Speedier Ferret

As a reward for spending the Easter weekend decorating, we treated ourselves by using our Christmas presents at the Jaguar Heritage Driving experience up in Warwickshire just after the Bank Holiday.

As it’s a little way to travel we went up on Thursday after work and spent a night at Mallory Court again. The journey took a bit longer than expected, so less relaxation time when we got there, which was a great pity as we found we’d been upgraded to a room two levels above the one we’d booked in the main house. The Snowhill room was the size of the footprint of our house, I jest not, and could have been comfortably converted into a one bedroom flat! As well as the bed and built in wardrobe it had a sofa with coffee table, an upholstered bench, two easy chairs with their own table, a third lounge chair, an armoire containing the AV kit and 'fridge, then the dressing table and chair - I'm not sure we own that much furniture! The easy chairs were in the bay window overlooking the kitchen garden and we could have happily spent the evening there imbibing the complementary bevvies and nibbles and watching the LBJs fly round the parterre.

It was such a gorgeous evening that it really was a shame that we’d arrived too late to fit in a stroll around the gardens before dinner, but we had eating to do and although it’s lost its Michelin star since our last visit (the chef has moved) we couldn’t discern any difference in the food; it was excellent and I think the cheese selection was even better than last time. Breakfast was lovely too – I always look forward to the homemade yoghurts that we get at the hotels in the Eden Group, yes, I am that sad.

Then off on the half hour drive to Jaguar’s new testing facility at Fen End, a former RAF base recently purchased from Prodrive - although I believe that the site has historical links to Jaguar. Apparently, Norman Dewiss went round after JLR bought the site last year and said he thought the surface was the same that he drove on 50 years ago so, as one of the instructors said, we would be driving period vehicles on a period surface. Not a scary thought at all… To complete the experience last year Jaguar also bought Dr James Hull’s complete collection of five hundred and odd British cars for approximately £100 million and decided to let members of the general public with more money than sense (i.e. me) drive them. To be fair, I think the cost is pretty reasonable given the hardware you’re using and compares favourably with the track driving we’ve done at Castle Combe. The site itself is very interesting and is home to the JLR Special Operations unit (I think someone got carried away with the James Bond associations there) - we drove past camouflaged testing vehicles on the way to the track and of course, from the look of the carpark, it seemed like everyone else had a much more interesting car than us! From the number of F-Types that drew up we were beginning to wonder if JLR had started to give this out as a freebie to anyone who bought a new one.

I’d bought Jon a passenger ride in an XK150 an hour before my session so it gave us an excuse to arrive early. The reception is in a temporary building whilst they get planning permission for a permanent structure, but it’s a brilliant plate-glass structure in itself. It houses the obligatory merchandising, free refreshments and the 'Jaguar Perfect Ten' as selected by Lord March, Ian Callum and Brian Johnson (that’s the rock star not the cricket commentator) – I tried not to leave drool marks on the XK13... So, plenty to look at as you wait for your session and that’s only inside the building. Outside there are the cars being used for the track sessions and seeing that those include C-, D- and E-Types, an XKSS plus current models, as well as historic cars being used to shuttle instructors around the site, it was difficult to know what to look at first!

Everyone gets a safety briefing then it’s out on track. The XK150 was very cute in British Racing Green and Jon enjoyed his chauffeur-driven laps talking about cars. Then it was my turn. Jon had bought me the D-Type driving experience (which includes the F-Type R as well ‘cos all the driving experiences seem to have to end with an F-Type – never miss a selling opportunity!). I love D- (and C) Types, to me they are just the most beautiful cars ever made and their racing pedigree is the icing on the cake. I never thought I’d touch one or sit in one, let alone drive one, so I think I did pretty well not to run across the tarmac screaming ‘aaaaaaaahhhhhhh, it’s MINE’ when my time came. I held it all together quite well I thought.

There was none of this being driven round the track first by the expert malarkey, oh no, it was straight into the driver’s seat; which was probably a good thing as the passenger side had no door. We’d been told that getting into the D-Type was a bit of an art and, even with a door on the driver’s side, I had to stand on the seat before shimmying down into the cockpit (very glad it was a nice dry day!). Of course the seats don’t move so a cushion was found to push me forward a bit but I was still pretty much horizontal to reach the clutch pedal.

Given the calibre of the instructors I think Jaguar should make more of them on their website but, on the other hand, had I known that my instructor Rob Newall was a Monaco Historic and Le Mans Classic race winner I may not have got into the car! He was lovely and very reassuring. There was a full race harness, but no crash helmet, just headphones so that I could hear Rob’s instructions as we went round the track.

I’ve read some motoring journos on the review day referring to the D-Type as having a ‘difficult’ clutch but perhaps they had a different car to me because it was no more difficult to use than the Spridget’s – no double de clutching needed, just press the pedal all the way and don’t rush the gears, and if you can’t get into a gear just go back to the one you were in and have another go. The only difficult thing was that the gear lever is virtually horizontal, like a handbrake lever, so it was easy to forget what gear you were in (well, that’s my excuse anyway; that and the pheasant watching me from trackside just after Lorry Corner put me off). Start it up, pop it into first and pull away – yes! I didn’t stall!

It was pretty exhilarating bounding along the concrete track – proper wind in your hair and flies in the teeth stuff. After a couple of laps I was getting the hang of the gears and was, according to Rob, taking ‘Stirling Moss lines’ through the chicane at the end of the long straight - I think that meant I was flattening it off. The overtaking was fun and I did manage to get a (VERY unintentional) power over-steer coming out of the last corner, which was mainly down to enthusiasm and a touch of overconfidence (but it still felt good! :0) ). Jon was convinced that I was going faster than the other people he’d seen out on track but the needle was a bit bouncy, plus I didn’t want to take my eyes off the track, so it was difficult to tell what speed I was doing - but it was bouncing between 80 and 100 mph down the long straight at one point. I wasn’t being told to slow down (just the opposite!) and I was meeting all the braking points so I think Rob kept us well within the car and driver’s capabilities. Towards the end of the session when we were haring down the straight it was a nice touch for him to tell me to take the chance to look down the bonnet of the car, just enjoy being there and imagine what it would be like driving this at Le Mans in the 1950s. You don't get an opportunity to do this sort of thing very often so it's nice to take a moment to savour it. There was no-one else due to drive in that session so I think I may have been given a couple of extra laps, but I was possibly ready to come in when we finally came off track – despite being easy to drive it's still a heavy old car with no power steering and needed more weight on the pedals than we're used to these days - although I’d have been ready to charge back out again after a quick de-brief!

Without getting soppy about it, it's such a brilliant idea of JLRs to buy these iconic cars and let us drive them. It was a fantastic experience and well worth doing for anyone with an interest in classic cars. Every time I come off a track I think, ‘I wouldn’t mind having a go at this classic racing game’ but, luckily, I don’t have the finances! And I’m under no illusion that going round a track with 20 other lunatics is very different to going round on your own with an instructor. Still, I can dream… The D-Type’s bodywork is quite soft and it may take a while to tap out the dents my fingertips made as they tried to drag me out of the car. I’m not sure that saline is terribly good for the paintwork either…

Into the F-Type R coupe next. Very nice to look at but I was a bit nervous ‘cos I’ve very rarely driven an automatic. The first impression was that it all seemed a bit overcrowded, it felt like these expensive cars are becoming a bit like an aeroplane cockpit with the number of buttons, switches and dials - but it was nice to be able to adjust the seat to get closer to the pedals! A press of the big gold button to start (no silly start up phrases here) and it did sound good. I got used to not changing gear quite quickly but it did take a bit of nerve to put my foot down and find out just how much acceleration it had - and it really did have quite a lot! It sounded brilliant with the exhaust crackling away down the back straight. Hopefully I didn't break it when I found the bump on the exit of the last corner that I'd managed to avoid on all my laps in the D-Type, after that I had to make it hit the rev limiter before it would change gear - which made it sound even better! The new instructor seemed to think that some of my lines round the track were good and said 'Oh, have you done much circuit driving then?' - I didn't confess that I'd been listening very attentively to Rob as he'd been pointing out apexes on my previous run!

But I have to say that driving the F-Type immediately after the D-Type just made the word 'unengaging' spring to mind. It was a lovely car (the coupe looks SO much better than the soft top) and it felt like you could get it a bit wrong and throw it into a corner and still have a pretty good chance of coming out safely at the other side. The power was very impressive, especially for someone whose normal drive is a 15 year old 1.6 small family hatchback. But it just didn't compare to the older kit and just left me feeling a bit, well, 'meh'. Perhaps it was not having to change gear that left me feeling uninvolved, but I won't be putting it on my Christmas present list. I did like the way that, when you switched the engine off, the steering wheel moved out of the way to make it easier for you to get out and all the pop-up air vents decended gracefully into the dashboard!

We hung around for nearly an hour after my last session, savouring the atmosphere and the coffee in reception and wandering around the exhibits again - in fact we had to wait a while because after a morning of glorious sunshine it suddenly started hammering down and as we'd left our brollies in the car we didn't want to get soaked. We'd been very lucky with the weather and felt sorry for all of those turning up to do their laps in the wet.

Then off for a drive home that was a lot less interesting. And, yes, I have put a D-Type on my birthday present list!

These are a couple of nice articles done after the launch of the experience days at the back end of last year:

http://www.xclusively-jaguar.co.uk/xclusively-jaguar-news/view/400-jaguar-heritage-drive-day

http://www.historicracer.com/editors-diary/jaguar-heritage-driving-experience-goes-live/

Arrivederci Roma

We're recently back from a week in the 'Eternal City' having finally managed to go away with the company that we've been trying to go to Syria with for the last year. After looking forward to a trip for so long we were a bit worried that we might be disappointed but we had a fantastic time. Our guide, Oliver, is a proper working archaeologist and was brilliant - knowledgeable, approachable, flexible.

We thought that the Ferret Holiday Curse had struck again because, as well as the Italian economy being f**ked, it snowed in Rome for the first time in over twenty years the week before we arrived! They even closed the Colosseum to visitors on health and safety grounds (yes, who knew that they have health and safety on the continent?). I'm not sure that this picture actually shows just how cold it was at 9am!

We took our own flights from Brizzle 'cos we couldn't be bothered trying to get to Gatwick - life's too short. Luckily, our flight arrived only 20 mins after the main group's did and we spotted them in the arrivals hall which meant that we were able to get a lift in the coach rather than having to find our own way to the hotel - admittedly that wouldn't have been difficult, but it was nice to meet Oliver and the rest of the group early on.

The hotel, Pace Helvezia, was really handy for the Forum and lots of other sites. We liked it but there is some criticism on Trip Advisor of its small bedrooms. Ours was at the back of the hotel, so reasonably quiet for a room in the middle of a busy city, the bedroom size was fine and the bathroom was huge. The public areas did need some updating and the bar was never open, but there are lots of other places to go, who wants to spend the evening in their hotel in Rome? The roof terrace was wonderful and I spent a very happy morning on our 'day off' reading in the sun whilst Jon hired a scooter (yes, he did, and survived!).

We had some lovely dinners, although we had to get used to all our meat arriving looking like it'd been run over, as the Romans seemed to flatten all meat for some reason. Oh, and you've got to order your veggies as a side dish. We tried Le Lanterne just over the road from the hotel and I had a fantastic minestrone at La Taverna dei Monti which was bursting with absolutely fresh vegetables and must have been at least 3 of my '5 a day'! We also liked The Glass bar and restaurant just off Piazza Venezia. But we found the drinks everywhere to be really expensive at 5+ Euros for very uninteresting lagers. We finally found the Theatre Café Bar just up the road from our hotel on the roundabout where Via 4 Novembre, Largo Magnanpolis and Via Nazionale meet. The interior has large mirrors with 'Only Bass' on, but sadly no Bass on tap, but they did have Affligem and Erdinger which were cheaper and had more flavour than the gassy local beers. The food was great too - and came with vegetables! We get a bit enthusiastic (greedy) and ordered a starter of antipasti for me and a soup for Jon (which was a proper rustic job, thickened with bread). Then I had a lovely Gateau di Patate which came with a salad and more tiny mozzarella balls than you could shake a stick at and Jon had saltimbocca with lots of roasted peppers and courgettes - which we could hardly finish.

We loved Rome - it was far less intimidating than Naples. In Naples there were streets that I definitely wouldn't have wanted to walk down without being accompanied by someone who knew it was safe, but we didn't find anywhere like that in Rome. All our preconceptions of the traffic, the car horns blaring, etc were completely over-turned, but it may have been because of the time of year we were there as other people have said it's very manic in summer. It did feel rather provincial though; no big theatre district like in London, no fancy cars. On the car front, we saw more Porsches parked in Chippenham town centre at 10.30 on a very quiet Sunday morning when we got home than we'd seen all week in Rome (i.e. two). The locals seemed to go in for large-ish family/executive saloons, especially BMWs and Merc C and E Classes - but no CLS. They often seemed to have a driver which I suppose means that the chauffeured were politicians of some sort (Rome is home to the provincial as well as national government, plus UN buildings, EU offices, etc). We saw a couple of Jag XFs but no larger Jags, Ferraris, Astons or Bentleys, like we usually see on a walk down Piccadilly in London (to be honest, like I see on my commute to work in Bath on a good morning). But, what we did see were 4 Maserati Quattroportes - or possibly just the same two, as they were all police Massers (note the blue lights on this one - there's a second photo in the album on the right) and seemed to be used to carry the more important politicians around. Jealous? Pah!

Day one
Saw us start close to the hotel with Trajan's column (there's a cast of it in the V&A in London if you can't make it to Rome) which was erected in 113AD and tells the story of his victory against the Dacians and the Imperial Forum. Crikey, it was cold! And there was still snow around but the sky was crystal clear and it was beautiful. Down the road we could see the Colosseum - honestly, you can't turn a corner without tripping over archaeology - but we were going across the road to the Forum Romana which is a fascinating jumble of political and religious buildings and monuments. Like the Arch of Titus, pictured here, which commemorates the sack of Jerusalem and depicts Roman soldiers carrying away the menorah and other sacred relics from the Temple. Then up to the Palatine Hill where Rome's elite built their palaces and on which was discovered a hut that

formed part of the earliest Bronze Age settlement. After lunch we headed to the Colosseum but, can you believe it, it was closed for two days whilst they did some assessments after the previous week's bad weather. Our tickets would still be valid later in the week, so instead we went to San Clemente. This is a lovely church run by the Irish Dominicans which contains some exquisite 12th century mosaics. BUT go downstairs and there is the 4th century church with frescos from the 4th-11th centuries. BUT below that are Roman buildings, some with foundations which pre-date the fire of Nero (64AD), the temple of Mithras and 6th century catacombs. These are about 9m below the street level and include drains and springs but Oliver said that in some areas the Roman remains go as deep as 35m. Absolutely fascinating and well worth a visit.

Day Two
We headed out of the city to Hadrian's villa at Tivoli. It was much colder (as this gentleman illustrates) with more snow on the ground and some pools actually had over an inch of ice on them! After lunch we had intended to visit the Villa d'Este (which I was really looking forward to) but unfortunately, as some of the paths are rather precipitous, it was closed due to the ice and snow. So we came back into the city and went to the Capitoline Museum.

As well as holding treasures that you'll have seen thousands of times in reproduction (like this massive statue of Constantine II), it also has a splendid view over the Forum - which was almost empty at that time of the early evening. And, like everywhere else in Rome, it has bits of ancient architecture sticking out occasionally.

Day Three
Was a walk through the Field of Mars, the Stadium of Domitian (now Piazza Navona - the buildings are where the seating would have been but the Piazza preserves the shape of the Stadium), past the column of Marcus Aurelius to the Pantheon. This visit to the Pantheon was what I was most looking forward to and after studying it and seeing pictures and plans for so long I've got to admit that I was a little over-come at standing inside it at last. It is awe-inspiring that it's still the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world despite being built in 128AD and that the world saw nothing that even came close to it until Brunelleschi got his hands on Florence cathedral in the 1400s. With all works of art and architecture no reproduction in a book does justice to the actual thing itself: the portico is so much deeper than I imagined; the doors and portico roof are the same that were put there almost 2000 years ago; the brightness of the marble interior. One of the few ancient structures to have actually been protected by Christianity rather than destroyed by it.

Then on to the Ara Pacis and the Tomb of Augustus and finishing up at the Trevi Fountain.

Day Four
I spent the morning on the roof terrace reading whilst Jon took a scooter out - yes, that's him heading out into the Roman traffic. He actually went out beyond the city walls to do some exploring and found a quiet little café (espressos were a lot cheaper than inside the walls!). In the afternoon we made our postponed trip to the Colosseum. We got to the front of the queue with our group and found the turnstiles being erratically 'controlled' by this laptop - the password is on the post-it note sellotaped to the keyboard! Just after our group got through it seemed to give up altogether and the turnstiles jammed; there were a lot of disgruntled people in the queue!

After seeing the ice on some of the closed areas I'm not surprised that it was closed for a few days.

Day Five
Was coming home day and there was a trip to Ostia booked in on the way to the airport. The rest of the group had an entire day there but our flights were a little earlier than theirs so we had to leave about 2pm. Very kindly Oliver got the coach to take us rather than us having to get a cab. On the way to Ostia we stopped off at the fascinating but freezing Museo della Civilta Romana in EUR. Yes, it really was built without heating! The wardens were all wearing winter coats and gloves inside and kept nipping to the hot drink vending machines!. Everything here is a copy or a model but it's all great. The architecture in EUR is modernist and I loved it, although it does give you mixed feelings admiring something planned and begun by the fascists, but it was finished by Giovanni Agnelli so I guess that makes it OK!

Ostia began life as Rome's port and the most wonderful town now survives with some houses/shops extant up to three stories high. You enter the site down the Avenue of Tombs which leads to the theatre. Part way along I asked Oliver whether the bits of broken pot and tile that we were walking over were actually Roman and passed him a larger bit that I'd just found; he confirmed that it was, indeed, a sherd of 1st century Roman pot which led to everyone walking with their eyes fixed to the ground for the next few minutes! But the architecture was so good that you couldn't look down for long. After Oliver had demonstrated the acoustics in the theatre we looked round the market you can see behind it in the photo, where the shipping merchants had their shops - with mosaics on the floor outside to show the wares they imported (see the photos in the album link on the right). I couldn't really believe that these mosaics were still in the open, unprotected from the elements, it's great.

We saw a bar with a beer garden however, as it was over 1800 years old, unfortunately it was closed. But the highlight of my day (and up there with the Pantheon as experience of the week for me) came just before lunch when we reached the forum and, just along from it was a bath house and opposite that... using the water from the baths for flushing... was a public latrine. Look at it! It even had marble seats! Admittedly a bit chilly in winter and up on Hadrian's Wall you'd definitely rather risk a splinter from a wooden loo seat, but I bet it was nice and cooling in summer or if you'd eaten a dodgy botulus! It even had a marble sink. Oooo, the perfect way to end our holiday! If you've been watching Mary Beard's BBC2 series you'll have seen her sitting on the very same loo.

Basically, we loved Rome and can't wait to go back. In the meantime, I brought back a more authentic carbonara recipe than the one I put on here a couple of years ago:

6oz pasta
2 egg yolks
4oz chopped pancetta or streaky bacon
3 tablespoons cheese (parmesan, pecorino or paduano)
lots of black pepper
Cook the pasta and drain. In the pan fry the bacon in butter. When it's cooked add the pasta to the pan and stir to re-heat. Beat the cheese, pepper and eggs together. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the egg/cheese mix. Serve.

Castle Combe Rally Day and Dyrham Park

We braved the rain in September to visit the annual Rally Day at Castle Combe with Dad. Lots of the usual suspects were there: Tony Mason doing the interviewing, Gwyndaf Evans, Russell Brookes but also this year we saw Harri Rovenpera, Kris Meeke and Matthew Wilson.

In October, to celebrate the centenary of Bristol Motor Club, they recreated the hillclimb up the drive at Dyrham Park just outside the Bath. I don't think the National Trust, who own Dyrham, were expecting quite the level of interest that a sunny Sunday of vintage cars would generate and their traffic management left a little to be desired. But, once in the Park, we had a fantastic time and saw some truly wonderful machines.

Photos of both are in the album on the right - I've not had the chance to edit or label them all yet, so there may be some of tiny dots in the distance but they are cars, honestly!

Vous êtes ici

We're recently back from our second trip to France this year. We spent the week in Le Mans because, after driving through the city on our way to the Circuit de la Sarthe for the 24 hours race a few times, we decided that we'd rather like to see what it looked like. And we can report that it is gorgeous!

We stayed in the Ibis Centre which was very handy for the old town and the tram. As hotel breakfasts are extortionate, we ate instead in various little cafes (for the bargain-hunters amongst you, we noticed that the Brioche Doree (Rue des Minimes, just off Rue de la Port) had a good breakfast offer - which we didn't try). The restaurants in the old town are a bit more pricey than those off the Place de la Republique - there are some nice little brasseries and pizza places around Republique - but I think that some of the best meals we had were in the old town. Some restaurants we tried were: La Chamade on Rue Doree; Les Trois Sonnettes on Rue des 3 Sonnettes; Le Nez Rouge on Grande Rue (brilliant but you may have to book). We did also have a great pizza in the Le Mans Legend cafe on Rue de la Port amongst all sorts of race memorabilia - well you've got to haven't you?!

Day one was spent in the cathedral and wandering around the old town and looking at the amazingly intact Roman walls. There's a lovely market in the square below the cathedral on Sunday, Wednesday and Friday mornings so we popped down and got ourselves some fruit. We also picked up a Le Mans City Pass for 10€ from the Tourist Information Office. This gives free entry into one of the museums plus a 24 hour public transport ticket and half price entry into lots of other museums and attractions. We decided to use our free entry to go to the museum of the 24 hour race out at the circuit 'cos it's the most expensive to get into and would also take us on a tram and a bus so we could use our public transport voucher too.

So, day two was spent at the Circuit de la Sarthe. The tram will only take you so far on non-race days (it will actually take you to the back of the circuit, but there's no way to get round to the front from there if it's a non-race day and the circuit is closed). We then took a bus which dropped us about half a mile from the circuit and we toddled off in search of cars. On the way we passed a bar that we'd last been in about 10 years ago after the 24 hour race. Then it was packed with the drunk and tired of all nations and the only food it had left was croque. Damn fine croque as I recall - although I may just have been tired and hungry at that point! I've got to say that, on that occasion, the bar didn't look like somewhere you'd normally want to spend a lot of time but today, when it wasn't packed with tired and emotional race fans, it looked very nice.

We had lunch in the cute little cafe at the circuit museum - you can see some of the exhibits from the cafe too (look over Mr H's shoulder as he downs his lunchtime pression). The museum doesn't just have Le Mans winning cars but includes a 'history of motoring' section which has everything from the earliest steam-powered road vehicles (death-traps on wheels they seemed to me) right through to Minis. Then it was into all the iconic Le Mans cars: Bentley, Lagonda, Lotus, GT40, Audi, etc, with a little Porsche exhibition to end. The tourist pass gives half-price entry to the circuit on non-race days so, as we could hear the sound of engines coming from there (someone testing perhaps?) we decided to go and have a look. What we actually found were members of the ACO's 'Passion 24 Club' taking their cars round the Bugatti circuit on a track day. There were some fascinating cars waiting to go on track: some rare French things that even Mr H had only seen in books and not seen in real life. There were also a gratifying number of British makes: Lotus, Jag, Morgan, MG, Triumph, all French-owned with only a couple of English number plates amongst them. We had a great time; going up into the grandstands; watching from the pit-wall and sticking our heads out of the gaps that they push the pit-boards through on race days. It was worth so much more than the couple of euros each that we'd paid to get in!

Then, as we were coming away from the pits, who should roll up but Vicki Butler-Henderson and a film crew to do a piece to camera before driving the new Ford Mustang round the circuit. Shown on Channel 5 on Friday 21st October 2011 and which I think you can catch online on C5's 'on demand' service. All that and I got to go on a tram as well! That's what I call a good day out.

Of course Le Mans has very strong claims on English sensibilities, and not just because of the 70,000 Brits who invade every June. Geoffrey of Anjou (Plantagenet) married Empress Matilda (daughter of and heir to Henry I of England) in Le Mans and his son Henry (who became Henry II of England) was baptised there. Following the death of Henry's son King Richard I (Cœur de Lion) his widow Berengaria retired to Le Mans. As an aside, Geoffrey of Anjou's mother was Eremburga of La Flèche - the town Chippenham is twinned with. Le Mans itself is twinned with Bolton. Yes, Bolton... What, in the name of all that is holy, possessed them to twin with Bolton? They'd obviously never visited it. However, the Bolton Food Cafe on Rue de Bolton did very nice breakfasts - no black pudding though...

As well as the amazing Roman walls by the river there is a Roman bath house (only open for orgainised visits on Tuesdays booked through the Tourist Information office so we didn't manage to get there) and remnants of Roman wall under the Plantagenet era stonework. The archaeological and history museum Carré Plantagenêt has a great view of the back of the Hotel de Ville and the surviving Plantagenet buildings incorporated into it. In one of the rooms in the museum that has Middle Ages period tombs (pictured above) there was a brilliant animation projected onto the blank walls telling the story of the Plantagenets. In French, of course, so I couldn't understand a bloody word but it was fantastic. We also visited the Musée de Tessé which is the city's fine arts museum. There are one or two little gems in there, but the absolutely bestest thing is that downstairs, as well as displaying all their Egyptian antiquities, they have full-sized reproductions of the tombs of queen Nefertari and an official called Sennefer! They were great and more museums should do things like that. I bet they're very popular for school trips 'cos the little buggers can wander through an almost real Egyptian tomb - something very few of them will ever get to experience.

The churches we visited were wonderful too. We don't get much Romanesque stuff in Britain so it's really nice to see Romanesque buildings when we go abroad. Although the stonework can seem heavy the light just poured in (mainly because most of the windows didn't have stained glass) and many of them didn't need additional electric lighting. Highlights were Notre Dame de la Couture and Notre Dame du Pre. Notre Dame du Pre was smaller but seemed more original, so it was an interesting contrast to the larger and more central Notre Dame de la Couture which seemed to have been 'mucked about with' (technical architectural term!) a bit more.

If you do make it to Le Mans we highly recommend the bar Flaceau. It's down a little street off the Grande Rue behind Le Nez Rouge. It's only open at night and you think that you're walking into someone's house - and you are, because they open it as a cocktail bar. The two rooms of the 'bar' are furnished in what for us would be Regency style, so I'm thinking 'Empire style' as it's in France? And there's a terrace which over-looks the remains of the Roman baths and the gardens people have planted within the ruins. It's utterly wonderful and we could have spent the entire week there.

So, in short, we had a brilliant time (despite thinking that someone had nicked my case on the Eurostar to Paris - ten minutes of panic that I hope never to experience again. And, if you're the complete a*sehole who moved my case and stuck it under a seat half a carriage away, I hope your arms rot and drop off. Not that I'm bitter at all...)

Summer Motorsport

In August we went to the 'CSMA Big Weekend', two days of racing which featured trucks, pickup trucks, Mini Se7ens, classic touring cars, single seaters and Mini Miglia. The results can be found here.As part of our CSMA club entry we got free goes on the karting track and the 4x4 'experience' like last year. As you can see, this year I drew the short straw and did the karting along with my Dad. Neither of us were terribly enthusiastic but at least it's one thing I can say I've tried and I never have to try it again! Dad was, of course, much quicker than me, but at least I wasn't last and I did actually overtake one person! The left foot braking was a doddle, but the steering was incredibly heavy and unresponsive. Once I did get the steering wheel to move the kart would turn on a sixpence without spinning but I didn't really have the energy to get it there - Dad and Jon both said the same, so it's not just weedy little me! It was also SO juddery and I couldn't put the power down smoothly. 15 minutes has never seemed so long! This year it was Jon's turn to do the 4x4 track that I did last year - much more fun!

The racing was good, with the Minis as brilliant as ever. We'd never seen truck racing before and it was definitely a spectacle - well, it was once the fumes had cleared at the start of the race!

We stayed at the Holiday Inn Stonehenge (recommended), which is on a mini service area just off the A303, and on the Sunday morning the carpark was filled with several million pounds worth of privately owned supercars on their way from London to Wilton House for a car show. Dad got quite a few photos and we Googled it when we were back home. It turned out that they were all PistonHeads' members taking their cars to a supercar charity day. No, we weren't jealous in the slightest...

Ah, the sounds of summer in the city: the gentle tinkle of glass on pavement...

The fashions hark back to the mid-1980s, there's a recession on which is accompanied by mass youth unemployment, there are riots on the streets of Toxteth, London and Birmingham sparked by police brutality - yes, the Tories must be back in power again...

But politics aside; we had one of our best days for ages yesterday at the Science Museum's 'Big Object Store' at Wroughton, on the site of the ex-WWII aerodrome just outside Swindon. WANHS had organised a behind the scenes tour of the store, archive and library as very little public access is allowed at the moment due to the deteriorating state of some of the aircraft hangars that are used to store the objects and financial constrains forcing them to abandon anything outside their core remit. 

It was absolutely stunning. First there are the WWII hangars which are brill. in themselves, but then to go in and find them stuffed with everything from lawn mowers to Polaris nuclear missiles (stuff that make bomb go bang been safely removed), taking in mark 1 hovercraft, trams, 18th century fire engines, a Dan-Air jet and just about anything you can think of in between. We went in 2 stores, a refurbished store (who'd have thought that an empty warehouse could be so interesting?!) before seeing the archives. The archive building included a very early Daimler with the Royal Carriage Collection - they were all housed in the archive because the conditions were better for them than in the hangars.

 I had an interview at the library in 2008 before I got this job and I'm now rather glad that I didn't get it 'cos I would never have done any work and would have been sacked! The archive includes coach builders' plans of their custom-built bodies for Daimlers, Bentleys, Maharajas' Rolls Royces, etc. They have Donald Campbell's photos and diaries, plans for the Conway and Britannia tubular bridges, Charles Rolls' photo albums of his early exploits driving motorcars and motor bicycles, Barnes Wallis's plans for the R100, the paintings of Egypt from Napoleon's Egypt expedition, and so much more. I could quite happily go up there everyday for the rest of my life and just look through the archive a drawer at a time! Honestly, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.

Almost as good was driving the length of the main runway to get there. Well worth a day off work. We had lunch at Barbary Inn, Broad Hinton. Beer was excellent and the food was a little slow but very nice.

Seeing the hovercraft, hearing about their Concorde and reading elsewhere about the final Space Shuttle flight made us rather sad. All of these innovative mid-20th century projects have now been de-commissioned - no hovercraft has taken you across the Channel for over a decade, no Concorde will fly you to New York in record time, no Shuttle will ever get the chance to take you to the moon for a holiday - it seems to show a lack of ambition and financial will in the governments of Europe and America to fund exciting projects. But perhaps I've just answered my own point. Perhaps it's an indication of innovation and development moving eastwards as Japan and China develop bullet trains, use hovercraft and American astronauts start hitching a lift with the Russians.

Vroom vroom

We've had some great motorsporty weekends recently: the bikes at Castle Combe a couple of weeks ago; Thruxton and then the Castle Combe Rally Day earlier today.

The CSMA Big Weekend at the Dunlop Great and British round at Thruxton on the August Bank Holiday weekend was great fun - well anything with a 'Jazz and Ale Tent' has got to be good hasn't it? With our tickets we got a 15 min karting session and a trip on the 4X4 track. We flipped for it and Jon got the Karting. The track was great with bridges, underpasses, etc and he had a great time. The 4x4 track was awesome - I thought I'd be terrified but it was brilliant. Note to self: I must buy myself a driving session at the Castle Combe version.

Today's Rally Day at Castle Combe was excellent and this time the weather was perfect. Tony Mason was doing the interviews as usual - and here he is interviewing Jari-Matti Latvala. What a glamorous life these rally stars have: last week 3rd in Rally Japan, this week Chippenham! Stig Blomqvist, Gwyndaf Evans, Guy Wilks and Russell Brookes were also in attendance.

Speaking of Mr Brookes; there was a parade of his cars which included one I'd last seen in about 1979 at a Wigan and District Motor Club show - I believe it was the Mark II Escort TWC 234R. As you can see it was fresh from a rally, and yes, that really is me inside. I seem to remember that his manager, who accompanied the car, got rather merry on the hospitality.

As if to prove that it really is a small world: another link to the Wigan and District Motor Club (of which my Dad, an amateur rally driver/navigator, was a member) was this car, a little black Nissan Micra, which - it turns out - belongs to a friend of a friend. Sadly, it didn't go home looking like this as they rolled it about 20 mins before the end of the day. Sorry, I didn't get a photo of it on its roof before the marshalls pushed it back over, but here it is on the trailer. After a really quite accident-free day everyone seemed to get a bit leery at the end and no sooner had they been allowed back on track than two others
spun off and halted the proceedings again. I wouldn't be surprised if the Castle Combe faithful had photos up on here soon. All my photos are, as usual, over in the photo album on the right - look in 'Motorsport Summer 2010'. There'll be a 1 hour programme on the Rally Day on Motors TV 22nd October at 21.15 - set your videos!

Inspiration

I've posted before about the excellent naming choices of some car and bike manufacturers for their new vehicles. Obviously, there's something about this name that signifies taste, elegance and modernity, unlike other names like... oh I don't know... I'll just pluck one out of the air... perhaps 'Jonathan'.

Well, here's another one - from Ford this time. Let's hope that it doesn't remain a 'concept' for too long as I don't think the British public should be denied a car with such an illustrious moniker.

Although, even I have to admit, that this name can't compete with Mazda's 'Bongo Friendee' (also sold as the Ford 'Freda'). But that risks tipping the post over into one about camper vans, so I should probably end it there!

Free at last...

Well, it's been 3 months since I left the college and I've got to say, it was the best decision I've ever made. The first couple of weeks were a bit traumatic, I hadn't realised how such a big change would affect me - foolishly I thought I'd walk out of my old job and feel wonderful straight away, and was then disappointed when I didn't! But I'm feeling great now and managing very well on the reduced budget. I love not being a manager, not having to make decisions, not having to enforce decisions made by others that I didn't agree with, not having to manage and timetable staff, not having to work evenings, not having to play politics and I've not missed libraries or education one bit.

I'm enjoying my new job. I'm not responsible for anything and it's great! Being paid to watch the Olympics was fun but I've not managed to get my hands on the silver 'we' won yet - I did get two mugs brought back for me from Bejing though!

I've especially enjoyed booking a holiday to Austria for the first week of what would have been the start of term, as well as booking a fortnight in Egypt for the middle of next January (2 weeks for what it would have cost us to go for 1 week during college holidays).

This blog is interspersed with just a few photos of very well-named vehicles we've noticed on our travels. The car is in the Haynes Motor Museum in Sparkford and the scooter was spotted in Spain a couple of years ago. Obviously motor companies know class when they see it...