I don’t usually have my mobile phone on during the day. It is switched off the moment I enter the office, just before 9am and then is switched back on as I head to my car at 6pm. Today, was your average Friday, nothing new, nothing different. Just the usual million tasks that needed to be done before the end of play. I went out to Maidenhead with a colleague who wanted to grab some lunch, so switched on my phone. I know for sure, if I had not stepped outside of the building, I would not have done that. It was a strange blessing. I had a text message from Nige at 11.09, his friend Matt had my number and would give me a call to arrange my amp installation. Cool. It had been around eleven weeks since Pav and myself had attempted (unsuccessfully) to install the amplifier into my car. I had, to a certain extent forgotten about the whole thing until earlier this week. I then picked up a voicemail from Matt and noted down his number to call him back. They could install my amp tonight, result! My Friday evening on the computer had been thrown out of the window, to be replaced with a few hours of ICE install. Great. The first obstacle was to find out where they were based. I knew it would be junction 11 of the M4, but after that I was completely lost. Thankfully Matt sent me the details of the address and Multi Map provided some directions. Then I called home, to make sure all the kit I needed was taken out of the garage and ready for me to collect the moment I stepped through the door. All set. During the course of the afternoon, I got slowly excited at the prospect of the evening but tried as best I could to focus on work. When I had the printed off the map and route plan, I tried to calculate how long it would take me to get to the destination. Just after 7pm, as I text Matt was perhaps over optimistic on my part. I drove home, listening to music and wondering how different and better it would sound once the amp was wired in. I was buzzing and I could not really explain why. The drive home seemed longer than usual, and although I had made every attempt to leave the office at 6pm, I left several minutes later than planned. I decided to rather than head back onto the A404 directly from Handy Cross, which would have been considering the time pressure I was under the best option, I would take the back route into Marlow, then Bisham and then onto the A404, cutting out the build up traffic queuing westbound. The reason for this was, as I went under the bypass on my way home, I noticed the build up of traffic and new that if I got stuck there it would be at least thirty minutes if not longer before I would get out. The pit stop at home, was just that. I grabbed the amp and various wires and jumped back into the car and headed out to towards Reading. As I expected the bottleneck was M4 junction 8/9, with the current road works deemed by the Highways Agency as a communications upgrade with a scheduled completion date of January 2007. Thankfully after junction 10, the traffic was clear and I made good time. As I approached junction 11, I looked at the directions and thought it would be straight forward for the first few points, left at a few roundabouts. Then, on the dual carriage way, it went pitch black and the sign posts were hardly visible, let alone readable. However, my internal compass was working perfectly (for a change) and I followed the road to Swallowfield. For the next few minutes I contemplated calling Matt, getting further directions, but something told me I was heading the right way and the turning I was looking forward would appear eventually. Sure enough it did and in essence, all I had done was go around in a big circle to the farm, which had the garage. Part Lane is a single track road with a few passing places and for a spilt second I thought I was worried I was completely in the wrong place, or I had been lured to a secluded spot to be carjacked. Eventually I rang Matt at 19:09 just to confirm I was in the right place and heading in the right direction, he explained, I just needed to look for the sign, head up the small drive and the garage would be on the right. As I drove down, the next turning I came to I saw the sign, a completely deserted barn area, except of course for the garage brightly lit up inside. I rang Matt again at 19:10, I had arrived at the work could begin. It took over three hours, but with two professionals on the job, this was a walk in the park. Compared to how far Pav and I got a few months earlier, it was a complete contrast. It was by no means a simple, plug and play job, there were various obstacles, which ate up the time. At one point most of my back seat was dismantled and removed from the car. Overall it was a military style operation with Nige working on the power at the front, while Matt working on the cabling and routing at the rear. With the guys working flat out, I was simply left to overlook the whole process, joking around that Pav and I would still have been making our third cup of tea, while we decided on how to tackle the first problem of wiring the cables to the head unit. I tried my best to keep out of the way, but being in a small garage there was little for me to go. Apart from stand by the heater and keep myself work, as the hours clicked by. With the amp mounted, wiring all sorted, the power cable connected to the battery we were good to go. For a second, we had a few minor hiccups. There was no audio on the left channel. This was quickly fixed by Matt by checking the wiring behind the speaker panel, then when the 6×9 were connected up, there was no audio at all, until the settings on the amp were adjusted to confirm the correct number of channels in use. Perhaps not the best CD to use as a test, but I played the Club Mix 2003 album, just to make sure everything was working. Never has an album sounded so dated, but it was perhaps the perfect source to test the power of the amp and the increase in mid range I was hoping to achieve. It sounded fantastic, but I perhaps could not give it a proper test until tomorrow. Thanking the guys for their time I headed off into the dark night, for the drive home. Calling my Dad at 22:49, I was hoping to be back in Wycombe by around 11.30pm. We would see how well I would make up my time on the motorway. Swallowfield is in the middle of nowhere, but heading back onto the M4 and civilisation was not a difficult task. It was once on the motorway that the fun began. There were some roadworks, clearly signposted that the three lanes merge into single file. However a black Astra felt he was in KITT and tried to overtake me, while still in a lane, that was running out of tarmac. Thankfully my quick thinking ensured that there was not a major incident. Some people really need to either get their eyes tested, take up the profession of stunt driver on a professional basis or preferably just hand in their driving licence to the DVLA. Then, at junction 8/9, my proposed exit, I discovered that the slip road was closed due to the upgrade. I had to go through Slough and come back onto the M40 to get home. Through the roadworks, the speed limit is 50, with a speed camera, just before the exit. After this section, I put my foot down and overtook three cars almost simultaneously and hit 88 miles per hour! Behind me was a Corsa but it looked different, and the fact that he was gaining on me, made me think. I pulled over to the left lane and watched as the car came closer. Sure enough it had a tube lighting on the roof, but thankfully it was a security fan and not a patrol car. For a spilt second my heart was in my mouth and I was potentially kissing goodbye to my perfect driving licence. I got home at 23:36, a little later than I planned.

Over on FlickR I have uploaded all the pictures from the original attempted installed from December and the final end product of the amp in place. Plenty more fun tomorrow