Driving round in Circles

Yay! I figured out how to open the window in an Aston Martin!

Apologies, one and all, for the slight hiatus. This time last week (well, as I type – it is Monday 19th), the Northern hemisphere had three teams in the Rugby World Cup and I was driving very fast cars around one of the temples of speed, Silverstone.

There was a chance that, with dwindling numbers of players left without injury to play rugby for Wales, this hiatus was due to my call-up to the team for Saturday’s match, being the only uninjured one left in the Principality but, fortunately for all concerned, there were still one or two real men left to bravely defend out honour against the Springbok.

I loved the Lamborghini but the yellow clashed with the colour of the fear in my eyes.

So maybe it was because, in a Senna-Hamilton-esque move down the inside at the last corner, I took the win but couldn’t stop the car running wide into a tyre wall, and have only just been released from the medical centre after the doctors realised that they couldn’t actually find anything wrong with what they described as “a perfect body”.

Yeah, that must be it.

Being interviewed – I said I was “terrified, but good terrified”. I have no real idea what I meant by that. Neither will Guardian readers.

On pole because I was the fastest in qualifying (or because my name was first on the list)

British Racing Driver’s Club food – really good, just what you need after being “good terrified”

OK, the truth. The SOH bought me a driving day at Silverstone Grand Prix Circuit for my significant birthday, which was two years ago. Great age means that it has taken me this long to decide what I wanted to do. I spent the day with seventy or so other people, driving a variety of cars at silly speeds, a day during which I didn’t stop smiling once. I was even interviewed on the grid by The Guardian (no idea if and when an article will appear), thus making me feel like a real racing driver! There will never be enough “thank-you”s in the Universe to say to The SOH for arranging it all.

So, why the wait for a post? Because, after all the adrenaline had evaporated away, and apples were picked on the way home at friends and we stayed at The SOH’s sister, after all that – like the Martians in War of the Worlds, I succumbed to a virus. A coldy, coughy, sore-throaty virus thing. As I haven’t had one for about 5 years, it flattened me a bit.

You can’t keep a good snail down. Turns out, you can’t keep a pretend racing-driver-of-a-snail down either…

Yours truly collecting the Trophy for fastest driver ever being nearest the trophy table at that moment

oOo