It took a long time, over two weeks but I have written up the ski holiday blog. However, that does not mean my work ends. No. I have to write up a few other events that have happened since then. May I rewind the clock to Saturday 18th January. My first Saturday after my holiday and the annual dyno day with the great guys from E36 Coupe forum. Pav originally was going to get to mine for 8.45 but it was just after 9am he got here. He pulled up on my drive followed by 2 other M3 drivers. Great, my neighbours must of thought it was some joy riders out early for the weekend cruise. Just like the line at the end of my favourite movie trilogy, Pav said, “I need fuel!”. More specifically, he wanted V-Power, so we headed to Shell Cressex, where I once use to work. We filled up or rather in Pav’s case half a tank and headed back towards Aylesbury, with an ETA of 10am. Well we were on track of meeting this until Pav took a wrong turn on the penultimate roundabout (instead of turning right, he went straight on) and we headed up going through a housing estate. Eventually we got back on track and we told Rob and Matt that we were giving the car a good run. We arrived at DSA with the first car just coming off the rollers. We were late, as usual but it was by now expected. Particularly as it was my third year and Pav even missed the main road to the garage in the industrial park. Schoolboy error. We parked up and met up with the rest of the lads and booked our cars in. Then after watching for a little while we headed over to Aylesbury Tuck (the local greasy spoon) for breakfast. Then it was back to the action. Pav was quite late in the line up, moving from 8th to 10th but he did eventually get on. I am now a veteran of this fixture and there are the usual faces and plenty of new people with some great cars. I have to admit that as the lineup was not as large as previous years, my photographs are below par, but nevertheless they have been uploaded to FlickR.

This year I also recorded three videos (rather than just one last time around) and I have uploaded them all to YouTube. The best by far has to be Yat’s M3 Evo. My video shows the computer screen but Pav has the corresponding video which shows the blue car. The adventure begins during lunch at The Charter. It has had renovated since our last visit almost exactly a year ago. We got there after the rest of the gang, so they were on a big table at the back having a laugh. A good bunch of lad’s but most of the jokes were at the expense of Yat. It was around 3pm, when we decided to make a move. I had got a phone call from Chris at Berkshire Car Sounds a little earlier. They were struggling and would not be able to drop the car off back to me in Wycombe. Pav had already offered to drop me off at their showroom, so I took up the offer and explained to Chris I would get over for 4pm. I was being over optimistic. We eventually left around 3.30pm and it was seriously a race against the clock! Only after Pav had taken a photograph of the Beemers parked together. He had in fact got out of the pub before we ordered food to move his M3 around with the rest of the gang, just for the photo opportunity. Some people would call that a bit sad and waste of petrol! As we left, Pav decided to switch from the fastest route to the shortest on his TomTom Navigator. The time difference between the two routes was marginal but we opted for the shorter route. It would take us cross country but meant I would be in Reading perhaps just in time. As we headed out of Aylesbury, we found ourselves being followed by a marked police car (Vauxhall Astra). Pav missed the turning off the roundabout and we headed up going around about half a mile to the next round about and going back on ourselves. Only then did we lose the local Thames Valley constabulary. Back on track we were heading for Reading and the ETA was being smashed. However, “Houston, we have a problem!”. Pav needed to stop for a toilet break. He had tried hard to hold it but it was too late. He dumped the car on the verge of a country road. While he was outside, I called Chris at Berkshire Car Sounds to explain it would be tight for me to get there for 4pm. He was quite relaxed and asked if I could get there as close to 4.30pm as possible. They were still working on my car. I could relax a little but we still needed to get across to the other side of the county and then head to Reading. As you can see from the map, selecting the shortest route on the TomTom, took us on the country roads up towards Great Missenden and then into Wycombe. I directed Pav around the town onto the A40 and back up towards Handy Cross and the by-pass. Here on the open road, Pav was able to open it up and pick up a good speed and the ETA came crashing down. Once onto the M4 our average speed increased further, I was going to make it just. Just after 4.30pm, Pav dropped me outside the shop. I walked in and waited for Chris to appear. They were just finishing my car off and would not be long. It was over an hour before I left. While I had been waiting Charlie had called, wondering what time I would over. I explained where I was and that I hoped to get home, get some food before heading back to his flat. This was rather silly considering I was only a few minutes away, so there was a change of plan. I would head straight over, grab some food with him and Annie and spend the evening filling in the stories from the ski holiday, all while browsing through my photos on FlickR. It made a change from a big evening and although I had been given the option to crash on the sofa, I did not really want to intrude so around 10pm headed back home. It was nice to catch up with them both. I was sent away with a gift. A DVD of 40 Year Old Virgin, which I tried to watch the following day, on Sunday evening but there was some problem with the audio levels with the soundtrack on a higher level than the film audio so it was not really watchable (although perhaps I am just showing my age). My car is great now. I can listen to KISS, Radio 1, Five Live and when my Dad drives the car he can listen to his beloved Radio 2. The sub woofer has been replaced and I have put my old Pioneer Sub onto eBay. The boot build has been tided and hidden, so effectively the boot space can be used again, with no worry of damaging the amps. The difference in the sound, particularly the bass is amazing. The bottle neck now is the quality of the MP3s, as you can notice low bit rate songs and those that not been ripped directly from a CD. Oh well, at least I can do something about that I keep searching for only high quality files. On the 16th January I got a message on my FlickR account. A company was requesting permission to use one of my photos. No problem there. It was for the Schmap Madrid Guide and the photograph in question was of the Chevy ’59 Mash Up in the foyer of the Audoritium Hotel.

Ten days later on 26th, I received confirmation that my photograph was now displayed on their guide, including full credit with my name (and a link back to the FlickR page). There is the hotel or some widget that can be added to a blog if you are inclined to add such a thing.