Bathroom cold tap started dripping about 3 years ago. Drip became a trickle became a flood.
There's now an empty chocolate spread jar upside down on top of it to stop people turning it on...
Sitting at the Supernats, kids sharing chips, clear dark night falling. Talk turned to that first spark of interest. For friends, the music was first, followed by the obligatory Consul, before leading to hot rods.
Probably my uncle's fault, but for me the cars came first. 1973, it was he who gave me a copy of Custom Car aged eight, green cover, with an original T Tourer on the cover, machine gun mounted in the rear... anyone have a spare copy, mine's a little ragged?! Played in a Pop in the garden till it was replaced by a 100E. Cried for days when some pikeys cut it up. First drove, aged 7, around the farm tracks and fields in a 105E, whilst blackberry picking. Helped uncle with his 1340 Anglia engine change and the V4 Mk2 Cortina swap. Changed the clutch in my yellow painted, red flamed (Dulux flicked from a toothbrush) Anglia, aged 11, using a broken ratchet Haltrac hoist tied to the neighbours fence to defy gravity.
By the time I hit teens, I'd dragged home an Austin Devon pickup. Stripped apart, welding abilities failed me - sold for parts with just the number plate left to remind me.
Hit the road, impoverished student, shiny topped, crispy silled, Mk1 Consul. Lived in it, slept in it, tail dragging the village disco circuit, pressing dubious vinyl into the hands of suspicious Dj's to play. Just the once... Vespas, Lambrettas, Mini's by the multiple dozen - thrashed without mercy.
The Caister/Hemsby Rock and/or Roll thing given up to build my first hot rod T. T given up to play in a band. Band given up and finally finished my flathead T modified. By which time, I was a family of three. Then four. Restored a T just to learn how to dance the pedals. Kate ill again - so a big, comfy sofa, '51 Chevy, for a season. And now the Fordor, shabby and loveable.
I must have driven the planet. Loving every costly blessed mile.
And I'm sitting in the queue leaving the Supernats, waiting reasonably patiently as a lowered Consul Capri scrapes slowly over the speed bumps pondering the other wheel nuts around. In front of me; a megabuck Range Rover towing a huge caravan. Surely lost?
£60K dark glass wagon towing say a £30K trailer? They could have saved a few thou and bought something to actually take part in? Likewise, camped across from us all weekend was a shiny "metal made to look like plastic" street rod beneath it's gazebo complete with an entourage of half a dozen modern cars and caravans. Support vehicle madness? Never turned a wheel all weekend until the Sunday showfield roll call.
There's something I'm not getting.
Still. Mile down the road, riding along in my own little world, wearing the bearings, and loving it.
