Fully recovered.

It all started off as a pretty normal Monday. Work not quite kicked in for the week and the gentle fall of drizzle outside. I try to fill quiet days with Landy activity and am starting the lengthy process of preparing my Carawagon for a trip to Libya in Jan ‘09. Rather than leave things to the last minute I try and get the truck well sorted at least a month beforehand. There has been a slight rumble in the back axle for years and it has been fine for the last few Sahara trips, but I found a ‘new, old stock’ one on the internet at a main dealers in Chester. We did a deal over the phone and I set off. I noticed the old girl seemed a bit lacking in power, but would plod along at 50 and got me there okay. On the return journey though it got progressively worse. A call to Landy supremo - eldest son Matt, suggested a failing fuel pump. In rush hour traffic on the A51 I was becoming a liability so, 20 miles south of Chester I pulled into the car park of The Old Barbridge Inn and called Matt for assistance. Poor chap was already running around taking the boys to football/rugby practise, but he was up for it later. Not a problem. I went in the pub and had two lovely pints and a 10 oz Ribeye steak with all the trimmings, then fell asleep in the back of the truck until he arrived at 10.15. It was actually quite easy getting the Land Rover back to his place in Matlock. Up over the Peak District, black roads, no traffic and no sign of any coppers. I seem to have ended up with his Land Cruiser and the relieve that the breakdown was here and not there.

Torque to me.

A billion lbs. feet of torque here, generated by this is one, of four, steam engines that pumped Leicester’s sewage from the city up to Beaumont Leys from about 1860 until it was no longer big enough to serve the city in 1964. This week I was privileged to get the full lantern lit tour, even right down into the basement, surprisingly free of odour. There is something irresistible about the slow, rhythmic, almost sexual, movement and hissing of these great engines that has a lasting schoolboy appeal. It looks so powerful that if one were to shove a tree trunk in the gears and stop it, the World would probably spin off its axis.

Three sheets to the wind.

Popped over to my Dad’s this week. He had cooked an excellent curry and Annie, his wife and I saw off a bottle of Dolcetta picked up recently in Comboland. As it was a lovely evening I took the 1948 Land Rover minus roof. Always a thrill to drive. It’s so dangerous, lacking seat belts and with doors that fly open round bends. Leaving their house in Pitsford at around midnight I felt it might be prudent to take the back roads home, via the lovely villages of Tur Langton, Carlton Curlieu and Burton Overy. There is no thrill quite like driving a sixty year old Land Rover on a moonless night down narrow country lanes. Pathetic lights, appalling handling, freezing cold and wishing I had worn more layers. I took the picture on my phone, having left the Canon at home, but it represents about the right view. The gloom pierced by a mixture of original ‘Butler’ headlights, as fitted to tractors of the day and a Lucas spotlight from the fifties. Motoring does not get better than this.

Let’s Off Road!

An opportunity to write a report on Bures Pit Off Road site for 4x4 Magazine heralded a baptism of fire for the Jeep this month. As it’s still not registered so I trailered it down to near Colchester behind the Land Rover. I borrowed Matt’s ex Gas Board Box Trailer, into which the Jeep just about fits. Heaving the trailer around in his workshop nearly brought on the long overdue heart attack. The toll of a the previous week spent in Comboland nearly proved fatal as the pulse quickened and the beads of cold sweat gathered on my brow. A half hour sit down in a darkened room sorted me out and the following day at the site was a great pleasure. The brakes packed up after a few applications, but who needs them anyway. So. The Jeep now has 12 miles on the clock. 4 from its visit to the MOT station and 8 done in the Pit. Great fun.

Dad’s Army

Operation Market Garden. A warm sunny day and a lot of people dressed up in forties costume. All rather nice and jolly English. These WW2 re-enactments are growing in popularity. Presumably because it’s the last thing this country of ours did well, with the exception of the 1966 World Cup, of course. Diplo is correct in that there were many Jeeps to keep me amused and a few Tanks, two of which were offering rides for a very reasonable £7 and Jo was kind enough to treat both of us, giving us the opportunity to do something we had never done before. Ride in a Tank. Great fun and clearly designed before the days of Health and Safety. More like Danger & Excitement.

The actual battle was great fun and reinforced the fact that your average WW2 soldier was 19 ish, not mid fifties and carrying a healthy girth! Luckily there were no heart attacks on the Sunday. Sadly we could not drive there in the Jeep. Still not registered, but we did take the 1948 Land Rover. Open air motoring at its best.

Three little letters.

M, O and T. we tend to forget it stands for Ministry of Transport and the final word ‘test’ is missing from the abbreviation. It just gets shortened to ‘M.O.T.’d, or not M.O.T.’d.
Delighted to say that the Jeep, as of yesterday, is M.O.T.’d!! Matt drove it over the hills and down the valley’s to the local testing station, screen off. (That negates the need for wipers and washers at a stroke). With the whole process now being linked by computer to Gordon Browns spies, there is a set time allowed for the test, be your car a complex supercar , or this, the humblest of vehicles. The tester has a real job stringing out the job to fill the time. Fortunately these tests are still carried out my humans and Derbyshire blokes have a sense of humour and a realistic approach to the situation.
With the Jeep now finished, the next job is for me to register it for use on the road. A process I am a little daunted by, as it will involve dealing with beaurocracy. Something the middle aged, self employed are not too good at in general. I’ll keep you posted as despair and frustration take on disproportionate aggression.
As you will have noticed the Jeep is a replica of those used my the Long Range Desert Group and the S.A.S. in North Africa during the War. This is significant. More later!

Twin Heaps.

Like something from a David Lynch film, I stumbled upon this long gone car dealership in the South Derbyshire town of Church Gresley this week. A mixed array of 10 grotty seventies cars lined up in a welded steel cage and covered in a thin film of dust caught my eye as I drove past. Closer inspection and a look through the window revealed a 2002 calendar on the wall and a pile of paperwork. The signs of desperation on top of the cars further fuelled the mystery and I regret to say, I have no answers. Maybe the owner went bust in huge and dramatic circumstances and the legal battles persist to this day, or maybe he died a bitter and twisted man. Only car worth a cent was a 1971 Beetle, but never worth £2500 ‘bought with all faults’, even in 2002.