The Sunday morning window had been wide open from about a week before. No surprise that a really early one would be in order. So, its easy to prepare the standard pre Blat stages when the forecast gives plenty of notice and you do actually trust it:
1) Go easy on the booze during Saturday evening.
2) Go for the least indigestion generating meal choice.
3) Find the appropriate BlatWear (an exclusive range of mismatched clothing and footwear that is acceptable only for the duration of the blat , worn outside of that and ridicule and sartorial abuse is very likely) .
4) Earlier than usual night. (Impossible! What? With the prospect of a perfect dry, cool, empty road and a morning of BlatJizz a few hours away? No chance.
Don't you love a predictable summer high that sits right over the country giving us a dose of what we should all expect at this time of year? Someone nail that jet stream right where it is and let us pale Brits fry for a bit in our own factor 50. We're currently 'all a marvel' at dry roads and dust, that evolutionary cousin of the more familiar: mud, give us more of the an Azores High Pressure system that we remember from sunny summer school days. Just 'cos we're older doesn't mean we don't still want to play rounders or maybe kiss chase that seem to have been part of our youthful summers with sunshine! Or is that just how I remember it? Years of subsequent bad summers is my excuse for not having had my full share of those innocent pursuits. Any attempt at kiss chase these days would have most of us on a register pretty damn fast....certainly faster than the actual speed of the supposed chase.
So, yeah... 4.30 alarm call and out by 5 am, seems reasonable. Right up to the point where a text from a fellow Sunriser comes in at a sweating 3.30 to say 'I'm already up'! Thanks for that. Andy M was on duty with the boy, who is nocturnal, and was keen to share the fact. It might have been acceptable if he was due to join us an hour and a half later...he wasn't. So that's just mean isn't it? Or is that just 'sharing' in the modern way?
Beautiful morning and the roads were mostly empty... to start with. What do these people do on a Sunday morning? I mean at 5.30, 6, 6.30? It's Sunday morning fer'crine out loud, any one else remember 'lie in's'? You know, maybe when you weren't playing kiss chase!?
Head north we'd decided, avoiding the Goodwood Festival of Speed traffic, and early enough to tick off some of the local favourite roads (shh.... you know who you are) and then on a bit of a mystery tour as 'Tom' led the route. So good they named the device twice. The shared itinery across a set of Tom Toms however, was clearly less good, we had two alternative versions running from the same file, interesting. Hand signals and shouting at 60mph upwards don't for easy blaming make. Maybe the trick is to remember to name the file twice next time. All a mystery.
We had a Westfield 7 out with us, with a windscreen and doors on. Not very 'Sunrise' is it? ;-) Anton also had a flask of tea with him, you know, the thermos glass type , wonder if it'll make it to the end of the blat. Anyone else remember the tell tale 'shake of bits' in the flask on the family outing? Nice to have Anton back, an old Sunrise X-flow'er out for an early morning reminder after a few years abstinence. Hope he gets a chance to drink his tea having presumably got up even earlier than necessary to make it!
So, north it was, heading for the downland between Newbury and Wantage : nice views to compliment the wide blue skies and all that.
You get that right?
Still, nice blue sky.
Qwaig now picks up his take on the morning:
So, for the first time in what feels like ages, I saw the Sunrise in the car, allbeit on the way to the RZ, rather then hard on the run, but hey, a sunrise is a sunrise, no?
With the day bubbling up, we set off from base with a sortie planned as an hour or two's fun, followed by breakfast a Popham airfield and, I have to say 'planned' 'cos for the second week on the trot, mechanical failure struck!
With the day bubbling up, we set off from base with a sortie planned as an hour or two's fun, followed by breakfast a Popham airfield and, I have to say 'planned' 'cos for the second week on the trot, mechanical failure struck!
After a fantastic run down some unplanned roads (TomTom making it up as it went along) I braked to a halt, somewhat quicker than expected for a pee break with the just a small lock up from the fronts....sorry about that Ian - but blame Steve's lack of discernible brake-lights ...anyway, I could not get the car started again, and each time I pressed the go button a big fuse blew....I reckon the electrics are a bastard child of a French and Italian wiring assignation...
Encouraging the rest of the squad away to the breakfast stop, I waited around for an hour....and from the mechanical school of hammers and gaffer tape, I went at the wires with Tasmanian Devil ferocity...jiggle here, pull there...and... bingo got the car started, switched it off, and it started again. So,as I'm on hold with the RAC (common occurrence at the moment) to cancel the call out, the big orange van came around the corner....bugger...sorry mate etc etc. So, I head off home, with the hope that I can get back again without incident and in time to see the family. 45 miles dispatched in short order and I turn up at home with the family asking where was the low loader...thanks...back to start the car to put it in the garage and, zip... it wouldn't start.....aarrrgghhhhhhh!!
Pulled the started button out and hot wired it. Bingo! Narrowed down to starter button (I thought 'savage' switches where meant to be quality)...so tape, some bending and some plier work, and the car appears (though this could be an illusion) fixed :-)
I need a week's break or two to regain trust in my Japanese, French and Italian mongrel cross breed of a car.
Craig FSo, you see, Anton had plenty of time to have tea from the flask. Whilst Qwaig sorted through a selection of fuses and wires to restore noise to the silence, Anton drank tea.
Whilst Ian made electrical and knowledgeable comments , Anton drank tea.
Whilst I took a cruise for photographic vantage points (wee stops) ...
... Anton had more tea.
The flask was not broken.
Qwaig's car was. But the sky was still blue.
So we left Qwaig by the roadside at a junction called 'Blowing Stone'. We had faith in the RAC finding the stranded Scotsman up to his elbows in wires. No we didn't, but we were hungry.
Breakfast : at a 'fly in' day at Popham Airfield near Basingstoke. Still early, 9.30 , but it seems that a Cheese Burger is actually a breakfast for members of the Popular Flying Association. We weren't tempted to join them: traditional fare only for us in the rapidly rising temperatures now that we were stationary (2nd time during the morning's outing).
Anton had even more tea, and got hot.
And so endeth the blat. For which we are very grateful (not to be stuck in Oxfordshire's 'Blowing Stone' junction) and for what defines the Sunriser blat: cool but rising temperatures, empty roads and empty blue skies.
There's lots to do at the wheel of a 7even at pace, but somehow it clears the mind for a bit. So, despite the mileage, blatant use of valuable fossil fuel and artery abusive breakfasts: I've decided its good for you. Just not sure Qwaig would concur at this phase of his car's development :-)
~7777~
No comments:
Post a Comment