I did the London to Brighton old car rally on Sunday, as I have every year for the last 20.  The weather forecasters predicted a typhoon….and they got it spot on.  The car, a 1901 Schaudel, with an impeccable track record of successful trips to Brighton, died at Crawley….or should I say drowned. 

We got the car going again…but now running on only one of her two cylinders…we inched our way past Gatwick.  The car died again right outside a railway station, which had a fast train service direct to London…and with the rain still coming in sideways, we bailed out.  Am telling anyone who will listen that it was a ‘retreat’ and not a ‘defeat’….but am fairly certain I have never been more wet and tired.

I got home, had a hot bath….and slept the sleep of the dead. You cannot beat clean sheets and a goose down duvet…..