This morning I had to go to work until lunchtime – partly because I needed to, but mostly because I need the money – one thing that’s really not good about being self-employed is that any holiday you take is unpaid, so along with the other cost, I also lose a week’s wages, so at least this will take a bit of the edge off that. But that meant that there was no way I’d be leaving before 2pm, and in fact it was 3pm before I did leave – there were a few things I needed to get before I went, and then there were a few things I’d already got but forgotten to put in the van (spare driveshafts and wishbones amongst the most important!), and then eat some food, so it was 3pm before I finally got going. It’s about 3 hours to wales when in the van, and that would have worked out just fine aside from some slow traffic. One big bonus was that I was only charged £5.50 to go across the bridge (instead of the £10.90 that it should have been), but then the downside was a huge queue of traffic as soon as I got off the motorway – it seemed that someone had crashed somewhere on the road that goes straight into the Bay area of Cardiff, and it’s not a road that has a lot of exits – the sat nav told me the next roundabout was 9 miles away, and it took me 45 minutes to do just over a mile. However, I did a bit of looking on the maps while I was waiting and saw that it may be possible to get off the road by going into a nearby museum – the road sign said dead end, but the map said otherwise. And thankfully, the map won! I was soon bimbling through Cardiff with the rally car in tow, through some VERY narrow streets (with really high built up walls at the side), and eventually got to somewhere wider, and to the Bay where the service area is. I went to where I thought the service area was, but couldn’t see anything like it, and had just about given up when I heard “Jones!!” shouted, and it was Burley, who had been here for months already! Drove in, unloaded the rally car and parked the trailer up – right opposite our service spot, handily. Unfortunately it was pitch black by the time I got there (nearly 8pm), so no chance of a decent photo, alas. Got everything sorted out, and then went back to the house we’ve rented for the week, via Tesco for some food.
The house is about 12 miles from the Bay, but getting there is fairly easy – only the last couple of miles are on narrow lanes, the rest is A road. And it’s a really nice place; part of a converted farm, it’s very nicely done, with some ‘interesting’ accomodation upstairs (with two single beds, which are accessed by what is probably best described as a porthole!), and the rest of the place is very plush. Got settled in and made a plan for tomorrow, and all of this was only foiled by the boiler not working; the owners have promised that someone will take a look at it tomorrow, so hopefully we’ll have hot water for then.
So, we’re all ready for the recce tomorrow – a long drive to start out with, and this year because we were a bit worried about the schedule, we’ve got Patterson’s notes of all the stages that we can then modify. With any luck this will make for a smooth and easy recce, but we will see tomorrow. As it is, I need a good night’s sleep, so that’s what I’m going to try to get now!
