give it that crucial boost. But wahey! I promise I saw both Nigel and Bumble exit the cockpit vertically, exposing clean air below them. In unison they rose and fell as the poor old car sank into a massive pothole and rose again the other side.

It was Ed’s first day on the trip and, in celebration, he decided to wear a safety day-glow shirt. It is not difficult to spot him.