I'M BACK!!! And let me tell you what has happened since the Summer...

So the end of the summer went true to the last blog post and the car was not finished before my birthday. In the 5 days after that blog post a fair amount got done, but it had been a long summer and therefore not as much as I had hoped. So I went back up to Nottingham car-less and with a busy Christmas holiday ahead. I was pretty sure that I would not get that much done there, what with presents, mince pies and hiding from carol singers. This did lead onto a problem however. In my absence over the Christmas term the car had acquired some damage, which I suppose is inevitable when you leave a half finished project in an area of the school where students can get their hands on tools or more notably drop them having got their hands on them. Either way this damage, and the clearly obvious fact that the school needed for  more space for their automobile society, meant that I was evicted, and had to be out of the garage by the end of the Christmas holidays (about Jan 5th).

Now you may remember as it was not too long ago, that Jan 5th in London in the year 2010 was quite white, in that there was a thick layer of snow covering everything. This meant that people were panicking about their new year commute into work and subsequently I found that this manifested itself in a sell out of 4x4 to hire. In order to transport my car and move it from the garage I was going to need a 4x4 and trailer and all of the hire companies simply could not help me until far later on. With the beginning of both the school term and the university term fast approaching we had to take drastic action.

I was very lucky to have a friend who's father had a garage nearby, no more than a mile up the road, and he very kindly said that we could use it over the period of the Easter term. So on Sunday 10th January at first light, I drove my very noisy (no silencer), fairly naked (very few body panels on it) car up the road through the snow. I drove in convoy with my father in his car in front of me, and my brother in his car behind. We made it without a hitch and ironically the one car that did not struggle with the snow was my half built one, with the others slipping and sliding in front and behind.

It was clear that my Dad was not totally happy with the fairly illegal exploit and this presented itself three months later when he decided it would probably be best to pay a vehicle removal company to take it back down to the garage. We organised this return for last Tuesday. The day after the Easter bank holiday and the company we used was very helpful, charging a reasonable £51.50 for the move. I paid this with a slight feeling of regret, aware of the fact that it would be far cheaper and a lot more fun, if a little illegal, to drive it back down, but I suppose there is no point in tempting fate, especially having come this far with the project.

So with the car back down in the garage I have spent a very full three days working away on it, and the progress made, after a break that gave me time to plan and rebuild by enthusiasm for the project, has been far better than I had hoped for. I will endeavour to put plenty of pictures up over the next couple of weeks as things move forward.

The plan for this holiday is to have the car practically finished in the next 2 weeks, take it up to Rotherham to have it checked over by Martin Keenan for the SVA (look at the beginning of the blog), then have it tested in Nottingham. Assuming all goes well and I pass, I should just have to register and insure it and I'll be on the road in no time!!! Let's see how this goes then...

PS Cheers to all those who have asked after the progress of the car over the past 9 months, it is really nice to see people take an interest, and does help me stay motivated and stick with it.