Silvretta Rally another long story

[jimj]

Silvretta Klassic Rallye, sounds classy, I quite fancy that and my wife is a classy bird. Trouble is it`s one of those prestigious events that you just can`t get an entry for unless you know someone. Each year the entry list is hugely oversubscibed, this year the list included ex-professional racing drivers, the winner was a Dakar rally driver, there were a number of major manufacturer`s top designers and though there were only 2 Rolls Royces there were a lot of high rollers. There was one competitor who sold more refrigerators than anyone in the world. He was a fridge magnate. Luckily, we know someone who knows someone who knows someone who is one of the sponsors. We became members of Scuderia Zenn, our entry was welcomed and our Elan was treated like royalty. It really was most gratifying that amongst more gullwing Mercedes than you`d normally see in a lifetime, Bentleys by the handful, a 550 Spyder, a GT40, you name it, our little car caused quite a stir, rarely seen in Austria. In England when some elderly gentleman approaches with a "Lotus Elan eh?" he usually then drones a 10 minute monologue about some boring car he once nearly owned. Not so in Austria, when the owner of a BMW 507, a real enthusiast with a collection of cars each worth rather more than our house, wants to chat in perfect English about nothing other than what a wonderful car the Elan is, it`s most pleasing.
The people we know, who know someone who knows someone are Alan and Tina and Tina is quite a classy bird too. I`m sure neither will mind me mentioming that both Carole and Tina are of an age that, were they cars, they`d be considered "classic". In Germany and Austria what we`d called "classic" they`d call "oldtimers". Mmm !
So, we`re in, we`re off.....to glamorous Hull for the ferry. We always play the game that the last one to see the sea is a hot potato. Being perfectly normal, we played the same game approaching Austria; the last one to see a ski lift. Shamefully, Carole lost both times but having a wife who`s a hot potato is no bad thing. We normally get the Zeebrugge ferry but a bloke whose opinion I (used to) respect recommended the Rotterdam ferry. He must like lorries a great deal. Instead of clearing the port in 5 minutes into open countryside with pleasant villages adjascent we spent nearly 2 hours driving through an industrial estate hemmed in by lane swapping juggernauts. I would recommend that you avoid it like the Hague. The boat itself was a little smarter but no one staircase actually started where you were and went to where you wanted to be. It was called the Pride of Hull, more like The Disdain of Derbyshire. Signage was minimal and the interior layout was most confusing. Genuinely, I twice ended up at the children`s ball pool within half an hour trying to find breakfast. It`s like Hampton Court maze with the added frisson of a certain watery demise in the event of a nautical mishap. The only place you`d find would be Davy Jones`s locker.
I`d booked an overnight stay at a charming hotel in a place called Neuenahahar or something. I thought "that sounds like a laugh". It was lovely and we went for a romantic stroll by the river, Alan and I. We kept checking the weather forecast which wasn`t good. Alan has one of those Blackberrinet.pods so he`d log on to find out. It just seemed to be getting worse, then we discovered that the German word for "weather" is "wetter". The scenery was getting better and better as we headed on next day. We stuck to motorways to get some miles under our belt and arrive early each day at our destination. Plus Alan`s car was being trailered as it`s a bit of an old thing. Next night was Ulm which we could spell and pronounce. The lady in the Ulm tourist office had given me a rose tinted description of the town and the bit where we stayed was really nice. We walked into the old town by the river for dinner. More importantly, Alan has a large-car-park fetish for his car and trailer and we parked in a parking area only slightly smaller than Wales. Just 180 miles to go to the rally start in Partenen for scrutineering and documentation and our hotel in neighbouring Gaschurn, we were soon into Austria and the mountains, just fabulous. We travelled over the Silvretta pass in the Elan, marvellous, but Alan was turned back as trailers aren`t allowed. He arrived somewhat later.
Now I think that it`s important to, at least, attempt to speak the local language but my German is virtually non-existent. I`m more fluent in Martian and I have been known to talk boll***s. Nonetheless I always, politely, began any conversation with my usual " sprocket zoo England?". Judging by the surprise on people`s faces, I think my dialect must be excellent. Everyone but everyone spoke just perfect English and couldn`t be more helpful and friendly, officials and other competitors alike. We met up in the hotel with the other members of Scuderia Zenn who treated us with such warmth and kindness and Deiter Zenn helped us to get our bearings. I got on famously with his eccentric wife, Juanita who, we were told, is related to the Spanish royal family. She only spoke in German and Spanish and I only know 10 words of Spanish and 2 of those are Tequila and canteena. She laughed at what she hoped I`d said and I laughed at what I hope she replied. This was excellent and I heartily recommend this form of communication to all married couples. It both removes the tedium of having to listen and guarantees that the response is both appropriate and met with approval .
At last (I hear you say) the day of the rally dawned, glorious weather and much excitement. Large numbers had turned out to spectate and fabulous cars were scattered around the village jockeying to get their start number in the right order. This wasn`t helped as, stereotypically, there were a few big American cars with start numbers over 100 parked up where the first 20 were meant to be lining up. You know, Corvettes, Mustangs, the sort of thing that only people from Essex and Benn Beardshaw likes. PANIC...........I`d jokingly remarked that I must be getting paranoid about every unusual tiny noise being mechanical and that I even had this daft idea that the clutch pedal felt slightly different. Just to to be sure I checked the cluth fluid........PANIC, there was just the tiniest mini-nano-dropletette of fluid left in the master cylinder and the nearest garage was 20 kms away......PANIC.....The service crew had given away their last and it was PANIC. Then I spotted Heinz and Horsch from Scuderia Zenn about to become our new best friends, they had a can of brake fluid in the boot. I rolled up a bit of plastic, topped up and pumped the pedal while Carole got down and dirty looking for a leak which, thankfully, didn`t exist, how weird. I must have checked the level more times in 3 days than the largest number you can think of.....times 10. It was quite emotional passing the start line exactly on time at 51 minutes and 30 seconds after car number 1 to cheers and flags just as enthusiastic as an hour before. Carole DID shed a tear, another fluid leak. We actually did quite well on the first day ending in the top third despite being unfamiliar with Continental Regularities which are easy to understand but difficult to do. 424 penalty points at 1 per hundreth of a second represented 4 seconds over the day, not bad for beginners.We kept seeing Martin Smith in his Healey who introduced us to his mate Peter Birtwhistle. Every time I saw him I`d wink, click my tiongue and pat my bottom twice. I couldn`t understand why Peter looked so alarmed. It turned out he worked at Mazda, not Asda. We had a VERY exciting time control at the top of the Silvretta in the middle of the day. The GT40 with a time a few minutes ahead of us edged towards the contol and the engine burst into flames. I was a good 50 metres or more away but grabbed our extinguisher, pulling the pin as I ran and had the fire out in short order. The bloke and his wife had tumbled out of the car and he was trying to get back in to get his extinguisher but couldn`t for the flames, the perspex engine cover was just starting to melt but hadn`t caught, thank goodness. I didn`t die in a ball of flame heroically tackling a fire in a GT40 at the top of the Silvretta pass but it would have made a great last line on my CV. So, I`m now superhero; Captain Conflagration. It`s a bit disappointing that the owner hasn`t made it a priority to track me down and send a quick thankyou but I`ll settle for the hero worship.
Monsoon conditions at breakfast on the second day and Alan and Tina car is so old that roofs hadn`t been invented then. They were dressing in waterproofs as I put our roof up. They were wearing waterproof everything, Tina had her waterproof mascara and Alan wore his waterproof underpants, as usual. As I was erecting our waterproof, windproof, shockproof hood I took the "N" out of snug and put in an "M". In fact the sun came out within half an hour and the hood is still down now, 1000 miles later. As we turned in to Partenen at maybe 5 mph I thought something was awry, I kept touching the brakes at walking pace and could hear a slight clonk. Stopping at the side of the road we found the front left wheel spinner was loose, really wheel wobblingly loose. How lucky was that? In nearly 40,000 miles that`s never happened. The mountains were soon echoing to the taps of many hammers checking wheel spinners. We were rubbish that day, scoring 2400+ points dropping to 131st position. I went to see the orgainisers to see what huge mistake we`d made to accumulate the extra 2000 points, eager not to do it again. It wasn`t one huge mistake, it was 2000 small ones.
Day 3; blue skies, perfect weather and we`d lain awake all night sharpening pencils, polishing stop watches and Carole practising calling the time like a metronome. It paid off and we did quite well pullimg back quite a few positions. Mid afternoon and we were travelling briskly down a hill on a windy road just wide enough for 2 cars. There was a very varied variety of cars entered and behind us, not especially close, was an immaculate 1968 Toyota Landcruiser. He`s driving fast, I thought, in what was, basically, a pretty agricultural vehicle. As I slowed for an approaching car I looked in the mirror to see the Landcruiser brakes hard on, rear wheels locked. slewing sideways. It grew very large in the mirror as it rolled over and tumbled down the road towards us. "Excrement!" I expleted and almost expelled as I got back on the power and swerved around the oncoming Golf which they just missed tumbling off the side of the road down a bank into trees and ended the right way up. Superhero Captain Crashscene was first there to find not dismembered body parts but 2 VERY lucky blokes, shaking like leaves but totally unscathed. Carole was in tears and me and the bloke in the Golf had a hug. An ambulance was called by another competitor and we left very shaken. It was 20 kms or so to the next regularity and we had time to calm down and we did OK.We still ended in the bottom third or, as I like to call it, the top three quarters. We were quite satisfied and had driven some fabulous roads in breathtaking scenery and had, simply, a brilliant time in the best of company . We`d especially enjoyed Alan and Tina`s company.................until they were awarded a trophy at the prizegiving. I can`t remember what for, Alan did mention it, I seem to remember................a million times.
Time to go and we were sad to leave, Carole wanted to stay, I offered to leave her. We`d decided to do just 1 overnight getting the bulk of the journey over and finding some idyll on the banks of the Rhine. Alan`s insufferableness was forgiven when he found the perfect spot, a really nice quirky small hotel in a small village right by the river. We went for a stroll late afternoon and found locals getting smashed on local wine at an open air bar made of half a huge barrel so joined in. When I say quirky hotel I really mean weird but in a nice way. They had a homemade light fitting made out od old bottles and the cables to the chandeliers were surface tacked to elaborate carved oak panels. Clearly, the person who had rewired the place didn`t speak electricity. You could imagine it was the sort of place that annually made a year`s supply of pate on the second Sunday in July, out of the guests staying that night. Onwards towards Europort, dodging pantechnicons and 2 hours of speaking disrespectfully about Terry. The Elan was 44 years old that day and we passed the 40,000 mile mark since we bought the car 7 years ago. A respectable amount given that we hardly ever use it apart from on special car events. OK it`s had 7 new heads and 8 new handles. I reflected that you prepare your car as well as you can for these trips and set off confidently but mindful that a 44 year old component which appears fine could unexpectedly fail, and probably will at some point. Yet, in the 1960s, to set off for Austria would have been quite an adventure even in a new car with every expectation of some mechanical woe along the way.
On the ferry we had a drink or two, a nice meal and drank a toast to Terry. Actually, we didn`t. We did risk ?10 each, uncharacteristically, on the roulette. Carole and Tina lost their`s in nanoseconds, mine lasted 2 minutes and Alan backed his uncle`s advice; red 27, won twice and pocketed ?65.
Home the next day and but for the loose wheel spinner the car had run perfectly, we`d done 1807 miles, used 1 pint of oil, cheated death twice and consumed 3 bags of Liquorice Allsorts. Marvellous.

[billwill]

I find that a large block of text like that is unreadable on a computer screen as my eyes keep skipping up or down a line.

Please can you edit it to put blank lines in at paragraph breaks.

TIA.

[gherlt]

I entered the Silvretta in 2006 with my newly acquired Elan S3 without any fuss, my first regularity rally ever.
(And I dont know nobody there and I am not famous in any way). Then they told us that they prefer a variety of cars, that they have too much 300SL and 356 entries, so if you have something exotic, you enter. And an Elan is exotic around the Alps.

The event is nice and very beautifully organized, the streets and views are remarkable. But as a rally it is not on the hard side. They invited us to come again, but in my opinion it is not a "sports" event, more kind of a high society "we too do sport" meeting. So there are better ways to view the alps.

[elansprint71]

Jim,
You should go away more often.

See you both at the Gold Cup, if not before.

[jimj]

Sorry Bill, we members of high society don`t do editing.
Jim

[gordont]

A good read, well done

[trw99]

Enjoyable to read of your exploits, thank you for taking the time to post them.

Tim

[Ross Robbins]

Jim,
What a wonderful read. Perhaps you know I am an advocate of using the Elans for meaningful journeys and you have done another. Well done and well written.
Ross Robbins

[jimj]

I`ve just received this pic.
Jim

[tholm]

A good long story. I have often thought about participating in the Sivretta Raly with my E-type, but as you say it is always overbooked. Freinds of mine participated in the Mille Miglia in the way that they started after all the registrered participants had departed. With your experience - is it possible to do the same in the Silvretta - following the rally with your own classic car?
Regards Chris

[69S4]

A good long story. I have often thought about participating in the Sivretta Raly with my E-type, but as you say it is always overbooked. Freinds of mine participated in the Mille Miglia in the way that they started after all the registrered participants had departed. With your experience - is it possible to do the same in the Silvretta - following the rally with your own classic car?
Regards Chris

A great story and well written but, as Bill said, a few paragraph breaks would have made it easier to read. I don't suppose there's anything stopping people following along behind in their own cars but you'd lose all of the atmosphere. A few years ago I met a couple of cyclists in the Alps who were doing the Tour de France but two days behind the pro riders - one day for the tour circus to move on and one for all the spectators to leave so the roads were open. They were having a lonely old time; all of the pain without the party. Hotel rates were a lot cheaper though

[jimj]

Thanks again for your kind words, I`ve just enjoyed re-reading it again myself. The Alan mentioned in the story is rather more comfortably off than us, in fact more comfortably off than most and has done the Mille Miglia 5 times, in 5 different cars, all with exceptional history and a guaranteed entry. We went to spectate the year he did it in his ex-Mussolini Alfa. I wasn`t bothered about going but it was just the best thing ever and I`d recommend it to anyone, the atmosphere was unbelievable. The one BIG thing that spoilt it was non-competitors mixing in, waving to the crowds and showboating. We had little Union Jacks and an Elise driver spotting them hooted and waved frantically, arms aloft, showing off like a twerp. I expressed my disdain.
DC also spotted them and we did wave back, especially as he was in the Moss/Jenks car.
In 2010 Alan did it again in his K3, one of the boat tailed ones, heavily dented by another berk non-competitor who ran in the back of him in traffic, too busy trying to attract attention to his crummy car. Alan was quite annoyed.
So, by all means research the route, easily done, and do it another time, but to tag along would be just sad, in my view.
Jim

[Chancer]

Read a few lines but then had to skip the rest, shame as it looked interesting.

I am partially sighted following an accident and a sucession of eye operations so perhaps its worse for me than for others but blocks of text like that are just unreadable.

[elanfan1]

Hopefully a more readable version for Chancer and others...

Silvretta Klassic Rallye, sounds classy, I quite fancy that and my wife is a classy bird. Trouble is it`s one of those prestigious events that you just can`t get an entry for unless you know someone. Each year the entry list is hugely oversubscibed, this year the list included ex-professional racing drivers, the winner was a Dakar rally driver, there were a number of major manufacturer`s top designers and though there were only 2 Rolls Royces there were a lot of high rollers. There was one competitor who sold more refrigerators than anyone in the world. He was a fridge magnate.

Luckily, we know someone who knows someone who knows someone who is one of the sponsors. We became members of Scuderia Zenn, our entry was welcomed and our Elan was treated like royalty. It really was most gratifying that amongst more gullwing Mercedes than you`d normally see in a lifetime, Bentleys by the handful, a 550 Spyder, a GT40, you name it, our little car caused quite a stir, rarely seen in Austria. In England when some elderly gentleman approaches with a "Lotus Elan eh?" he usually then drones a 10 minute monologue about some boring car he once nearly owned. Not so in Austria, when the owner of a BMW 507, a real enthusiast with a collection of cars each worth rather more than our house, wants to chat in perfect English about nothing other than what a wonderful car the Elan is, it`s most pleasing.

The people we know, who know someone who knows someone are Alan and Tina and Tina is quite a classy bird too. I`m sure neither will mind me mentioming that both Carole and Tina are of an age that, were they cars, they`d be considered "classic". In Germany and Austria what we`d called "classic" they`d call "oldtimers". Mmm !

So, we`re in, we`re off.....to glamorous Hull for the ferry. We always play the game that the last one to see the sea is a hot potato. Being perfectly normal, we played the same game approaching Austria; the last one to see a ski lift. Shamefully, Carole lost both times but having a wife who`s a hot potato is no bad thing. We normally get the Zeebrugge ferry but a bloke whose opinion I (used to) respect recommended the Rotterdam ferry. He must like lorries a great deal. Instead of clearing the port in 5 minutes into open countryside with pleasant villages adjascent we spent nearly 2 hours driving through an industrial estate hemmed in by lane swapping juggernauts.

I would recommend that you avoid it like the Hague. The boat itself was a little smarter but no one staircase actually started where you were and went to where you wanted to be. It was called the Pride of Hull, more like The Disdain of Derbyshire. Signage was minimal and the interior layout was most confusing. Genuinely, I twice ended up at the children`s ball pool within half an hour trying to find breakfast. It`s like Hampton Court maze with the added frisson of a certain watery demise in the event of a nautical mishap. The only place you`d find would be Davy Jones`s locker.

I`d booked an overnight stay at a charming hotel in a place called Neuenahahar or something. I thought "that sounds like a laugh". It was lovely and we went for a romantic stroll by the river, Alan and I. We kept checking the weather forecast which wasn`t good. Alan has one of those Blackberrinet.pods so he`d log on to find out. It just seemed to be getting worse, then we discovered that the German word for "weather" is "wetter". The scenery was getting better and better as we headed on next day. We stuck to motorways to get some miles under our belt and arrive early each day at our destination. Plus Alan`s car was being trailered as it`s a bit of an old thing.

Next night was Ulm which we could spell and pronounce. The lady in the Ulm tourist office had given me a rose tinted description of the town and the bit where we stayed was really nice. We walked into the old town by the river for dinner. More importantly, Alan has a large-car-park fetish for his car and trailer and we parked in a parking area only slightly smaller than Wales. Just 180 miles to go to the rally start in Partenen for scrutineering and documentation and our hotel in neighbouring Gaschurn, we were soon into Austria and the mountains, just fabulous. We travelled over the Silvretta pass in the Elan, marvellous, but Alan was turned back as trailers aren`t allowed. He arrived somewhat later.

Now I think that it`s important to, at least, attempt to speak the local language but my German is virtually non-existent. I`m more fluent in Martian and I have been known to talk boll***s. Nonetheless I always, politely, began any conversation with my usual " sprocket zoo England?". Judging by the surprise on people`s faces, I think my dialect must be excellent. Everyone but everyone spoke just perfect English and couldn`t be more helpful and friendly, officials and other competitors alike.

We met up in the hotel with the other members of Scuderia Zenn who treated us with such warmth and kindness and Deiter Zenn helped us to get our bearings. I got on famously with his eccentric wife, Juanita who, we were told, is related to the Spanish royal family. She only spoke in German and Spanish and I only know 10 words of Spanish and 2 of those are Tequila and canteena. She laughed at what she hoped I`d said and I laughed at what I hope she replied. This was excellent and I heartily recommend this form of communication to all married couples. It both removes the tedium of having to listen and guarantees that the response is both appropriate and met with approval .

At last (I hear you say) the day of the rally dawned, glorious weather and much excitement. Large numbers had turned out to spectate and fabulous cars were scattered around the village jockeying to get their start number in the right order. This wasn`t helped as, stereotypically, there were a few big American cars with start numbers over 100 parked up where the first 20 were meant to be lining up. You know, Corvettes, Mustangs, the sort of thing that only people from Essex and Benn Beardshaw likes.

PANIC...........I`d jokingly remarked that I must be getting paranoid about every unusual tiny noise being mechanical and that I even had this daft idea that the clutch pedal felt slightly different. Just to to be sure I checked the cluth fluid........PANIC, there was just the tiniest mini-nano-dropletette of fluid left in the master cylinder and the nearest garage was 20 kms away......PANIC.....The service crew had given away their last and it was PANIC. Then I spotted Heinz and Horsch from Scuderia Zenn about to become our new best friends, they had a can of brake fluid in the boot. I rolled up a bit of plastic, topped up and pumped the pedal while Carole got down and dirty looking for a leak which, thankfully, didn`t exist, how weird. I must have checked the level more times in 3 days than the largest number you can think of.....times 10.

It was quite emotional passing the start line exactly on time at 51 minutes and 30 seconds after car number 1 to cheers and flags just as enthusiastic as an hour before. Carole DID shed a tear, another fluid leak. We actually did quite well on the first day ending in the top third despite being unfamiliar with Continental Regularities which are easy to understand but difficult to do. 424 penalty points at 1 per hundreth of a second represented 4 seconds over the day, not bad for beginners.We kept seeing Martin Smith in his Healey who introduced us to his mate Peter Birtwhistle. Every time I saw him I`d wink, click my tiongue and pat my bottom twice. I couldn`t understand why Peter looked so alarmed. It turned out he worked at Mazda, not Asda.

We had a VERY exciting time control at the top of the Silvretta in the middle of the day. The GT40 with a time a few minutes ahead of us edged towards the contol and the engine burst into flames. I was a good 50 metres or more away but grabbed our extinguisher, pulling the pin as I ran and had the fire out in short order. The bloke and his wife had tumbled out of the car and he was trying to get back in to get his extinguisher but couldn`t for the flames, the perspex engine cover was just starting to melt but hadn`t caught, thank goodness. I didn`t die in a ball of flame heroically tackling a fire in a GT40 at the top of the Silvretta pass but it would have made a great last line on my CV. So, I`m now superhero; Captain Conflagration. It`s a bit disappointing that the owner hasn`t made it a priority to track me down and send a quick thankyou but I`ll settle for the hero worship.

Monsoon conditions at breakfast on the second day and Alan and Tina car is so old that roofs hadn`t been invented then. They were dressing in waterproofs as I put our roof up. They were wearing waterproof everything, Tina had her waterproof mascara and Alan wore his waterproof underpants, as usual. As I was erecting our waterproof, windproof, shockproof hood I took the "N" out of snug and put in an "M". In fact the sun came out within half an hour and the hood is still down now, 1000 miles later.

As we turned in to Partenen at maybe 5 mph I thought something was awry, I kept touching the brakes at walking pace and could hear a slight clonk. Stopping at the side of the road we found the front left wheel spinner was loose, really wheel wobblingly loose. How lucky was that? In nearly 40,000 miles that`s never happened. The mountains were soon echoing to the taps of many hammers checking wheel spinners. We were rubbish that day, scoring 2400+ points dropping to 131st position. I went to see the orgainisers to see what huge mistake we`d made to accumulate the extra 2000 points, eager not to do it again. It wasn`t one huge mistake, it was 2000 small ones.

Day 3; blue skies, perfect weather and we`d lain awake all night sharpening pencils, polishing stop watches and Carole practising calling the time like a metronome. It paid off and we did quite well pullimg back quite a few positions. Mid afternoon and we were travelling briskly down a hill on a windy road just wide enough for 2 cars. There was a very varied variety of cars entered and behind us, not especially close, was an immaculate 1968 Toyota Landcruiser. He`s driving fast, I thought, in what was, basically, a pretty agricultural vehicle. As I slowed for an approaching car I looked in the mirror to see the Landcruiser brakes hard on, rear wheels locked. slewing sideways. It grew very large in the mirror as it rolled over and tumbled down the road towards us. "Excrement!" I expleted and almost expelled as I got back on the power and swerved around the oncoming Golf which they just missed tumbling off the side of the road down a bank into trees and ended the right way up.

Superhero Captain Crashscene was first there to find not dismembered body parts but 2 VERY lucky blokes, shaking like leaves but totally unscathed. Carole was in tears and me and the bloke in the Golf had a hug. An ambulance was called by another competitor and we left very shaken. It was 20 kms or so to the next regularity and we had time to calm down and we did OK.We still ended in the bottom third or, as I like to call it, the top three quarters. We were quite satisfied and had driven some fabulous roads in breathtaking scenery and had, simply, a brilliant time in the best of company . We`d especially enjoyed Alan and Tina`s company.................until they were awarded a trophy at the prizegiving. I can`t remember what for, Alan did mention it, I seem to remember................a million times.

Time to go and we were sad to leave, Carole wanted to stay, I offered to leave her. We`d decided to do just 1 overnight getting the bulk of the journey over and finding some idyll on the banks of the Rhine. Alan`s insufferableness was forgiven when he found the perfect spot, a really nice quirky small hotel in a small village right by the river. We went for a stroll late afternoon and found locals getting smashed on local wine at an open air bar made of half a huge barrel so joined in. When I say quirky hotel I really mean weird but in a nice way. They had a homemade light fitting made out od old bottles and the cables to the chandeliers were surface tacked to elaborate carved oak panels. Clearly, the person who had rewired the place didn`t speak electricity. You could imagine it was the sort of place that annually made a year`s supply of pate on the second Sunday in July, out of the guests staying that night.

Onwards towards Europort, dodging pantechnicons and 2 hours of speaking disrespectfully about Terry. The Elan was 44 years old that day and we passed the 40,000 mile mark since we bought the car 7 years ago. A respectable amount given that we hardly ever use it apart from on special car events. OK it`s had 7 new heads and 8 new handles. I reflected that you prepare your car as well as you can for these trips and set off confidently but mindful that a 44 year old component which appears fine could unexpectedly fail, and probably will at some point. Yet, in the 1960s, to set off for Austria would have been quite an adventure even in a new car with every expectation of some mechanical woe along the way.

On the ferry we had a drink or two, a nice meal and drank a toast to Terry. Actually, we didn`t. We did risk ?10 each, uncharacteristically, on the roulette. Carole and Tina lost their`s in nanoseconds, mine lasted 2 minutes and Alan backed his uncle`s advice; red 27, won twice and pocketed ?65.

Home the next day and but for the loose wheel spinner the car had run perfectly, we`d done 1807 miles, used 1 pint of oil, cheated death twice and consumed 3 bags of Liquorice Allsorts. Marvellous.

Hope you don't mind Jim

[jimj]

Elanfan 1, far from mind I`m flattered that you bothered. In fact, if you`d like to translate it into Welsh that`d be fine too.
I had no trouble with my eyes, apart from age-related reading glasses, but it did give me an itch.
Jim